Together Apart: Change is Never Easy by Maxxwell Lexi

Author:Maxxwell, Lexi [Maxxwell, Lexi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sterling & Stone
Published: 2014-09-29T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

Three Years Ago

Zach’s arms circled her waist, breath at the back of her neck. He kept giving Sam small kisses. It was sweet, but making her research more difficult.

They were standing in the apartment’s second bedroom, which had become Sam’s at-home office, both with their backs to the door. The floor’s carpet was soft, so Zach’s approach was silent. Her head had been down, hands shuffling through yet another of her desk piles. Sam hated piles because they made things more stressful, which she didn’t need on top of an already stressful few weeks. Sam’s work wasn’t any greater because her paperwork was out in the open, but she was definitely more aware of her undone to-do’s. Zach’s workspace was neat by comparison. He never brought work home, so his entire job fit into the picture-book-sized space required by his laptop. And closet-sized studio they had the audacity to call a third bedroom — Zach hadn’t been using it much, so even the one room with tacit permission to be as disorderly as it wanted was almost spic and span. They had traded places. Sam was now the eccentric pile-maker, and Zach the pro who always dropped his work shirts into the hamper and never left paint smeared on the couch.

“So, how are things with you?” he asked, whispering in her ear.

“Nuts,” Sam said. “My boss promoted me. You know how that works at newspapers, right?”

“More work but no more pay?”

“You got it.” She picked up one of the piles, then riffled its edges like a flip book. The Xerox she was looking for didn’t manifest, and no bunnies animated in small drawings at the corner — terrible, so far as flipping experiences went.

“Well, congratulations anyway,” Zach said, hugging her tighter. “What’s your new title?”

“Promotions also don’t come with a new title.”

“So how is it a promotion?”

Sam pulled free from Zach’s arms and turned around. He stood behind her in a blue button-up with the collar open and a bright-white tee beneath. He wore khaki slacks and brown shoes. Only his hair still had the wild, unashamed look she’d always known.

“Like this,” she said, shoving the stack toward him. “‘I promote this load of crap onto your plate.’” He took the papers when they struck his chest. Then, with her empty hands, she took hold of his upper arms, leaned forward, and pecked him on the lips, one high-heeled foot kicking up behind her like something from a ‘50s caricature.

“I’m home,” he said.

“I see that. Did you have fun?”

“Not particularly. Want me to start dinner?”

She smiled, looking back up from her annoyed search, renewed the second after she had asked her perfunctory question. He was so cute. If they were doing a Ward and June Cleaver, Zach would have stepped right into the June role rather than being a chauvinist asshole. It was the sort of small thing she tried to appreciate, though she probably took too much about Zach for granted.

“No. Order a pizza.”

“I don’t mind.”

“I do.” She let some of her building stress die and feather to her feet like a discarded garment.

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