Chapter Eight: I guess; thank you?

Zoey’s POV:

It was Saturday, and I had taken a day off at DogLife to go to Clarissa’s dress fitting. She had picked a shoulderless simple white dress that flared at the bottom. She was going to be the prettiest bride.

“Do you have a date yet?” She asked me as she twirled about in front of the mirror. Rand, one of my exes was supposed to be my date, but he had ghosted me. I had heard of the term but never knew of anyone it had happened to before. He deleted me from every social media account and blocked my phone number. After two weeks of wondering what happened with him, I had given up when Clarissa had spotted him at one of our old favorite date spots with his ex. Good riddance she had snapped me with a picture of him kissing his ex on the lips.

“As maid of honor, do I need to bring a date?” I winced, asking her.

“Not technically, but I just want you to be happy.”

“I am happy.” I fake smile at her. “See?”

“You know what I mean, miss, all I need is TikTok and eventually a new place to live so you can have a dog.

“Amen to that.”

She slaps my leg as she’s still looking at herself in the mirror.

“I worry about you. That’s all.” She huffs out, and I know she does.

“Thank you. Maybe I’ll try that new dating app out later tonight.”

And that was why I was sitting at my apartment waiting for a “Jeremy Calaway” to pick me up on a Saturday night. He was running ten minutes late. So when I opened my door, I was expecting to see my date. I was not expecting to see those bright baby blue eyes of a Rock legend staring at me.

“You are not Jeremy,” I say, swinging my door shut some more.

“I know.” Zach seems nervous, staring at me. “He may be detained downstairs.”

“He is what?” My voice takes on a higher octave.

“My bodyguards are still on site.” He holds his hands up to give him a moment. “They are just more discreet about it to give everyone a sense of normalcy.”

I laugh at this. Yeah, a sense of normalcy; having him live with us normals was not normal.

“Ok?”

“Your date may have been carrying some questionable items on him tonight.”

My heart rate started to increase. “Like what?”

He looks down, and I can tell he does not want to say it to me, but his eyes are on mine. “Duct tape, zip ties, knives. There’s more, but I think you get the point. They have called the police to get it on record. They wouldn’t have searched him, but when he saw my guards, he took off sprinting, and that was when they caught up to him and did a search of him and his bag.”

I swallow. “Ok then.” I remove my high heels while I’m standing in the doorway. “I guess we can say blind dating was a failed experiment.”

Zach’s face pales. “A blind date Zoey?”

“It was stupid. I needed a date for Clarissa’s wedding. Now I can tell her I will not be bringing one since the guy I picked may or may not have tried to hack me up into….”

Zach cuts me off. “I’ll go with you.” He was so mattered of fact about it.

“What? No. Why?” I asked, stunned.

“Why wouldn’t I want to be a date to a wedding with you?” He answers my question with a question.

My hands go on my hips. “What is in it for you?”

“You.” The raspiness of his voice has my knees wanting to buckle in front of me for some reason.

“Come in.” I sigh. “Instead of us talking about this out in the hallway. The last time we talked, we ended up on the cover of a few tabloids. I’m having your baby didn’t you know?” I ask him sarcastically.

It had been the elevator conversation where he was standing with his arms out, holding the door open so he could talk to me. I hadn’t even noticed anyone lurking around that day. But apparently, they had been there. I couldn’t keep up with all the rumors.

He follows me into my apartment. He looks around. “Who does your cleaning?”

I look up at him. “You think I would pay someone to clean my apartment?” My eyebrows go up at his question. “Nevermind.” I shake my head at him. I could not get sidetracked by my cleaning schedule regimen. “I clean it myself. Like a normal human.”

I walk over to the wine fridge in the middle of my kitchen island and bring a bottle out; it was the bottle from the night before. He looks around my apartment. And I can see that it tends to scream OCD tendencies.

“Are you ok?” He asks me.

“I’m ok. Considering I could have died tonight.” I pour one glass and hand it to him. “Thank you.” My body shudders, thinking about what could have happened to me tonight.

“Zoey,” Zach clears his throat as I reach for a wine glass for me. I pause, looking up at the seriousness of his voice. “I understand wanting to date. Trust me. But could you let my team vet them next time for you?”

My eyes stay on him as I pour my glass and then take a swig. “In what life does Zach Rivers save me from a psychopath and then ask me if he can vet my potential dates?”

He hasn’t touched his wine. “Apparently in this life.” He’s watching me, and I wonder if he thinks I’m going to crack.

“Don’t worry; I think I’m dated out for now. But.” His eyes lift back up to mine. “I could possibly use the vetting process if you are willing.”

He smiles and finally takes a small sip of his wine glass. “Come, let’s sit and talk about this wedding.”

Tonight, he sits down on the couch, and I take the chair across from him. It had been a long day, and now knowing I could have died tonight, it made it longer.

“You think he was really going to kill me?” I ask, my right hand holding onto the wine bottle, bringing it up, and filling my wine glass again.

“That or something that would have left you scarred for a very long time.” His eyes are dark again. He sighs. “Let me be your date to Clarissa’s wedding” he holds up his hand when I am about to interrupt. “It will be beneficial to both of us.”

“How so?” I ask, leaning over and handing him the wine bottle. He pours the rest into his cup.

He smiles wickedly at me. “I need America to love me again.”

“I’ll think about it.” I had no clue if Clarrisa would want that type of publicity at her wedding.

At some point, we had polished off another bottle of wine and ended up across the hallway at his apartment.

“Why does your apartment look so much nicer than mine?” Everything was brand new, from the flooring to the backsplash in the kitchen. State-of-the-art appliances sat in his kitchen. “Did you have them smash the wall out to the other apartment? How did you….”

He’s watching me as I walk around his place. “You fangirl over my apartment like how girls fangirl over me.”

“I’m a woman. And this place is worth fangirling over.”

It was one of the prettiest apartments I had seen. “Why are you here?”

He grabs a food tray out of the fridge and unwraps it to put in the oven. He may have bribed me with food to get me over to his place. And now I didn’t want to leave.

“I’m here to cook you food.”

I hiccup. A sign letting me know I had too much to drink. “I mean this place.” I throw my arms up, flabbergasted. “You could live anywhere.”

“I like it here.” And then he was putting the food into the oven.

The food came out, and I was hungry since all I had been doing was drinking wine. “I believe I may be drunk,” I said as he handed me a fork, he picked up a fork himself, and he started digging into the spaghetti casserole in front of him. His fork hit the center as he scooped a chunk out.

I laugh aloud at his gesture, and his eyes sparkle when he looks up at me. I was drunk. But the casserole was terrific. By the time we are done with it, it looks like we took knives and went to town randomly, hacking it up.

We played video games on his TV, and by the time he walked me back to my apartment, I was for sure no longer sober.

He leaned against the wall outside my door. He brushed a piece of my hair back, and I snorted a laugh. “You did not just do that.”

He leaned in his lips almost against my ear. “Oh, I so did Zoey Michael.” He said my name nice and slow, sending goosebumps throughout my whole body.

I leaned back and looked at him, the alcohol still doing most of the talking. “You are not all that bad.”

“Thank you.” He smiled back at me. “I should let you get some sleep.”

“You should.” He started turning, and before I opened my door, I turned and said, “thanks for not letting that guy chop me up into a billion pieces.”

“My pleasure.” He waited at his door while I shut and locked mine.