Page 8 of Blackout

We had started a staring contest, and I wondered if this was what it was like to let your guard down. I felt comfortable here in this bartender’s company. Just before the silence turned awkward, I said, ‘Because it was just too painful to come back here.’ My words were more to myself as they had faded under the noise from his mobile phone. But as I watched his beautiful face, I realised he’d heard me. Something that, I didn’t doubt, would be brought back up later.

Our conversation ended there. It was a bit hard to continue as the sound of his ring tone filled the hotel room.

‘Do you need to get that?’ I asked, and by the look on his face, his phone demanded all of his attention. I stood, collected my things from the kitchen table and moved towards the door.

While he was still drawn to his phone, I reached for the hotel room’s door handle. It clicked as I opened it. But it closed as soon as it was opened. His hand had reached over me just above my shoulder and rested on the now-closed door.

‘Not so fast.’ His voice was like a caress.

I turned around, and all I could see was black. He hadn’t moved away, but stood so close. My body tensed then relaxed into the wall of muscle around me. Neither one of us moved, so I took this moment to take in his aroma of coffee and cedar. He smelled so good my heart skipped a beat and my breath quickened.

I melted inside from how close he was to me. The last wall of muscle that had stood this close had smelled of bourbon and cedar. That man had curled his fingers over my hip and helped me catch my breath. He was the only one man who had ever stood close to me and made me feel calm. I wondered that if the bartender now reached for my hip while we stood this close, would I feel the same heat I’d felt that night five years ago? If I imagined this man without the beginnings of a beard and his hair a little longer, would they be the same man?

As if he could read my mind, he stepped back, and I leaned up against the door. My head tilted back as I looked into his brown eyes. ‘You’re busy. I should go.’ I was breathless at how close we still were.

‘Stay with me.’ He said my whispered words back to me. His eyebrows knitted together when his forehead creased, but I still couldn’t read the expression on his face.

I stared blankly at him. His hand was gone from the door.

‘I’m sorry, please don’t go.’ His deep voice was like silk as it wrapped around me.

There was a fleeting silence. His expression hadn’t changed, but he offered a brief explanation. ‘Work is always busy, and I’m always needed. But today is my day off. I have plans, and it seems I am late for them.’ His lips curled upwards in an irresistible smile, and I looked away as a flush heated my face.

There was a small lift of my lips as thoughts raced through my mind. Did he just invite me to spend the rest of the day with him?

His thumb slowly tilted my face for our eyes to meet, and the answer was right there in his eyes. ‘Come with me,’ his lips whispered, a mere inch from mine.

‘Wait,’ I exclaimed. What was this? I questioned myself. You don’t even know this man in black, but there is something about him that seemed familiar. Is it just that he makes me feel calm? ‘I don’t even know you,’ I said quietly, and I wondered if he’d heard me.

‘I’m your cute bartender.’ He had caught on that I’d called him cute earlier. ‘But you can call me Zach.’

‘Zach.’ His name rolled off my lips, and I wondered how the mere mention of his name could make my body tingle.

Zach’s lips twitched at the sound of his name. And in that moment, I was reminded of the boy I had once lived next door to. I hit pause. Was this man that boy? He couldn’t be.

When I pressed my lips together, I hoped I didn’t falter when I said, ‘And you can call your drunk, passed-out damsel in distress Harley.’

Zach tried to keep a straight face but I saw the cheekiness of his lips as they curled further upwards. Then he stepped forward and, in my ear, he whispered, ‘Can we go now? My friends are waiting for me.’

All I could manage was a nod of my head as I felt my body light on fire from his lips so close to my ear. I was caught up in the whirlwind this day was turning out to be. Neither Zach nor I confessed to the possibility of knowing each other. I didn’t blame him. He had somewhere to be, and I wasn’t quite ready to walk down memory lane just yet.

Three

Before I knew it, my hand was in his as Zach had led me away from The Diamond Hotel to a four-wheel drive parked outside the front doors of Black’s Bar and Grill. The first thing that stole my attention was that the vehicle was just like him. Black. The paint, the tint, the wheels. All black. Even the number plate spelled BLK.

I wondered if the number plate was because of the truck’s colour, or any reference to his name or the business we were standing outside of. Zach Black, Zach Black. I rolled his name over in my mind, closed my eyes and let the memories I had of a younger Zach come to mind. He had been a cool seventeen-year-old teenager I thought would never look twice at me. When my family had moved in next to his, it had been his last year of high school, and our sisters, being the same age, had become good friends. My interest in Zach had grown the same way his interest in me had grown slowly over that year.

But our relationship had been short lived. All we had done since the day I’d knocked on his door to collect my sister was talk in the quiet spot down the side of his house. I’d kissed Zach a few weeks later and that had now been almost ten years ago. It was the first kiss of many that I’d hoped we would share when I told him I would be back two weeks later at the end of the school holidays. But because life had thrown me the biggest curve ball, I’d never returned.

I knew there was a lot I needed to explain to the man who had just introduced himself as Zach if indeed he was my old next-door neighbour. Because if he was, then I was in so much trouble. I had kissed him and taken his heart with me when I walked away and never came back. I also hadn’t told Zach how much I’d liked him. And after everything in my life changed, I’d never found a way to communicate with Zach. My chance to tell him how I felt had slipped away.

But I had to ask myself that even after all this time had passed, was I really ready to open old wounds? To be honest about the younger versions of ourselves and reveal the truth of everything that had happened since I’d been gone?

I was at the passenger door and wondered if I needed a step ladder just to get in, the truck was that far off the ground. But before I could grab the door handle, Zach was beside me to open the door and hold my hand to help me in.

I was shotgun in this beautiful truck and about to leave the safety of the hotel, where my car was still parked with my belongings inside, to head God only knew where. I should have insisted I follow him in my car, but that wasn’t what was on my mind.

I was consumed by the man next to me. This was his world and I wanted to ask about the number plate, and about the easiness I felt between us. I wanted to know more, and I wondered if my suspicions about Zach were correct, but chickened out instead of asking him.