‘Thanks,’ I say, suddenly feeling nervous.
Zach is leaning against the fridge, his hair mussed up and his brows knitted together. He looks so anxious that I just want to kiss him better but I sense that he needs to talk first.
‘I’m sorry again, for earlier,’ he says, holding his hands out as I make us both a cup of tea.
‘Are you okay?’ I ask.
‘I, er …’ he rubs his fingers along his forehead. ‘I’ve got something I need to tell you.’
‘Grab a seat. Cheese on toast?’
‘Yes please.’
‘Those cocktails were strong, huh?’ I say with a little laugh. I don’t know what he’s got to tell me but seeing how nervous he seems to be is making me worried. I place the plates of cheese on toast down and pull up a seat opposite, biting at a crust and realising that I’m not that hungry after all.
Zach clears his throat.
‘Alice, I’m sorry I was off earlier at the bar. It wasn’t that you were boring me by talking about work at all.’ He pauses to take a deep breath. ‘It turns out that the wedding client you had a meeting with today is my ex-girlfriend.’
‘Clara? Oh God. That’s awkward, sorry Zach, I had no idea.’
He takes a sip of his tea. ‘Really, you don’t need to apologise. This is on me. I didn’t know she was engaged so it all came as a bit of a shock.’
‘Yeah, I can understand that. Had you two been serious, then?’
Zach nods, catching my eyes ever so briefly. ‘We’d been together for about eighteen months.’
‘Was she your first love?’ I ask, wondering if that explains why they’d fallen out of touch. I mean, I know not many people remain close after they split up but I’m surprised that he didn’t know she was in a serious relationship now.
‘It’s more recent than that. We only broke up a few months ago.’
Ouch. Clara must have moved on quickly. No wonder he’s upset. Though now that I think of it, I swear she and James said they’d been together for a couple of years. Something doesn’t quite add up here and I frown, trying to make sense of it. Zach’s watching me, a mixture of embarrassment and unease written across his face and just like that, it dawns on me.
‘But Clara told me that she and James had been together for years. So does that mean you were seeing Clara while …’ I say it as a statement, the reality of it sinking in.
Zach takes another deep breath, looking over at me through those dark lashes of his.
‘That’s right,’ he admits.
I lean back, pushing my plate away from me. Zach’s last relationship was an affair. I can feel my defences inching back up around me, locking in place to try and keep me safe.
‘Will you let me explain?’ He asks.
I nod, folding my arms in front of me.
‘Okay,’ he clears his throat. ‘A couple of years ago Clara’s magazine commissioned me to do some pen and ink drawings to run alongside a fashion shoot and that’s when we first met. She invited me out for drinks when the issue published and one thing led to another. We started dating, things were going well, we started to get serious, you know how it goes. Only, about a year into the relationship I found out that she’d had this ex.’
‘James?’ I ask, joining the dots.
‘Yeah. Clara insisted that they were no longer together when she and I met, and that he was only still on the scene because they worked together. There were a lot of red flags, like how she wanted to keep our relationship low key, how she never invited me to her work events …’ Zach lets out a low, deep sigh then. ‘But I liked her, I even thought I loved her so I wanted to believe her. It was only earlier today when I finally figured it out. She left me a voice message telling me that she was engaged and then I saw the photo of her and James together on Instagram … she never did split up with him. I was just, I don’t know, an extra.’
I bite my thumbnail, my heart breaking for how sad he looks and for how sad I feel, too.
‘Today was just … confirmation, I guess, that she hadn’t been straight up with me,’ he adds.
‘I had no idea, Zach. So when did you two split up?’
Zach’s elbows are on the table now, his thumb rubbing his jawline as he looks down at the cheese on toast he’s left untouched.
