14. Mira

14

MIRA

I never hire movers.

First, because they're expensive. Obviously.

Second, because the only thing worse than chit-chatting with strangers is letting them riffle through your belongings and punt them down a staircase for an hourly rate.

I lay out these reasons to Taylor for the third time in the last hour. She's sprawled on my bare mattress, one hand thrown over her sweaty forehead, the other still clutching a roll of packing tape.

"All I'm saying," she pants, "is that I would let a whole line of college guys take a peek in my panty drawer if it meant I didn't have to move another box."

I expertly seal a box of books closed and kick it across the vinyl towards the door. "No one said anything about peeking in panty drawers. I'm worried about them stealing stuff."

"What stuff? You have nothing to steal."

"If that was true, you wouldn't be so tired."

She raises herself on her elbows. Her shirt is sticking to her chest with sweat. "That's the weird thing. You don't own anything—no furniture, a pathetic wardrobe, no knick-knacks to speak of. Yet look at all these boxes! Where is all of this coming from?"

"Well, that one is books," I say, pointing to the box I just sealed. "That one over there is shoes. The box under the bed has my boxing mitts and dumbbells."

She groans. "A box full of literal weights. I can't, Mira. You're gonna be the death of me."

"Lucky for you, I'm actually leaving the weights. Zane's building has a really nice gym. I won't need them."

I haven't seen the gym in person, but I looked at pictures on his building's website. After I high-tailed it out of his apartment last night, I finally did that intensive research I should have done before I went to the interview.

I did my best to skim past all of the salacious headlines and gossip sites. Zane made it clear he isn't proud of his past and he has changed. Until I have a good reason to read up on all of his pre-recovery antics, I won't.

But I did fall into a rabbit hole of hockey highlights. Seeing him hurl his body at other men while effortlessly gliding across the ice did weird things to my insides and I had to bury that information in the already way-too-crowded Cemetery of Inappropriate Thoughts.

One video in particular keeps rising from the dead no matter how many times I beat it down.

Zane slipped the puck right out from under the nose of two players from the opposing team. Before they could even realize what happened, he glided backward, spun around, and slammed it in the net. I don't know a thing about hockey, but it looked impressive.

The thing I keep coming back to, though, is the look on his face when the camera zoomed in. They cut to him, and he was grinning . His entire face was lit up. I've never seen him like that before.

I couldn't help it—I smiled with him.

Just like I'm smiling now.

"Who knows?" Taylor has rolled over onto her stomach and is watching me carefully, eyes narrowed. "Maybe you can skip the gym entirely and do some in-house cardio. I'm sure Zane would love to be your workout partner. "

All at once, the shiny memory in my head drops dead.

"I'm doing this to help him keep his son, Tay. And for the money. It's a business deal. He's just my boss."

I knew I'd regret telling Taylor about this whole thing with Zane, but I didn't have a choice. She would have realized something was up immediately. With her nonexistent work schedule, she is at my apartment more than I am some days. I couldn't hide this from her.

Suddenly, there's a knock at the front door. A second later, a familiar voice echoes down the short hallway.

"Mira?" Zane calls. "You here?"

Taylor leaps off of the bed and grabs my shoulders. "He's just the boss who shows up to help move you into his house?!"

She seems excited. I, on the other hand, am mortified. Why is he here?

"I didn't ask him to come help me."

Her eyelashes flutter as she swoons. "That makes it even better. He came because he wanted to! Oh, God, somebody call Hallmark!"

"Mira?" he yells again.

It's just my name. There's no reason to have chills. There's definitely no reason for my stomach to flip-flop around, aside from the fact that Taylor is shaking me by my shoulders like a rattle.

"Get off," I hiss. For someone so small, she has a freakishly strong grip. I angle around her and shout into the living room, "Hi! We're back here."

I don't even have a second to process the fact that Zane Whitaker is about to be in my bedroom before he's there, filling the doorway.

I should say something, but I'm struck dumb by the fact that he's the first man who has been in this bedroom. Ever. Suddenly, my full-size bed looks ridiculously small. We'd never both fit and ohmygod, we'll never need to fit in the same bed so it doesn't matter.

My cheeks flame and my mouth is sealed shut to keep all of my intrusive thoughts from leaking out. Thankfully, Taylor still has the power of speech.

"You have no idea how happy I am to see you." She loops her arm through mine and pulls me close, bumping our hips together. "Both of us are, actually. We were just arguing about who was going to carry all of these boxes downstairs."

I shake my head. "You don't need to help me move."

"That's why I'm here." He opens his arms wide. "Use me."

Taylor swallows down a giddy shriek. Her nails dig into my forearm and I have to step on her toes to get her to release the claws.

"We've got it," I continue. "Most everything is already packed and Taylor and I can get the rest of it. You don't need to?—"

"I know I don't need to. But this is the kind of thing good boyfriends do. And I intend to be a very good boyfriend."

He's trying to kill me.

I don't even think he's trying to flirt with me. This is just how men like Zane Whitaker move through the world. They wear worn jeans and tight gray t-shirts and charm the panties off every woman they meet without even breaking a sweat.

"Thank goodness you're a good boyfriend, because I have to be a bad friend." Taylor turns her back on Zane to face me. "Gotta go, Mimi. Sorry!"

"No, you don't."

Her eyes widen. She's trying to communicate with me, send me some covert message, as if I don't know exactly what she's doing. "Actually, I do. Something came up and I have to leave. Immediately. Right now. It's urgent."

This bitch. She's lying right to my face and she isn't being convincing about it at all. There's no way Zane can't see through it, but I'm too panicked by my supposed best friend's actions to look at him.

"You said you'd help me pack," I grit out. It's my turn to dig my nails into her arms.

He likes you , Taylor mouths. Her eyebrows dance and I'd laugh if this wasn't such a betrayal. He wants to kiss you. He wants to make sweet, sweet love to you all night long and in many unusual positions.

At least, I think that's what she's saying. It's hard to tell when her lips are all puckered and she's miming making out with the air.

"I'll fill in for Taylor. It's fine," Zane interrupts.

Taylor twists out of my hold and squeezes past him into the hallway. She pats his arm. "You're the best fake boyfriend my best friend could ever have. You two have fun!"

He hitches a thumb over his shoulder. "You told her about our deal?"

"Is that okay?" I wince. "I didn't really have a choice. She has no sense of boundaries. She would've figured it out."

"As long as she doesn't talk to CPS or the media, I don't care." He bends down and, using one arm, scoops up the box of books that I could barely scoot across the floor. "Where are you putting the boxes? I didn't see a moving truck outside."

"I don't have a truck. The big stuff is staying here. Also, most of my kitchen stuff, assuming I can borrow your plates and glasses…?"

He furrows his brows in thought. "Yeah, I guess having his-and-hers plates might set off some alarms with the government. We better share. Just to keep our cover."

I bite back a smile. "Great. Then that doesn't leave too much for me to transfer over. My car can get the job done in a few trips."

"I'll load stuff in my car, too. Save you a trip."

"No, it's okay. You don't have to?—"

"I don't have to do anything," Zane interrupts, dipping his chin to hit me with the full force of his sky-blue eyes. "I'm here because I want to help."

"Why?" I blurt before I can stop myself.

His eyes trail over me in my stained cutoffs and oversized t-shirt. I knotted the waist at my hip when the extra fabric kept catching on the knobs in the kitchen, but now, I'm keenly aware of the strip of exposed skin across my stomach.

His throat bobs and he looks away. "Once again, your gratitude needs work. You're supposed to say, ‘Thanks so much, Zane. I could never have done this without you.' "

"Thanks for the advice. How about this: You're slowing me down, Zane. Put that hockey physique to work or get lost."

Before he can say anything, I snatch the box out of his arms and push past him into the hallway. My arms are burning before I even reach the living room, but it's worth it to hear him laugh behind me.

What would've taken Taylor and me ninety minutes and at least three snack breaks takes Zane fifteen with nary a single wheeze. He works quickly, carrying down three boxes to my one while still managing to hold each and every door for me on the way down.

I'll never say it out loud, but I really couldn't have done it without him.

After our fourth trek back up the stairs, Zane stops in my living room and looks around. He skirts carefully past the lopsided folding table in the middle of the room like my design sense might be contagious.

"You're leaving the furniture here?"

We both know calling my folding table and lawn chair "furniture" is generous, but I'm grateful he doesn't bring it up. We just loaded the boxes I scrounged out of a hardware store's recycling bin into the trunk of his Ferrari and now, he's looking at the well-worn imprint of my ass in the flaking vinyl of my bean bag chair.

On the outside, at least, he isn't judging. He gets points for that.

"Yeah. There's no reason to pack it up if I'll be back here in a few weeks, anyway."

Not that I'd come back to save any of this "furniture." There's a reason it looks like it belongs in the garbage: when the time comes for me to leave, that's exactly where it will end up.

"Yeah, I guess not." He shoves his hands in his pockets.

I wish I could hear the thoughts running through his head. I want to know what he makes of my rusted-out Corolla and my apartment that could fit in his foyer.

Suddenly, he walks over to the shelf above the TV. His head tilts as he studies the faded picture inside the only frame I own. "Who is this?"

Shit. I should have packed her away already. But she's the last thing I grab before I leave and the first thing I unpack. It's a ritual at this point. A good luck séance.

"My mom."

He glances at me, his eyes tracing my face before he looks back to the photograph. "You look like her."

That was always the problem. Same dark hair. Same green eyes. Same penchant for putting our trust in the wrong kinds of people.

"She was about my age in that picture. It's one of the only ones I have of her."

One of the only ones that wasn't destroyed, that is.

"What happened to her?"

I turn that can of worms over in my metaphorical hands. There's no way in hell I'm going to open it, but it's good every now and then for me to remember that it's there. It's the reason I keep her picture with me. A picture from before she got married—before she had kids.

Once upon a time, before she made a string of wrong choices, my mom had her whole life in front of her.

"She died a long time ago." I busy myself with sweeping the stack of unopened mail on the countertop into the trash.

When I turn around, Zane is still looking at the picture. But he doesn't ask anything else. He doesn't pry.

Maybe he should.

He's trying to keep his life drama-free and tidy for Aiden's sake. Little does he know, he's opening his home to a lifetime's worth of my troubles.

I should tell him. Warn him, really. If those CPS agents go digging, I could complicate things for him.

Then I think about going to sleep tonight with his state-of-the-art security system looking over my shoulder for me, and I keep my mouth closed.

If my past starts to catch up with me, I'll run before it can cause Zane any issues.

Until then, I'll enjoy this little taste of luxury.