Content warning: Sex
Surprisingly, or maybe not, the sound of people being lightly slammed against a door didn't bother any of the guys outside. Or maybe they didn't hear it above the sound of their own partying.
Zack stepped back slowly. "Is this a joke?"
"Kind of," I said. "I'm supposed to be the stripper."
"Oh. Oh." He eventually backed into the bed and sat on it. Then he started to laugh. "Oh, God. It's been a weird day."
Not the reaction I was looking for. "Are you okay?"
"Yes, yes, I..." Zack dropped his head into his hands, and kept it there for what seemed like a really long time. His shoulders shook softly. I couldn't tell if he was laughing or—
Crying? I stepped toward him, tentatively.
He straightened up, shaking his head. "I'm fine, I'm fine."
Not crying. But he looked tired. Even the flattering dim lights didn't hide his bloodshot eyes.
That wasn't the way an excited groom-to-be was supposed to look, right?
I might have a chance. I dropped to the floor in front of him. "Can we talk now?"
It took a while for his eyes to fix on me. First they scanned the room, taking in the bed, the window, the locked door, the condoms on the nightstand...
"What are you even doing here?" he asked flatly.
"You wouldn't agree to meet me."
"So you decide to crash my bachelor party?"
"Would you have met me? Even if I begged?"
"No," Zack confessed. "I wouldn't have."
"Why not?"
"What did you want to talk about?"
I couldn't believe he was still trying to be evasive. "Zack, you're stuck here. Those guys outside think you're with a stripper. You might as well tell me everything."
"Jas," he said, extending the "s" like a sigh, "I don't know where to start."
Don't be confrontational. Don't make it about you.
I summed up all my maturity and tried to think of what to say. Marjorie wanted me to give him a reason to leave Kimmy, but I couldn't just spring that on him. Not if he actually loves her. I have to look out for his happiness first. Right?
"Do you love her?" I was afraid of his answer.
Long pause. "She's all right."
I was relieved, and offended, at the same time. "That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard you say. Why didn't you tell your family about her? Why didn't you tell me? "
"I was going to," he said, a tad defensive. "But then you broke up with Tim, and I couldn't."
"For months, you couldn't mention her at all? Not even to your brother?"
"This isn't about my brother or anyone else."
I probably shouldn't have mentioned that, because I could see Zack's privacy issues start to kick in.
"What's he doing talking about me behind my back?"
"Well you can't exactly blame him. He's worried about you. Everyone I know is worried about you. I don't understand. We were fine months ago, and then you disappeared."
"We made a deal," he said, so softly that I barely heard it.
"You what?"
"Kimmy and I. We had a deal. She would stop her habits, and I would stop seeing you."
I didn't need another reason to hate her. "Why would she ask you to do that? She doesn't even know me!"
"Please, get off the floor. That's got to be uncomfortable."
"No," I started to say, but that moment wasn't the time to be defiant. I let him pull me up, and sat beside him on the bed. The soft mattress dipped under our weight.
He didn't let go of my hand. The feel of his fingers tentatively finding comfortable positions in mine distracted me.
It's hard to describe what it was like, being that close to him for the first time. There was Zack—and then there was my imaginary ex Zack, the one I'd already kissed and touched and been various kinds of intimate with. It was like the real and pretend were merging, and I wasn't exactly sure what was happening.
"She asked you to stop seeing me? Forever?" I whispered. He was so close.
"Yes. I thought she was being unreasonable. You should at least be at our wedding. You got an invitation." His hand found its place against my palm and pushed forward, fingers interlacing.
"Which was taken back a few days ago," I reminded him.
"I know. It was my idea."
"You sent Kimmy to my office to disinvite me from your wedding?"
"I didn't know how she was going to do it, but I couldn't have you there. I wouldn't be able to go through with it if you were."
"Zack, this is messed up. If you still aren't sure about marrying her, why did you ask her in the first place?" I couldn't wrap my head around what he was saying.
His hand gripped mine fiercely. "I didn't want to wait for you anymore."
"But I'm just here," I said softly, frowning.
"Yes, but never—" His voice started to trail off, and he didn't continue. "It doesn't matter now." Zack was shutting down, as he always did when anything private was brought up.
Well I wasn't going to let it happen now. "But what?" I demanded.
"But nothing. It doesn't matter."
"The hell it doesn't!" I cried. "Is this my fault? What did I do? When was I ever not there for you?"
"You were always there, Jas, I didn't say you weren't!" he protested.
"Then say what you mean, Zachary, I'm fucking tired of guessing."
"Shit, Jasmine. I didn't think you were this dense," he said, frustrated. "I've been waiting for you to fall in love with me for a long time. But six months ago, I finally gave up."
"Why did you give up?" My voice came out small, not indignant—but my heart pounded loudly against my chest.
"You were apart from that ex of yours for months and you didn't respond to anything I did. I didn't want to be your rebound guy. I was there, and didn't push. I thought I'd wait until you were ready. Then I figured that you were never going to see me any other way."
He's right. My brain was all fired up, memories triggered by the simplest word. I had never thought of Zack as anything more, because I never thought he wanted to be anything more to me.
But that argument went around in circles.
He wanted me. I wanted him.
The truth was hard to get used to.
"You never said anything," I said, in my defense.
There was no need for me to be defensive, because he wasn't angry. He seemed way past anger and was instead closer to acceptance. "I didn't want to ruin it. I guess you were the closest thing I had to a best friend."
"I don't have anyone else either," I told him.
"I didn't want to scare you off."
"Why didn't you think I felt the same way?"
"Because you...you just let me be with other people. You didn't care who I dated."
"You chose to be with them! I wasn't going to get in your way! You let me stay with Tim for three years!"
"Are you kidding me? Is that how you remember it?" He didn't raise his voice at me, but the bile hurt. "I hated that guy from the start and I never lied about it. I let you stay with him because you kept choosing to go back. Even when I was there the whole time."
"Don't put this on me! You were with another girl the entire time that was happening! And you didn't even tell me about Kimmy!"
"Kimmy and I were just going out," Zack said. "I didn't intend to let it get this far."
What a fucking understatement. "Wow, that's a surprise. Because suddenly getting a wedding invitation? That's taking it too far. That really, really hurt."
"I didn't hear you protest when you got it."
"Did you want me to? Were you trying to provoke me?"
"Yes," he said slowly, as if realizing something for the first time. And then, more pointedly: "Yes. Deep down, I guess I was hoping for a reaction—anything—from you. But I didn't get anything. Kimmy isn't as bad as people think she is. I would have made it work if I had to."
"Well, this is my reaction. It's delayed, but you're getting it. You're a jerk." My hand balled into a fist and I aimed it pitifully at his chest. "When I got that invitation? I wanted to tear it to shreds. And shove it down your throat. I hated that you were getting married, hated that I didn't even know who she was until that night, hated that you didn't even bother to tell me yourself. I thought it was a good thing you disappeared from my life because I would kill you the next time I saw you."
Hitting him—however limply—was strangely cathartic. The huge knot (nerves? tears? pain?) that had formed in my chest started to loosen, and I had to hold back my hand to keep from doing it again.
"But now I know why I hated you so much then. I didn't realize it before but now I know," I said quietly. "Zack, I love you."
He blinked at me. And then swore in several languages, pushing himself off the bed. "Jasmine, you better not be playing me."
"I just opened up my soul to you and that's what you say?!"
"You don't know how much I've wanted to hear you tell me that."
I grabbed his hand and pulled him closer. Standing, he towered above me. "I love you."
I didn't realize how much I had hurt him, all those years of not knowing how he felt. My hands tightened around his, but he was adamantly—defensively—unresponsive.
Except his eyes, which were boring into mine, pleading. "Don't joke about this, Jasmine. I'm about to cross a line here. Don't say something now that you'll want to take back tomorrow."
"I love you, Zack." I repeated, with more conviction.
His mouth captured mine in a kiss. It was not at all gentle—it was forceful, hungry, the kind of kiss that had been waiting nine years to happen.
How we ended up on the bed is a matter of debate. I remember grabbing handfuls of his shirt and pulling him down, falling back on the bed. He remembers lunging at me, and that he had gotten the white tee over my head even as we landed on the center of the mattress. He claims that I should have been kinder to his shirt instead of ripping it off. I maintain that if I could have been kinder that night it would have been to his upper back, which I may have dug my fingers into a little too deeply.
His tongue and hands had their own agenda, exploring my collarbone, the hollow of my neck, my breasts, the curve of my waist. His breath on my skin alone trumped anything we had made up in our canon—this was real, and I felt stupid for having relied on a made-up version for so long.
His scent was embarrassingly familiar—I remembered all the times I met him right after he had showered, every time I sat next to him in the car, every friendly embrace we shared. How could I have ignored it then, and yet couldn't seem to get enough now? I hungrily pressed my lips to the skin on his shoulders. His hands gently caressed my face, then I started to float back to reality when I realized that he was talking to me.
"....sex with Tim?" he was saying.
"Don't stop," I managed to stammer.
"I said, did you ever have sex with him?"
"I don't think that we should be talking about—"
"I just need to know if you've done this before."
"Shit, you should have asked. Yes. Does it matter?"
"I need to know how gentle I should be."
I snapped out of my stupor and rolled my eyes. "We've been waiting for this for nine years, Zachary. How gentle do you think you should be?"
He laughed. "Finally, we're on the same page about something."
I sank back into the bed, waiting as he picked one from the pile and did the responsible thing. Light from outside helped me see him, finally, see the various changes that the years had done on his body. All good things. My fingers were drawn to him; I reached forward and touched his abs, traced up and around a rib. "What was our first time like, Zack?"
"You mean the one that isn't now?"
"Yeah."
"It was perfect." He dropped to his elbows, bare skin on mine. The touch was cool for just long enough for us to both gasp, and then it felt warm, and warmer. "It was perfect. It was the first time for both of us but it wasn't awkward at all. I made you come twenty times. You said you were never going to want to do it with anyone else."
"Wow." I started giggling. "That's great. I'm so happy for imaginary me."
"You think I would have given you anything less? I'm the best version of myself in our canon, Jas."
No, he was already the best as himself. I mean, he wasn't perfect, and I wasn't perfect, and it was obvious that no perfect person would ever get into this mess we had made. But I understood him.
And he loved me.
For a second there I stopped giggling, and began to understand what was happening. This was real, for once. This was almost a decade of something and it was true now. Our eyes met, and I knew he was thinking the same thing. And he thrust into me, finally, and it was our first time. A real first time. We were catching up to the relationship we had created and it felt great, like finally everything made sense.
His hips moved, and I challenged his pace. And wow he was right, it wasn't awkward. It was desperate, it was all tingly tension, everything I craved for and in the best way. Why did we wait to do this? It was perfect pressure, perfect timing, bodies communicating what we needed. Responding, giving. I couldn't get enough. I came as he pressed kisses against my face, then again with my cheek against the sheets. I was above him, when his release caught up with him. My hands were in his hair. I felt it happen to him, here, and now.
All of it was real.