Chapter 69

Chapter Sixty-Nine

Maddy

" N ow you know exactly what you're going to say, don't you?"

Zak rolled his eyes and then with the drawstring of my hoody pulled me in for a soft, gentle kiss which made me sigh with satisfaction.

"We've been over it a hundred times," he said. "I know exactly what I'm going to say."

My nerves were jangling as Zak pulled his phone from his pocket. He was going to call Connie and try and get her to confess. With Dad, we'd come up with a plan, because he was right, I did need to hear her say it. I knew that Zak was telling the truth, I trusted him, but if I didn't hear it, maybe there would always be a tiny niggle in the back of my mind.

"I've got this," he added, looking at me with a raised eyebrow.

"I know." It was my turn to kiss him and then I patted his chest. "Okay, let's do it."

He gave me a short, sharp nod, and then pressed the screen. A couple of seconds later the ringtone sounded out.

"Don't forget we're on speaker," Zak said quickly. I nodded and we waited for her to answer.

Finally, she answered. "Zak," she said breathlessly, and I could just imagine her flicking her hair over one shoulder and checking her lip gloss, like he could see her. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, I just wanted to check in with you." His face was hard but his voice soft and cajoling. I almost felt jealous, but he reached for my hand and pulled me closer. "I also have something to tell you."

"You do? What?" I detected a waver in her voice, and it was clear she was nervous. Surely she must have wondered if he'd seen the picture. Then again, she probably didn't even care if he had.

"Maddy and I split up." Zak swallowed hard and I knew it was because he hated saying the words. We'd argued about it. He just wanted to confront her, but I knew a sneaky bitch when I met one, confrontation didn't always work with them, sometimes you had to be just as conniving.

"Oh no. God, why?"

I had to give it to her, she was a good actress.

"The picture on my Insta story." Zak's nostrils flared as his anger continued to build.

"Your Insta?' she questioned, and I detected a quiver of nerves in her tone. "You never use your Insta. I've never known you once use your Insta." Which was exactly what she'd been hoping for.

"I don't, I haven't, so I'm not sure how the picture ended up on there. It was one of us, I think it was one at your auntie's party."

"I don't think I know which one you mean."

I had to slap a hand over my mouth to disguise the gasp of air I took. Zak looked at me and shook his head, knowing that if she discovered I was there, she'd probably end the call.

"Lying bitch," I mouthed, and he grinned back at me.

"The one your dad took. The one you said we could use as an engagement picture, if we ever got engaged.

I swivelled around in my seat, and my eyes nearly popped out of my head. If she'd been there, I might have changed my stance on violence, at least pulling out some of her hair extensions—because no one's hair was that soft, thick, and beautiful naturally. Apart from Maya's, but she was gorgeous inside as well as out. Zak patted my knee to calm me down, but my blood was red hot and surging in my veins, and not likely to cool down until Connie was totally out of our lives. I couldn't believe that she'd talked about getting engaged to him. To think Zak could have ended up saddled with the conniving little…

"Oh, that one." She giggled. "I remember it. What about it?" Now her acting skills were waning quickly.

"It was on my Insta story," Zak gritted out with a forced smile. "Maddy saw it and dumped me."

"What? Oh no, that's terrible. Why would she do that?"

I could practically hear the laughter in her voice, and I hated her even more.

"Because of what it said." He took a deep breath. "Because of what you wrote on it."

"Me? What I wrote? I have no idea what you mean."

Zak laughed, and even though I could hear how hollow it was, I hoped she didn't. "Connie, I know you. I know it was you, babe ." The last word was practically spat out, so I waved my hand at him and silently told him to calm down. He nodded and continued, "It has to be you, because I didn't do it. Not that I'm mad at you, I mean, Maddy and I weren't going anywhere. I was ready to call it a day, so it did me a favour really."

"Honestly?" the conniving witch asked.

"Yeah, honestly. I think after seeing you at the party, she realised that we probably weren't as serious as you and I had been." Zak's fingers curled tighter around mine, his wordless promise that it wasn't true. "That and the picture, well, you know the rest."

"Did you show it to her?" Connie's tone was high and excited, like a child getting the treat that they'd been begging for. "Or did she see it herself."

"She saw it herself. You know I never go on my Insta." Zak gave a false chuckle. "Did you do it, Connie?"

"Zak, as if."

Her giggle made my spine stiffen and every vein in my body pulse with hate and anger. I'd never experienced such nastiness and vindictiveness in my life. Maybe it was because I lived in a small town or maybe I chose my friends more wisely than Zak chose girlfriends. That thought made my chest clench, and as Ana's face flashed before my eyes, I wished things that weren't nice to think.

"Well," Zak continued. "Like I said, whoever it was, did me a favour."

There was a moment of silence, and his gaze met mine. The air crackled around us as we held our breath, because instinctively we both knew what was about to happen.

"If it was me would you be mad?" she asked, huskily, like she was trying to seduce him. "Or would I be your best friend, forever?"

"Maybe more than my best friend," Zak replied.

"Well, it was me." She said the words with confidence and pride. "I posted it. Remember at the party when I held your phone after it got covered with beer?"

"Yeah." Zak swallowed, and I could see he was holding tightly on to his temper.

"I checked your Instagram login and password, and I posted it a couple of days later." Another giggle set my teeth on edge. "I could see you weren't totally happy, so I thought, why not help you lose the baggage."

That almost sent me through the roof, and as I moved to stand up, Zak placed a calming hand on my knee. He tipped his head on one side and widened his eyes, pleading with me to let him finish what he'd started. With my blood boiling, I practically threw myself against the back of the sofa, holding on precariously to the arm because what I really wanted to do was launch his phone and symbolically throw Connie against the wall.

"And you thought that maybe we'd get back together, did you?" Zak's voice was light, with a hint of laughter as he tried to coax Connie's motivation out of her. "Thought we'd go back to how we were?"

"Well, I hoped."

That fucking laugh of hers was driving me mad. I had no idea how Zak had put up with it.

"I mean I know you're going to Edinburgh, but Newcastle isn't a million miles away."

My heart stuttered and suddenly, I wanted Zak to end the call. I was desperate to talk to him about what came next for us. I dropped my gaze from his, over thinking about things that hadn't even happened, but when he placed a finger under my chin, forcing me to look at him, my heart thudded. He gave me the most beautiful smile and nodded, like he knew what was going on in my head.

With his eyes still on me, he spoke again. "So, tell me your full plan."

"Post a picky of us, get the Northerner to dump you, and leave you free to come back to me, then we see each other at weekends while we're at uni and then maybe…" Connie trailed off and more tinkling laughter echoed down the line, filling in the gaps for Zak presumably.

Zak licked his lips and took a deep breath before pulling me closer and wrapping an arm around my shoulder.

"Connie," he said in a deep authoritative tone, "there's many things that are going to happen in our futures, but I can assure you, you and I getting back together is not one of them."

"What?" She sounded genuinely shocked, like her actions were a perfectly acceptable way of getting your ex-boyfriend back.

"I think you heard. I'm not getting back with you. If this fucking dick trick of yours had worked, I still wouldn't be getting back with you. We ended things because our relationship was toxic."

I blinked and straightened my spine, he'd never told me that, only that they'd grown apart.

"We were not toxic," she cried.

"You sleeping with some random boy on our school ski trip, and then telling me about every detail, wasn't toxic? You telling me that my friends hated me, wasn't toxic? You telling my parents I was stalking you, wasn't toxic?"

" She's the toxic one," I cried, no longer caring if Connie heard me. "What a bitch."

"Is she there?" she demanded with a screech.

"Of course she is." Zak grinned. "As if you could split us up."

If I'd know exactly what she was like, known the things that Zak had just mentioned, I would never for one minute have believed he'd cheated on me with her. She was truly vile, and I couldn't understand why he'd never told me everything.

"But she's just… just… nothing," Connie screamed.

"That's where you're wrong," Zak said with a sigh and a smile for me. "She's everything."

"Zak ple?—"

"No, Connie," he snapped, his smile gone. "I don't want to hear it. Just stay out of my life and don't ever contact me again."

Then he looked at me and I took great pleasure in leaning forward and ending the call.

"Why didn't you tell me about her?" I asked, finally feeling the knot in my chest unravel. "I would never have believed it if I'd known what a cow she was."

Zak shrugged as he sat back against the cushions of the sofa. "She wasn't always that bad. She was lovely at the start, but when that initial excitement of getting together wore off, she started her antics. She did whatever she could to humiliate me. Luckily I have a good relationship with my mates, so I asked them if it was true that they hated me. Of course, they laughed their arses off. As for my parents instead of believing her, they told me that I should distance myself from her. My dad called her troubled."

"And what about the boy she slept with? You didn't just take that did you?"

"Fuck no. I ended it there and then. I was already thinking of doing it, but it doesn't mean it didn't hurt. I felt embarrassed and I was glad that we moved here not long after."

"God, what an absolute bitch, and you were so nice to her at the party. I would have taken great pleasure in ignoring her."

"I was never going to act like best friends with her, but she doesn't mean enough to me for me to go to the effort of being nasty to her." He leaned in and kissed me softly. "Let's forget about her, she's not going to bother us again. Tell me about you deciding to go to Edinburgh instead."

I gasped and slapped playfully at his chest. "How did you know? I didn't even tell my dad just in case I wasn't accepted. I didn't think I had, but I got the letter yesterday offering me a place, they said it was an administrative error. And it all depends on my grades."

"Which you'll get."

I rolled my eyes. "We'll see, but how did you know?"

Zak shrugged. "I just saw it in your face when Connie mentioned she'd be in Newcastle."

"And would you be okay with that if I went there?" I looked down, rubbing at some non-existent stain on my jeans, not daring to see the expression on his face.

"Mads," Zak said, regaining my attention.

"What?" I looked back up at him and chewed on my bottom lip.

"Of course, I'd be happy if you went there, if it's right for you. I want you there for me, but I don't want you just to go because of all this with Connie, because nothing at all is ever going to happen there ever again." He cupped the back of my neck, threading his fingers through my hair, the intensity in his gaze making me want things that I shouldn't at my age. "If you don't go then we'll just have to make it work."

I took a fortifying breath, not sure I should give him my honesty, but I was so in love with him it was impossible not to.

"I want to go there. It's a great course and I want to be with you. I don't think I could stand not seeing you every day, but if we don't work out, then I won't stalk you around campus or anything, I promise."

Zak frowned. "Well, that's not happening anyway. You know we're going to work out, and if we didn't, I'd definitely stalk you."

We both laughed softly, and as our gazes locked on each other, the atmosphere changed. There'd been a shift in our relationship one way or another the last few days, and I think we both knew that we were a serious ‘us'.

"You know my dad and Maya have gone out to dinner and won't be back for ages, don't you."

Sadness about Ana still overwhelmed me, but whenever I was with Zak the pain was slightly less. Intimacy was something I was desperate for. Not just for the thrill of the orgasm, but because it felt right being in his arms. It felt safe.

Pushing me on my back, Zak hovered over me, his hands caging my head, and dropped his mouth to mine.

"I love you," he said as he slowly unzipped my hoody. "And I can't wait until we get to Edinburgh."

"Me neither," I whispered, pushing up his t-shirt, relishing the feel of his warm skin.

"Good."

It was then, as he started to undress me, I realised that apart from my dad, Zak Hoyland, was the only man whose hand I wanted to take.