Chapter 43The next day Zeke wakes and finds that Zia is still sleeping in his arms. At some point in the night he had laid down on the couch. Zia is lying right next to him and his arms are wrapped around her holding her tight. He looks down at the beautiful girl sleeping next to him and wonders about her. She's had a difficult time since her father died, but she has managed to come out of it all a good and unique person with a great future. He feels a connection to her that he never felt with anyone else before.He moves just a little and this movement wakes her. She looks up at him and smiles. Suddenly she bolts upright realizing that she was just basically lying on top of him."Zeke, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to...""What are you sorry for?" Zeke asks her looking confused."I don't want you to think that I'm... I don't know. I don't typically cuddle up like that next to guys that I just met.""Zia, it is fine. We were just sleeping. I guess at some point we just laid down as opposed to sitting up.""I know but..."He puts his finger against her soft lips, "Shhh... It is fine, I promise."She smiles bashfully, "Okay, well I guess I should get up and get going.""Do you have to? I mean we're going to hang out on the beach today. I'm sure one of the girls could give you something to wear.""I can totally dress her," Christina says walking into the living room. "As Marlene says, I have enough clothes to dress all four of us for about two weeks with no problem. I also have a brand new swimsuit that I just bought that you can have.""I don't want to take your things," Zia says."Are you kidding?" Will says from the door way. "She needs someone to take her things, she has too many things and I have to move it all.""Shut up Will!" Christina says glaring at him."I love you though," he says with a fake pout."Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever.""So will you stay?" Zeke asks hopefully."I guess I'm staying," Zia smiles. She's not sure why he wants her to stay so bad, but she hopes that it means that he likes her as much as she likes him.A short time later Marlene and Tris enter the living room. Tris smiles when she sees that Zia is still here. They were always good friends and she knows that Zia is very shy and has a hard time making friends and letting people into her world. It seems though that Zia has made at least one friend in Zeke."Zia, I'm glad you're still here. Will you be hanging out with us for the day?" Tris asks."Yeah, Zeke and Christina convinced me that I should stay."The group spent the next three days hanging out on the beach, watching movies, and playing games. They did almost everything together. Even though Zia went home every night, she always came back the next morning to be with her new friends. Over the days, Zeke starts to think that he might be having feelings for this girl.It has almost been a month since Shauna left and over that month he came to realize that there were so many subtle signs that their relationship was going bad. They didn't spend any time together. She found reasons to argue with him, which is something they never used to do. He found out that she was hanging out with other people, especially other guys and that one of those guys ended up going to Pittsburgh with her.He tried to be angry, and he was angry about the secrets. But he wasn't as upset as he should have been. After talking to Tris and Marlene about it one night, he found that he wasn't that upset because for him the relationship was over. It was time to move on.After that conversation, Zeke decided that he would make a move with Zia when the opportunity arises. The problem was the opportunity never seemed to arise.~oOo~On Friday, while the group was preparing to go to the ball park and play a pick-up softball game, there came a knock on the door. Tris opens the door to see Lynn standing in front of her, bags in hand.Tris pulls her into a hug, "Lynn, it's good to see you.""Hey Tris, how's it going?""Great, come in," she says moving out of the way so Lynn could enter. "Are you back for good?""Yeah, I needed to get as far away from New York as I could. You'd be surprised that in a city of over eight million people, you can still manage to run into people that you don't want to see.""What happened with Kenzie?""She found new friends and a new girlfriend. She cheated on me with some journalist and didn't have the nerve to tell me," Lynn explains with distain dripping from every word. "I felt like she was following me around though because every time I turned around she was there. I mean the odds of running into her with that many people around can't be good. But there she was constantly. I couldn't wait to come home.""It's good to have you here."Zeke walks into the room and sees Lynn standing there. He is reminded about all of the good times with Shauna and a little sadness overcomes him.The door bell rings again and this time when Tris opens the door, Zia is standing there. When Zeke sees her he is filled with mixed feelings.Tris lets Zia in and she smiles at a nervous looking Zeke. She is suddenly filled with nervousness because she doesn't understand why he looks so conflicted. She looks and sees a beautiful girl with extremely short strawberry blond hair standing in the doorway next to Tris. Zia becomes nervous wondering if this is the girlfriend that Tris, Marlene, and Chris had told her about."Hey Zia, how are you. Ready to play some ball?""Huh? Oh, yeah I'm ready. Brought my glove and everything.""Oh Zia, this is Lynn. She's one of our friends. She is just returning from New York.""Nice to meet you Lynn," Zia says shaking her hand. "New York? That sounds interesting.""Not as interesting as I'd like it to be. I spent my entire summer either dancing or hiding from my ex girlfriend."'Girlfriend? This can't be the girl that Zeke just broke up with, so what's with the conflicted look on Zeke?' Zia thinks to herself."What kind of dance?" Zia asks."Ballet. I was accepted into the New York Ballet Theatre, but I decided to come home and finish my degree."Zia nods and smiles as Lynn turns her attention to Zeke. "How are you?" she asks him."I'm fine," Zeke says tightly. He's not sure what he's feeling right now. But Lynn can see that. She knows what happened with her sister and she's angry about it because it is exactly what happened with Kenzie."Look Zeke, just because she left you like that doesn't mean that things have to be weird between us. You are still like my big brother. Shauna was stupid and wrong for not breaking up with you when she started to have feelings for someone else.""You know about that?" he asks."Yeah, she moved with him to Pittsburgh. They are planning on getting married," she's not sure if she should have told him that last part or not. But she thinks he has a right to know."Married? Already?""That is what our parents say, but there's no talking to her right now. Look, I just told you because you have the right to know.""Thanks Lynn, but I'm over her.""I'm sure you are. It's been a while. But we're still friends, right?"Zeke smiles at Lynn. "Of course," he says and pulls her into a hug. "It's great to have you back.""I actually have a favor, do you think I could stay at the apartment until we can get back into the sorority house?""Sure," he says with a smile."Great! So are you guys playing softball today?""Yeah, you playing?" Tris asks.Lynn smirks, "No, when did I ever play. I'll watch and make smartass comments about everyone though."Tris and Zeke snicker while Zia tries to figure this girl out. The last couple of minutes have been an emotional rollercoaster with this girl and Zeke. Zia's happy to know that the girlfriend is gone. But although Zeke claims he's over her, she's not sure. She decides here and now that the best course of action so she doesn't get hurt is to focus on a friendship and nothing more.Four walks into the living room from the kitchen, "Breakfast is ready." He turns his attention to Lynn and smiles at her, "What are you doing here?" He's always had a sarcastic relationship with Lynn. She's like the little sister he never really wanted."Oh, I just missed you so much that I had to return from New York to see you."Four smirks and goes up to her and hugs her, "Good to see you Lynn. Nice to know my sarcastic friend is back."She smiles, "Anyway, what's for breakfast? Did you cook?""You know it, you'll have to go and find out."Lynn, Four, and Zeke walk into the dining room. Zia is about to follow when Tris stops her."Zia, I hope you know that he is over her. He's talked to me about it a lot and although he's still pissed about the way things happened, he's happy the relationship is done. He likes you, a lot.""I like him too Tris, but I don't want to just be a rebound relationship for him. Sometimes I think there could be something, and then something like today happens. He can say he's over her, but when he saw Lynn there was something there.""I think that was more worry about what was going to happen with Lynn. She and Zeke have always been close. I think he was just worried about how she was going to act with him."Four comes back into the living room and wraps his arms around Tris, "Zia, I didn't mean to overhear. But I've been friends with Zeke for almost five years. He's never been happier that he is with you. Don't give up on him, okay?" He kisses Tris' cheek, "Come on ladies, let's go eat before Uriah wakes up and there's no food left.""Hey, I heard that," Uriah says from the doorway. "Why is it always about Uriah eating all of the food, or Uriah burning the food, or Uriah making a mess?""Because it's always Uriah doing those things," Will says. "Besides, it's just fun to blame everything on you.""But I'm the one that has to listen to him whine about it," Marlene chimes in from the hall."What is this, pick on Uriah day? You know some day I'm not going to be around for you to pick on like this," he tries to say this angrily but the smirk on his face says something different."Sure you won't," Four says. "You'll always be around somewhere for me to pick on. Besides I'd go find you just to pick on you.""Zia, how about some help here," Uriah pleads."I don't think I can. Yesterday you stole my shoe and played keep away with it with Zeke. I don't think I can defend you now. Maybe I would have before you refused to give me my shoe, but now I think you're just going to have to suffer," she smirks at him.Uriah tries to look mad, he puts a fake scowl on his face and points his finger at them, "Man, you guys aren't right. Some day Uriah isn't going to stand of this..."They all start laughing cutting off whatever he was going to say. Zeke walks into the room and sees everyone laughing. He notices Zia laugh. When she laughs, it lights up her beautiful blue eyes. He gets butterflies when he sees her smile and laugh.He walks up to her and takes her hand. The contact sends chills across Zia's body. "Come on, let's eat," he says quietly to her.
~oOo~
By the time the end of the week came, Tris was excited to see her parents again. The group decided to make dinner and have a little get together for the couple on the day that they returned. Four, Will, and Zeke made dinner while the girls and Uriah cleaned the house and got everything together. They invited Brian and Tori over also.Tori is about six months pregnant now. She has a little baby bump and is glowing from her pregnancy."What's it like?" Marlene asks her. After her scare a couple months ago, she got on birth control and she and Uriah have been extra safe to make sure there would be no more scares like that, but the curiosity still overwhelms her."It's really uncomfortable," Tori explains. "I can't move the way I want to, either it hurts or it's just impossible. By back hurts when I get home from the parlor and Brian is just annoying me right now.""Why is he annoying you?" Christina asks."Just because he's over protective. I just can't get him to understand that I'm not broken, I'm just pregnant. It's really no big deal. But he is constantly asking me if I'm okay and trying to do things for me. It's just making me nuts."Tris snickers, "Sounds like Brian."Her face changes a little, she grabs Tris' hand and places it on her stomach, "Did you feel him move?"Tris sits there for a moment then she feels a little bump on her hand. She looks at Tori and smiles."Was that really the baby?""Yep, he does that all the time. It is actually starting to make it harder to sleep because he seems to think it's time to play when I'm ready to go to sleep.""Is it a boy?" Marlene asks. "You keep saying him.""Oh, yeah. We found out a couple days ago. His name is going to be Liam.""That's awesome. Anything else going on?" Tris asks."Other than that though, it's good. We've been talking about getting married. I just don't know if it's because I'm pregnant that he wants to get married or if he really just wants to.""I think he just wants to, Tori," Tris says. "When he used to work out with me he talked about you all of the time. He would ask me questions about different things you did even before I met you.""Really?" Tori asks. "You never told me that before.""Well it was more like a brother-sister talk. I thought it was something that I should just keep between the two of us. Anyway I think you should consider the proposal. I really don't think he would ask if he didn't mean it."Tori smiles, "Thanks Tris."Brian walks into the room and looks at the beautiful woman carrying his baby, "What are you thanking Tris for?""Oh nothing," Tori says quickly."Okay, anyway. Natalie and Bud just pulled up. I thought Tris would want to greet them."Tris smiles and goes to the door. When she opens it she sees her mother standing before her smiling from ear to ear. Natalie pulls her into a hug and then releases her just in time for Bud to come up and hug her next."We missed you," Natalie tells her. "How have things been?""Everything has been fine," Tris says as she leads them into the house and into the dining room."Who made dinner?" Natalie asks."Zeke, Four, and Will," Marlene says. "The rest of us had nothing to do with it."Bud smirks and pulls a chair out for his wife to sit. He starts to pull a chair out for Tris, but sees that Four has beat him to it. It makes him happy to know that his daughter has found such a great guy to spend her time with.The group sits around the huge dining room table and begins to eat. Four, Will, and Zeke prepared steak, baked potatoes, corn on the cob and a salad for dinner."This is amazing," Zia says. "I can't believe that you three can cook like this.""They are pretty amazing," Marlene says. Over the past few days she has grown to like Zia. She believes that Zia is a good match of Zeke. Shauna was hung up on what she had yet to accomplish, she was always looking for the bigger and better thing. Zia is different she's sweet and down to earth. She has a good life and is happy with it.At the completion of dinner, they all go and sit outside on the patio and talk. Natalie and Bud tell them about the resort that they stayed at and the fun things that they did like snorkeling and surfing. But after about an hour, Natalie and Bud decide to retire for the night."Tris, can we talk to you for a moment before we go off to bed?"Tris follows her parents into the house. They go into the living room where they can sit and talk."We were talking, we want to know if it is okay if we put Bud's name on your birth certificate.""Can you just do that?" Tris asks. "I thought you'd have to get some kind of special permission from Andrew.""Andrew's name isn't on your birth certificate, only mine," Natalie explains. It turns out that when Tris was born, Natalie was having second thoughts about her decisions so on Tris' birth certificate the father is listed as unknown. She had never allowed anyone to see Tris' original birth certificate until now."Why would I have a problem with that?""Good," Natalie smiles."I do have something that I want to talk to you guys about too though. I feel like I need to go see Andrew. He was my father for twenty-one years. I can't just turn that off.""We don't expect you to," Bud says. "I will only ask that you have Caleb there with you, just in case you need some moral support."Tris agrees. She hugs her parents good night and goes off to call her brother.~oOo~The next day Natalie, Bud, and Tris went to the court house and had Bud's name officially placed on Tris' birth certificate. She was allowed to change her last name to Bud's if she chose."Tris, this is not something that you have to do. You are my daughter, I know it and so do you. I don't care if you have my last name or not.""It's okay. I want to change my name," Tris assured him.He smiled and they officially changed her name to Beatrice Reed. Daughter of Willard and Natalie Reed.She is still irritated that it took them so long to tell her the truth. But she has calmed down and is now just happy to have this new start. She still has to work through her feelings for Andrew; he was still her father for twenty-one years. She doesn't know how to feel about him anymore.Once they arrived home, Natalie made it a point to introduce Tris to her friends, "I'd like you to meet Miss Beatrice Reed, daughter of Willard and Natalie Reed.""Did you change your last name?" Uriah asks."Yep, he's my father. I should have his last name," Tris says smiling.Four pulls her into a hug. He doesn't say anything. He knows she's been struggling with this for the past week, but she won't show that to anyone but him.The next day is when she and Caleb agreed to go pay Andrew a visit. She made sure Caleb would be there as a buffer so that she didn't have to be alone with him.When she rang the doorbell, Caleb answered the door. When he saw his sister, he smiled and pulled her into a hug. "It's good to see you Tris. But I must warn you, he isn't happy about you coming here."She doesn't say anything, she just follows Caleb inside to where his father is sitting."Hi, how are you?""What do you care? You aren't my daughter. You never were," Andrew growls."That doesn't mean that I don't care," Tris snaps."Why would you? You have the perfect new family.""You know what, this was a mistake. You weren't nice to me when I thought you were my father, what makes me think that you would treat me any different now. You want to be a jerk, go right ahead. But guess what, I don't have to listen to it anymore."Andrew looks at her shocked, "I didn't care? I raised you. I clothed you. I fed you. How didn't I care? I made sure you had all of the equipment that you needed to play whatever sport you were playing.""No you didn't you never bought me one single piece of equipment. Bud bought all of the gloves, spikes, bats, skates, helmets, and everything else I ever needed. You never came to a game. You've never seen what I can do. Now all of the sudden you care? Bull shit!""I pushed you. I supported you.""This really was a mistake. You didn't do anything for me and now you are just reminding me of what you didn't do. I killed myself to try to gain some kind of praise from you.""How dare you..." Andrew starts."How dare I? Really? Shut-up! You always doted on Caleb, but you never had any words of praise or affection for me. And now, I can put this part of my life behind me. I thought maybe you loved me, clearly you never did."She turns to her brother, "Thank you for being here for me." She pulls him into a hug. "Give me a call next time you are home for a visit. I'd love to see you. Maybe we can meet at Mom's house for Thanksgiving or Christmas.""That would be great Tris," Caleb replies smiling."Have a nice life Andrew, and thanks for nothing."Tris rushes out of the house that she grew up in, before the tears start to fall. Standing outside leaning on her car is Four waiting for her. She smiles a little when she sees him."What are you doing here?""I just thought you might need some kind of support when you left here. I had Zeke drop me off. He was going to see Zia, she had a new design for him to check out." He pulls her into a hug as her tears fall for the father that never really was.Together they drive to the tattoo parlor.