Troublemaker

Nick sat down in the master chair of the living room and stared into the early sunset of the awful day through the window. His head pounded, his heart raced, and he felt like puking.

He took himself into the kitchen, all the while thinking ‘why him?’ Every female he meets, he does this, always too damn fast.

He chugged down a quarter of a bottle of Jack Daniel’s before deciding to call off women all together. Right then and there, he thought, would be the last time he thought of another female unless it was to get them in the sack.

After another chug or two, he thought about Zoe’s body, her laugh, how she wrinkles her nose every time she tries to lie. He chuckled at the thought of how cute she is, but then stopped himself. No more females.

His phone rang loudly to him and he pulled it out of his pocket. He threw the phone down into the trash bin and continued to drink while he walked out on to his deck. He sat down in the white Adirondack chair and looked out onto the massive yard.

His thoughts had become irrational because the only thing he could think in that moment was how he wanted to shoot a gun into the sky and yell random things. He giggled at how Southern country boy that sounded, and knew he would have never thought of that until he met Zoe.

Nick smacked himself, hard, for thinking about her and downed the rest of the bottle of booze. He went inside for another and went on like this all through the night.

Joanna’s plans were coming through clearly; she had thought of them every moment since she had left Zoe’s house. She didn’t mind that Zoe had been a hermit since the incident four days ago, the hours at work were great, but she didn’t have time for the plan.

Meaghan was clueless to the plan, but knew her sister well enough to know that she’s up to something. On their weekly night out together, they talked about the plan, and how it was going to be executed. Jo had everything set up.

“I’m going to call him, get him to come out with me, tell him I need manly help with something and Josh is out of town.” Jo’s husband Josh wouldn’t be out of town though, hell, he hardly even gets off the couch except to work.

“Okay, and?” Meaghan was confused, as Meaghan usually was.

“You get Zoe and bring her to the same place, boom, and instantaneous love again. It’ll be smoother when we execute it but that’s all in the details. They shook on it and continued their game of darts in the small bar.

Zoe was in bed, like she had been for the past four days, except to eat from time to time. When she closed her eyes, all she saw was him, so she hardly slept. She thought over and over again how much smoother that night could have gone. She mulled over small details of how the wedding would have went after a year of wearing the ring then finally just doing the deed.

She didn’t even care about his mom anymore; his mom could fall of the face of the earth for all Zoe cared.

A knock at the door stirred her and her stomach flipped at the thought of it being Nick. Since she hadn’t eaten since yesterday at lunch (because Meaghan forced her too), the flip almost made her throw up.

When she reached the door, though, it was Meaghan again and she was happy to see a good friend, even though it wasn’t the friend she wanted to see.

“What are you doing?” Zoe asked her.

“Just saying hey and I wanted to see if you’d want to get some lunch?” Meaghan took a seat on a bar stool and stared at friend until an answer was heard.

Zoe mulled it over in her head, not really wanting to get out, but she was really hungry and Meaghan always a good new place to eat. “Yeah, give me time to shower?”

Meaghan pinched her nose shut, “Gladly.” They both giggled and Zoe took herself to the bathroom. As the steam built and the water grew hotter, her tension seemed to be released. She took in the hot water, trying not to think about anything.

Several miles away, Joanna was working her magic with Nick.

“Come on, I really need help with this, I’ll buy your lunch!” She smiled so big, she thought her cheeks were going to break.

“I told you, no, I have a million things to do.” Nick shot back.

“Like what?” Jo wasn’t buying it, she had had enough of this stupid shit and she wanted to see her friends acting normal again.

“Just…things. Look, just leave me alone, I don’t want to do anything!” Nick slammed his fist down on the desk in front of him and Jo knew just what to do now.

“Okay…” She perked her chest out and leaned over the desk he was standing behind. “I guess I’ll just go and try to pick this stuff up by myself, I hope I don’t get hurt.” She saw the usual look that men get when they see her chest poked out and he crumpled, mentally, in front of her.

“Okay, can’t have you getting hurt.” Nick grabbed his jacket and they left in Jo’s car.

“So what do you want to eat?” Meaghan asked Zoe. Zoe thought she was acting very fidgety, but Meaghan was Meaghan and there is no telling why she was acting that way.

“This looks good.” Zoe pointed to a random something on the menu, not paying attention. Meaghan had made sure to sit in the back of the restaurant, with Zoe facing the back wall. They sat for a long time and Zoe began wondering what was taking so long. “Where’s our waitress? I’m hungry.”

“Oh, she looks really busy.” Meaghan said before sipping on her drink. Zoe just shook her head slowly. She looked at her phone out of habit, waiting to see if something had changed, she supposed.

But there was no change, not in the past few days. Only a text message from the girls and Chase from time to time, to see if she was okay. She never really saw Chase much anymore, but she attributed that to not going to work for the longest time.

“Oh, hey look, it’s Jo!” Meaghan smiled and waved. Zoe turned to see her and did a small wave.

“Why do I feel like something is planned here?” Zoe asked.

“Ladies.” Jo said and sat down. Shortly after she sat, Nick came up behind them.

He almost turned away, but he still had to help Jo do whatever it is that Jo’s do. He sat down beside Meaghan, across from Zoe and looked into her eyes. His emotion never changed as he said ‘hey.’

“Hi.” Was all Zoe could spit out in that moment.