Darkness Within Light

Zak and I moved through the line at Spring Creek BBQ silently. I got brisket, peppered kielbasa, green beans and potato salad. As I filled my drink I glanced back at Zak and stifled a giggle. He’d gotten ribs, sausage, turkey breast, corn on the cob, green beans and a loaded baked potato, contributing to my Hulk theory. We found a booth by a window and dug in.

Zak chewed a rib clean and looked me over. “I have a question.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“But.. I don’t want you to freak out. I want you to know I’m expecting you to shoot me down on this.”

I narrowed my eyes and held my breath. I knew where this was going.

“Desiree, will you let me, Aaron, and Nick investigate the Shadow… if we approach it from your belief system? We would center the investigation around your church’s beliefs and around your past. We wouldn’t even mention it to Travel Channel unless you want us to after it’s all said and done.”

I sighed, “I’ll think about it, but for now… no.”

A curvy young waitress with a basket of fresh baked rolls flounced over to our table, oblivious to what she was interrupting. She flipped back her blonde hair and smiled at Zak.
“Another roll?”
He shrugged. I laughed as she delivered one from the basket to his plate; she was bending over way too far for the action, trying to allow him a clear visual for her cleavage. He turned beet red.

She stood back up and winked at him. “Anything else I can do for you, sweetie?”

His eyes grew wide and he just nodded to me, whom she hadn’t even acknowledged yet. She sighed and turned to me, frustrated at his lack of response to her flirting.

“What about you?” She threw a hip and gave me a “Go to hell” look.

I laughed. “I don’t need anymore bread. But actually, can I get two jars of sauce? We are in town visiting and I’d like to take some back with us.”

Their barbeque sauce is amazing.

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, sure.” Giving Zak one last sultry look, she stomped off.

I let out the laughter I’d been holding in. “Zak I shouldn’t go out with you in public anymore, it’s gonna get me shot.”

He took both my hands from across the table and sighed. “I’m really sorry about that. I-“

“Here you go,” the waitress slammed a paper bag down in between us, forcing us to jerk our hands back. She cocked a head at me, as if daring me to rebuke her for what she just purposefully did. “Ten dollars.”

I heard Zak suck in a breath, waiting for the drama. I looked at him and gave him a sweet smile, winking. I then turned back to the bitchy waitress and opened up my wallet.

“Thank you so much,” I handed her a twenty.

She yanked it out of my hand and started fishing around in her apron for change, but I stopped her and shook my head.

“No, honey, that’s for you.” Hell of a way to counteract a surly waitress, huh?

She mumbled a thank you and left us alone.

Zak breathed out and took one of my hand. “Again, I need to reiterate that this is not about the show. This is about you. That’s why we aren’t even going to bring it up to the network unless you say so… and only after we’ve done it.”

I barked a laugh. Zak blushed furiously.

“Done… the investigation. Completed it!”

I laughed, squeezed his hand and then returned to my food. “Like I said, I’ll think about it.”

No way.

In hell.

We continued to eat in silence.

Another waitress came by our table with a tray of bowls filled with ice cream. “Ya’ll ready for ice cream, yet?”

I grinned. “Oh yeah!”

Zak looked at her, then back at me. “Did you order this?”

The waitress giggled. “No, sweetheart, it’s complimentary on Sundays.”

I winked at him. “Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla. Don’t deprive yourself, Conan.”

He rolled his eyes at me and nodded to her. She set a bowl in front of each of us and left.

“Zak, I’ve been thinking.”

“Yeah?” he took a bite of his ice cream.

“We aren’t even dating but we’ve stayed over at each other’s houses and… played around.”

He set down his spoon. “Yeah?”

I sighed. I’d been chewing on this since Saturday morning. “We shouldn’t be doing that shit. It’s careless and cheapens things between us.”

"Is this because we went to church?"

"No! I've been thinking about it for a few days."

He thought on this for a moment, then he smiled at me. “Okay, no problem.”

I furrowed my brow at him. “You don't sound convinced.”

He shrugged. “I hadn’t thought about it like that, but it makes sense. Especially if we plan on anything happening in the future for us.”

That bowled me over. …Future… for US? What on earth has been going on in this man’s head?!

“So,” he continued, “I agree with you. We can tone down the physical as much as you want.”

“And no more sharing beds?”

“Well we didn’t share one last night…”

I smacked his hand. “That’s beyond the point!”

He laughed at me, and stood up to lean across the table. He put his hand on the back of my head and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “I know. Whatever you want is fine with me.”

I was flustered. “That’s not what I wanted to hear! I want you to be on the same page because as much as I suck with self-discipline, I need to know you’ll be able to hold me accountable.”

He smirked at me. “You may be regretting that request later, doll.”

I shoved my right hand in his face. “Shake on it.”

He let out a hearty laugh and nodded, shaking my hand. “Okay, okay! Deal. Scout’s honor.”

* * * * * *

Holly and Sadie greeted me as I walked in the front door. I hadn’t seen them since Friday morning, and obviously Holly was worried. She had been out when I came home to gather clothes for the trip.

“How was your date… that spanned several days and multiple states?”

I smiled at her. “Zak took me on a hiking trip and had packed a picnic dinner for me.”

“Awwww!”

“Then he took me back to his house…”

She raised an eyebrow at me. “Oh?”

I sighed. “Nothing happened!!!”

She smirked.

“Holly, we fell asleep on the couch watching a movie. I woke up in the middle of the night and decided to go sleep on a real bed, but I was attacked as soon as I laid down.”

Her eyes went wide. “The Shadow?”

I nodded.

“What happened?”

“It threw me again, and Zak gave me CPR.” I pulled up my shirt to show the bruise in the middle of my chest.

“Omigod,” Holly stood there for a moment, trying to decide what to do first. She walked to the kitchen, got out two shot glasses, then filled both with Maker’s Mark and downed one of them, setting the other one on the bar for me to take.

I smiled at her and threw back the shot. Good idea, woman.

She filled her glass up two more times, then put the bottle away and went and sat down on the couch, her head in her hands.

“So how does that end you up in Texas?”

“I told him I wanted to go to my old church, and he immediately bought us plane tickets. It was weird.”

“Did you share a hotel room?!”

I giggled. “He got us two separate rooms but he ended up staying in my room on the other bed because the Shadow kept messing with the TV, so I couldn’t sleep.”

“’Nothing happened’ then either, huh?”

“Give it a rest, will you?”

She smiled and got up. She began leafing through our DVD collection. “So how was church?”

“I saw Jade… her hair is now purple and red instead of orange and green.”

“Figures. But what about actual church?”

I dug around in my bag. “Steven brought it, and he brought it hard. It was a very simplistic message without any candy-coating… and the worship was hardcore.”

I pulled the two jars of barbeque sauce out of my bag. “And, I brought you something,” holding out one of them to her.

She squealed and clapped. “Gimme!”

I laughed at her as she ran to the kitchen. I dumped my clothes out of my bag into the washer and unpacked my toiletries. When I was done I went to the kitchen to get a beer from our refrigerator. I laughed at Holly's jar of barbeque sauce - it had "MINE" written on the lid.

I collapsed back on the couch, beer in hand.

“So what did Zak think about it?” Holly came around the corner into the living room with a concerned look on her face.

I shrugged. “I dunno. I may have scared him off.”

“It was that bad?”

I shook my head. “I don’t even know what his exact religious beliefs are anyway, Holly. He didn’t say anything, so I didn’t ask.”

She popped The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo into the DVD player and collapsed next to me on the couch, laying her head on my shoulder. “Smart woman.”

* * * * * *

“Desiree, hurry up!” Holly banged on my bedroom door.

“I know, I know,” I grumbled. It had been three weeks since my trip to Dallas. Holly, Veronique and I had a shopping date.

I was grouchy because I’d only talked to Zak once or twice since we got back in town. The guys surprisingly didn’t have to travel during those two weeks, but he still was keeping his distance. I hope I didn’t ruin whatever I thought we might have had because of that weekend. I’d been back in my antisocial mode more or less, but Holly and Veronique were determined to shake me loose of it.

“DES! Are you SERIOUS?!” Holly is much better at time management than I am… and she does NOT like to be kept waiting for anything.

“Alright! Damn!” I had been fussing over what to wear. I’ve been losing more weight and couldn’t find a pair of jeans that weren’t falling off of me. I knew we were going to be trying on clothes and the last thing I wanted to deal with was adding a belt to the dressing-room process.
I snagged a pair of jeans – size 6 – from my closet and pulled them on. I sighed. It’d do. I pulled on a black Demon Hunter (the band) T-shirt and stepped into my black studded flats. I ran to my bathroom and quickly dusted my face with foundation and blush and drew a thick line of black eyeliner over my eyes. I did a quick once over and more or less was okay with what I saw in the mirror. I dabbed on some brownish pink lipstick and ran out of the room, nearly crashing into Holly in the hallway.

“Took you long enough!” She had been pacing back and forth, already holding our purses, ready to bolt when I was.

I took my purse from her and gassed myself up with Ed Hardy before heading out the door.

We piled into her baby – a Mazdaspeed 3 that is currently panels of primer gray and white – and raced out of the apartment community. Ten very illegally driven minutes later, we screeched to a halt in front of Nick and Veronique’s house. Only then did Holly slow down enough to look me over.

“What on earth are you wearing?”

I looked down. My jeans were ripped, my shirt had a cow skull with demon horns on it and cross hairs over it, and my shoes had spikes across the tops of them. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”

She rolled her eyes. “I love you, crazy girl,” she sighed, getting out of the car. “Come on.”
We walked up the sidewalk and rang their front door. We were only there maybe 3 seconds when the door was yanked open.

Zak stood in the doorway.

“Is V ready?” Holly asked, walking right past him.

I blushed and looked at my feet, skittering past him and trailing Holly into their home, but Zak snagged my elbow. "Hey," he whispered, smiling awkwardly at me.

“We’re ready!” Veronique came down the stairs holding Annabelle. I’d never met this child before and felt instantly self-conscious. I didn't realize we were bringing the baby with us.

So THIS is why Holly was asking about my shirt. It’s scary looking if you don’t know what it is!

Veronique smiled at me. “Annabelle, this is Desiree.”

I squatted down on the floor and mouthed to V “Is my shirt okay?” She nodded and winked as she set Annabelle on the floor.

I turned my attention to the baby and cooed, “Hey, sweetheart. I’m Desiree.”

She crawled towards me and I met her halfway, scooping her up in my arms. She smiled and pulled at one of my curls dangling in front of my eyes.

Oww… I just smiled and talked to her quietly. “You are such a pretty girl. Do you want to go shopping with us today?”

Holly came up beside me and we transferred the baby.

“Hang on, just gotta make sure I’ve got everything,” Veronique said, walking towards what I assume is Annabelle’s room.

I smiled. Babies are awesome.

Especially when they aren’t mine.

I felt a hand on my back. Oh, oops. Zak was towering over me, studying the logo on my shirt.

“What are you doing here, Zak?"

“What do you mean?”

“We’ve only talked maybe twice in the past month.”

He put his hand at the small of my back and led me into their living room to sit down. “Well I came over to help Nick play mechanic.”

I eyeballed his clean hands. “Oh really?”

He grinned. “I found out you and Holly were coming over to pick up V, so I figured I’d wait for you to get here first.”

”Okay.” I took a deep breath and started in on what was chewing at my sanity.

“Listen, Zak… I’m sorry if the church thing was too intense. I’m sorry if I killed whatever we have going on because I put my foot down on some things…” Actually, no. I wasn’t sorry about any of it, but I assumed that was why he was so distant. “I just was kind of surprised.”

He chuckled and took my hand in his. “I wasn’t scared off. I figured you needed to sort your own self out for a while and I didn’t want to distract you.”

“Why did you think that?”

He deflated a bit. “Because that’s how I felt after we got back.”

Oh. I smiled at him. I still wasn’t going to push on him regarding visiting that church with me. I know how fragile that situation is and I wasn’t about to let it crumble. “Okay, that’s cool.”

He winked at me. “You know, you can always text or call me. I haven’t been avoiding you that badly, I would have responded or met up with you.”

I laughed and stuck my nose up in the air. “Not my job, kind sir. You want it, you chase it. Call me old-fashioned.”

He grinned and lifted my hand to his mouth and pressed a hard kiss to my palm. “Why yes, milady, of course! I’ll keep that in mind next time,” he winked.

“Is there a reason you two are speaking in really piss-poor English accents?” Holly announced her presence in the room.

We both laughed and looked at each other, blushing.

She sighed and picked up her purse and her keys. “Nothing worse than a Vegas boy and a damn Texan trying to sound British.”

“I’ll say,” said Nick, coming in from the garage. His jeans and his shirt were filthy and grease covered from his hands to his elbows. “Zak, are you ready? I can’t install this without you dude.”

Zak winked at me and stood up. “On my way, boss.” He placed a quick peck on my forehead and headed through the kitchen towards where Nick disappeared. “You girls have fun!”

“We will,” Veronique called, coming back in. She was carrying a diaper bag and a car seat.

We piled into Holly’s car. As we pulled out of the driveway Nick and Zak came out to wave us off. I watched them until we turned a corner and they disappeared from sight.

I couldn’t help but wonder what the facial expression on Zak's face meant. It looked compassionate... and almost painful.