Page 22 of The Secret Crush Book Club (Peach Blossom #3)

Fifteen

I t had been two days since Zoey had seen Dani.

They had texted a little, but the messages had been short and generic, totally unlike the days before Dani had to leave abruptly in the middle of the night.

Zoey wanted to reach out and see if everything was okay and if she could help in any way, but she wasn’t sure if that was crossing the lines they had sort of set when they fell into this relationship.

There was also the part where she hoped Jordan was okay.

He hadn’t shown up to the esports league yesterday, which was unusual for him.

She had casually asked about him, but his friends hadn’t had any additional information, only stating that he hadn’t been at school that day.

Zoey was more than a little worried and a whole lot confused.

She didn’t think she had done anything to warrant the lack of communication, but she still couldn’t help but worry.

The workday passed slowly and by the time Zoey was walking through her front door, she was exhausted and just wanted to lounge on the couch with her most recent read.

She had been making good progress on her manuscript, enough to take a break for the night.

That came in handy on a night like this when she didn’t want to do anything other than wallow and think herself into circles.

Her phone ringing broke her calm and she sighed when she answered.

“Hey, sis. Checking in to see how you’re doing.”

Mason’s timing was a bit rough, but Zoey knew she should take advantage of him having time to call. She wasn’t always able to reach him when she wanted to, and the past couple weeks hadn’t been any different.

“About as well as can be expected when I’m on a deadline that is drawing ever closer,” she replied before leaning back against the couch. “How’s Arizona?”

“Hot as fuck and everything wants to kill me. Things are moving a bit ahead of schedule, so I’m actually thinking about dropping in early to see you on my way to my next stop.”

That wasn’t unusual. Mason often crashed with her for a couple weeks before he packed up and moved on to his next station, and sometimes his schedule changed abruptly leaving them to scramble a bit.

This time though, he had hinted that he would be doing another stint overseas instead of staying stateside.

The last time they had talked, he had been cagey about where he was going to potentially be relocated, and Zoey could only hope it wasn’t somewhere too dangerous.

“That’s totally fine,” she replied. “Tiffany is excited to meet you finally. I think she has this vision of a cool army guy in her head. I keep telling her to lower her standards since you’re just a massive weirdo.”

Mason’s laughter was booming, and it never failed to make Zoey smile.

This time was no different. She wasn’t completely lying.

Mason was a dork through and through. The two of them were fairly similar but they just expressed their weirdness by being into slightly different vices.

Zoey collected books. Mason collected LEGO sets.

If the man ever decided to sell his sets, she didn’t doubt that he could fund a small country.

“Nothing wrong with a little hero worship,” he replied, drawing her attention back to him. “Besides, I’m about as normal as it gets in the army. You want to see weirdos? I’ll introduce you to some of the new recruits.”

“No thanks.”

“We have some new women in too. I know they would be much more palatable.”

Zoey snorted and shook her head. Her brother always joked about having a soldier he wanted her to meet. She knew he was joking, but she figured it was as good a lead as any into the change in her life.

“Actually, I wouldn’t be interested in any of them because I’ve met someone. Here, in Peach Blossom.”

Mason was silent for a moment. “You have. Really? I thought you said there wasn’t anyone th—wait.” He cut himself off. “There was someone you talked about. But I remember you saying you didn’t know if they liked women.”

Zoey internally kicked herself. She had talked a bit about Dani before, and with Mason’s steel-trap memory, she knew he would start recalling all the conversations they had about her. “Yeah, well, turns out she does.”

Mason hummed before speaking. “Are you sure? You seemed pretty adamant that you had a crush that wouldn’t lead to anything. What changed?”

Zoey looked at the ceiling as she thought back to the changes that had happened over the past couple weeks. “Well, we started talking and she joined my book club. I asked her out to the movies, and we’ve been hanging out ever since.”

“Hanging out? Have you two…you know…” Mason trailed off, sounding as awkward as they both no doubt felt.

“Why the hell would I tell you that?” Zoey couldn’t help the shrillness of her voice.

It wasn’t like they hadn’t talked about sex before.

Mason raised her. He was the one who’d given her the abridged version of the birds and the bees when she was in middle school.

Still, they didn’t talk much about sex now that they were both adults outside of the general “don’t make me an aunt too soon” jokes that she gave him whenever he flitted off to some new location.

“I don’t know,” Mason countered. “I’m just trying to be supportive. Jeez.”

Zoey shook her head, fondness coating her exasperation. “I know, but the answer is no. We haven’t done…that.”

“Well, hell, sis. If you can’t say the word sex , then you have no business having it.”

“I can say the word sex , moron.” Zoey stood up and walked into her kitchen.

She loved Mason, but talking to him on an empty stomach and fully sober was a test in patience.

The man drove her up the wall on a good day.

“But I’m the first woman Dani’s dated, so we’re taking things slow.

Plus, she has her son, Jordan, to consider. ”

Mason was quiet as Zoey pulled out a half-empty pizza box from the fridge. She grabbed a couple cold slices and tossed them on a plate. It was until the microwave was going that Mason spoke again.

“This isn’t another Holly incident, is it?”

At the name of her ex-friend and pseudo girlfriend, Zoey froze.

It’s not that she never thought she would have to hear that name again, but it was just jarring coming from Mason.

Zoey had kept everything that had been going on between her and Holly a secret until the stress had gotten too hard for her to handle alone.

By the time Mason stepped in, Zoey had been damn near a wreck and ready to launch herself out of the dating pool altogether.

“Dani is nothing like Holly, Mason.” Zoey wasn’t sure how to explain it, but she just knew that the two women weren’t even comparable.

Dani hadn’t tried to hide Zoey away, and whenever they had gotten caught kissing outside the diner, Dani had remained where she was instead of jumping away as if she were guilty of something.

That would have sent Holly into a tailspin, where she would have ignored any and all of Zoey’s attempts at communication for at least a week, leaving her wondering what she had done wrong.

Embarrassingly, it had taken Zoey months to notice the pattern.

“How do you know?” Mason asked. “You’re the first woman she’s dated. She has a kid. Was she also married before?”

Zoey pursed her lips, not wanting to respond. She knew what Mason was driving at, but she refused to believe what had happened was repeating itself now. But, she also couldn’t lie to him. If things worked out the way she hoped, he would find out eventually anyway.

“Yes.”

Mason’s sigh was loud and carried across the line. “Zoey…”

“It’s not the same situation, Mason. I promise.”

“Well, what about your author thing? Does she support you in that? Or does she talk about you getting a real job?”

Zoey winced. “She…doesn’t know.” She continued on when she heard Mason’s sound of frustration. “Not because I don’t want her to, but because I’m apparently one of her favorite authors.”

“That still doesn’t explain why you haven’t told her,” he insisted. “If you two are really trying to be in a relationship, shouldn’t you talk about the things you do for work? Doesn’t she wonder what you do besides hang out in the library?”

“We have talked about things, I just haven’t mentioned that.”

“Why the hell does she think you moved to her town then?” Mason asked. “Most people aren’t moving to small towns in Georgia when they have the option to go practically anywhere else.”

“Hey, I like Peach Blossom. This town has been good to me and so have the people.”

He scoffed. “So good that you’ve been hiding things from them. That does not instill confidence, Zo.”

“I’m not hiding myself, Mason. I slipped up when we first met and didn’t tell her, so now I’m trying to find the right time to bring it up.

That’s all. There’s nothing more to it than that.

” Zoey could hear the frustration in her voice, and it irked her that she was now having to defend her choices.

“Zoey,” he began, his voice dropping into that tone that she hated. It was his parental voice, and it always made her feel like a child. “When was the last time you talked to your therapist?”

“Mason, stop. I don’t need to talk to my therapist about this. I know Dani and Holly are two separate people. The relationships are not the same.”

“I’m not saying that,” Mason insisted. “I’m just saying, you have this need for family, and I get it, okay? I sometimes feel the same way. But that means we have to make sure that we aren’t seeing something that isn’t there just to feed that need.”

Zoey hated when he got like this, because often he was right.

She did want the perfect stable family that she and Mason hadn’t gotten when they were younger.

She knew that she had overlooked several red flags during her time with Holly, but she wasn’t seeing those now with Dani.

They both were single, divorced moms but that was where the similarities ended.

“When are you coming?” Zoey asked him.

“Don’t change the subject.”

“I’m not trying to,” she insisted. “I want to try to set up a time for you to meet Dani so you can see that things are different.”

“I’ll hold you to that. I’ll send you my flight information as soon as I finalize it.” Zoey heard muffled voices come across the phone line and she figured he was being called away. “Love you, Zo. Be careful and I’ll see you soon.”

The phone disconnected before she had a chance to respond, and she shook her head when she looked down at it.

Mason had given her some things to think about and as much as she wanted to push the questions away, she knew he was bringing them up for good reason.

Zoey didn’t have the best track record when it came to her own sense of self-preservation and relationships.

Then there was the matter of whether or not the board would approve the budget to hire her on permanently.

Peach Blossom was starting to feel like home, but Zoey was still in limbo about whether or not she would be able to keep it or if in a little over six months from now, when her library contract was up and her book was done, it would all just be a distant memory.