“She isn’t in her apartment, and her piece of shit car isn’there either. I’m looking through her calendar now.” Zane could hear the crispanger in his brother’s tone.
“I’m going to…,” Zane was walking to the ladder when thefamiliar glossy black curls caught his eyes. “Nevermind, I see her, she justcame walking through the damn door.” Relief and anger rushed through his veinscalming him and enraging him all at once.
“Politely ask our little angel, where the hell she hasbeen?” His brother growled before disconnecting the line.
±
Waiting for her computer to log-in to her programs, Everlyturned in her chair to grab the payroll file behind her when she noticed theshadow over her desk. Turning, her heart jumped a little at the sight of Zanequietly standing directly on the other side of her desk. Confused by theintense look he was giving her, she smiled back up at him in attempt to breakthe heavy aura he brought with him.
Slowly a smile spread across his lips revealing, not for thefirst time, small indiscernible dimples on his cheeks. The stubble of his beardpronounced the hidden indentions making them slightly more visible to her eye.Normally the friendly blonde construction worker was rather cleaned up despitehis job, always shaved and always wearing rather clean work clothes in contrastto the other men who wore paint smeared clothing. Today, however, he wascompletely different, his blonde hair was messy and looked as if he only ranhis hand through it to keep the long golden strands out of his face and thedarker blonde stubble gave his handsome face a much more rugged look. Though itwas his attire and what lie beneath the clothing she couldn’t seem to take hereyes off of.
“I missed you this morning.” Vaguely she heard him speak.Zane waited staring at her naturally wanting her to respond with why she waslate she presumed.
“Oh, umm,…I…I had a doctor’s appointment,” she repliedfinally. Frowning a little, she tried to regain control of her focus, but itwas rather difficult.
Wearing some sort of blue canvas jumpsuit, Zane’s normallycovered body was exposed for all to see. With only a thin white tank topcovering his torso, the blue jumpsuit was unzipped and pushed down to hiswaist, using the unused arm sleeves to tie around his narrow hips keeping theremainder of the pants portion of the jumpsuit on. With no control of her ownEverly’s eyes traced intently the bold black patterns of the skin engraved inkcovering his arm, and what arms they were too. Never in her life had she seensuch muscular arms. Immediately her brain conjured up the image of professorBlack and the defined bulge of his biceps through his knit sweater. Was everyman in this town like this? Was keeping your body in top physical shape such animportant factor out here in the real world? No that couldn’t be right, ofcourse not, Peter looked nothing like these men.
“Why? Are you okay?” Placing both hands on the top of herdesk, Zane’s movement temporarily broke the brief spell she was under.
Ripping her eyes away from his thick developed arms sheforced an overly cheerful smile as she awkwardly reshuffled the papers in frontof her. “Yes of course just one of the many prenatal doctor’s visits I have totake.”
“Did you find out if it’s a boy or girl?”
Everly didn’t miss the hint of excitement in his tone andgave a small laugh while absently rubbing her small baby bump. Zane wasprobably the only one other than 2BlackHearts that genuinely cared for herpregnancy. A stray thought flew by in her head— well them and her curmudgeon ofa professor, thinking back to that day he practically shoved her into her car.
“No, not yet, for some reason this little one doesn’t wantto change positions yet and give us a good look.”
“Well don’t worry about the names I’ve got you covered,”Zane grinned, leaning to one arm as the other hand toyed with her jar of pins.Before she could even stutter out her question of confusion, he continued. “Iknow plenty of boy and girl names that should cover you. Zachariah, Zelda,Zachary, Zora and tons more if you want to get crazy with the spelling.
Pressing her lips together to hold back a smile, Everlylooked down at her lap. “I haven’t even thought of names yet to be perfectlyhonest.”
“Don’t worry, we have plenty of time,” he paused, causing herto look back up. Like a small woodland creature springing the hunter’s trap,Zane’s bright blue eyes caught hers intentionally. “You had me worried therefor a minute… I thought I was going to miss my lunch break with you today.”
Warmth spread through her body at his handsome smile and theflirtatious undercoating to his words. Taking her eyes back off his sheunintentionally brought them back to the hard flesh of his extended arm plantedon her desk.
“Aww that’s right, you have not seen my tattoos before,” straighteningfrom the desk he pushed his hands into the pockets of the jumpsuit hanging lowon his narrow hips. “Remind me to show you the rest one day sweetheart.” Givingher a wink, he turned to leave.
With suddenly dry lips, Everly stared with wide-eyed shockas she watched him leave. “The rest?” She whispered aloud to herself.
±
With only one bedside lamp lit, Everly’s tiny apartment wasencased by darkness. Tiptoeing across the cold wooden floorboards, Everlycinched the towel around her breast tighter as she looked hopefully at hercomputer screen.
Nothing.
Still not a word from 2BlackHearts. It had been two daysnow, and there had been no reply to any of her messages. Sitting on the edge ofher bed Everly slowly slipped the long flannel nightshirt over her headsimultaneously letting the towel drop to her waist.
This entire week and been no good from the start. Afteranother perfectly peaceful weekend, she arrived to work on Monday to realizeZane and the construction crew had finished over the weekend and were gone. Ofcourse, the news overjoyed her supervisor and bank manager, Teddy Alloway butshe was shocked to find herself more than a little dismayed. The handsome,friendly face that she had seen daily from her first day on the job was nowjust gone, no goodbye, no note, nothing.
Days without personable familiar conversation or friendship,loneliness started to seep in like the cold edges of winter. Today felt likethe final blow though, and she didn’t even know why. Flopping back into herwarm cozy blanket Everly lifted and tucked her legs underneath the coversshielding her from the cool air of her small bedroom. Today her math classwelcomed back Mrs. Hornsby as the professor for the remainder of the year,excitingly explaining that her husband’s job allowed him to come back freeingher up to come back to work. Looking around to her fellow classmates as theygave words of congratulations and voiced their relief to have her back Everly realizedshe was the only one who didn’t take the news as good news at all.
Gone. Dr. Black was gone too.
Never again was she going to catch his glacial eye amongstthe mass of students or silently walk next to him as he walked her to her carafter class. Looking back at the laptop screen her heart twisted at seeing thesame no reply to her last messages sent hours ago to 2BlackHearts.
What was going on? By now the creeping dark edges ofloneliness enveloped her completely. Pulling the covers higher around her neck,she hid herself from the world in the fortress of her blankets just as she didgrowing up. Abandoned and alone, this was the second time this year she wasmade to feel this way. Although arguably the first time was far more painfuland probably more sensible, considering the man she thought she would spend therest of her life with just broke her heart, compared to three people she barelyknew suddenly disappearing.
Suppressing back tears, Everly pulled the light switch chainon her bedside lamp and only prayed tomorrow would be a better day.
