All I Have to Give

“The three of them are already drinking so they said no to the movie,” Zacky said as he came back into my apartment.

“I guess we’ll do it some other time then,” I said with a shrug.

“Unless you want to go with just me, like as a date.” I froze in place and looked over at him. He ran his fingers through his hair, a nervous habit of his.

“Oh umm…” Why couldn’t I form a sentence? It was like my brain and my mouth weren’t connected anymore. There were a million thoughts racing through my mind. I knew this moment was coming eventually, but I wasn’t sure that I was ready.

“Just forget I asked. I’m gonna go home now,” Zacky said. Shit, I must’ve stood there staring and gaping like an idiot for longer than I thought. I watched as he walked out of my apartment and closed the door behind him. What now?

My feet started moving before the thought had fully formed in my brain. I flew through the apartment door, letting it slam behind me. Zacky wasn’t in the hallway, which meant he was on the elevator. I broke into a run, quickly moving down the hall to the stairwell. I barrelled down the four flights of stairs two steps at a time. As I burst through the lobby doors and looked around for him, I groaned when I spotted him on the other side of the parking lot. He was almost to his car.

“Zacky!” I yelled, but I was so out of breath it wasn’t loud enough. I broke into a run again, converse clad feet slapping against the pavement.

“Z, wait!” I had cleared half the distance between us and he finally heard me. He shut his door to wait and I slowed to a walk.

“Did you run the whole way?” Zacky asked when I finally reached him and bent over with my hands on my knees. I couldn’t catch my breath enough to speak so I settled for nodding.

After a few moments, I finally got my breathing back under control and stood up straight. “You can come back and pick me up at seven.”

It was Zacky’s turn to silently stare at me like I’d sprouted a second head. “What?” he finally managed to force out.

“For our date. Pick me up at seven.”

“Okay,” he said and I turned without another word and headed back towards my apartment building. I couldn’t believe this was actually happening. There was no turning back after this.

-x-

I checked myself over in the mirror for what seemed like the thousandth time in the last ten minutes. A sudden knock on the door made my heart leap in my chest. I took a deep breath to steady myself and made my way to the door. I opened it to reveal Zacky wearing a black Jack Daniels t-shirt, dark jeans, and a smile that was different from any I had seen before.

“Hey,” I said shyly and stepped into the hallway, locking the door behind me. Zacky pulled me into a quick hug and then left one hand on the small of my back as we walked toward the elevator.

“I want to say I’m sorry in advance in case I say something absolutely stupid tonight. I’m fucking nervous,” Zacky said. He reached over and pushed the call button on the elevator, the doors opened immediately.

“Z, there’s no reason for that. We’ve went out together plenty of times.” I reached over and took his hand in mine, squeezing gently.

“This is different, that is different,” he said, gesturing with his free hand to where I was holding his other hand.

“We won’t be able to know if this works or not if we’re both too nervous. We need to calm down now.”

“You’re nervous too?” He looked shocked, apparently I was hiding it better than I thought.

“Fuck yeah, I checked the mirror like fifty-five times to make sure I looked okay. I spent the first fifteen minutes after I left you in the parking lot pacing back and forth across the living room.”

“You look way more than okay. You’re beautiful, Mellie,” Zacky said and I felt my cheeks flush red.

The elevator doors opened and we stepped into the lobby. Zacky didn’t let go of my hand as he led me outside to his car. I was surprised when he opened my door for me. He never really had many girlfriends in the time I’d known him, so I had no idea what to expect from him. The car ride was filled with small talk, both of us trying to get over our nervousness. He pulled into the theater parking lot, rambling on about some horror movie he wanted to see. I agreed, I didn’t like horror movies, but they didn’t usually scare me so I thought I would be good to sit through it for him.

We walked inside and ordered a large tub of popcorn and two drinks and made our way to our seats. The movie started and it was a little cheesy, but it seemed to have a decent story line. When the bad guy jumped the girl to make his first kill, I almost fell out of my chair. He had come out of nowhere! The next time, I grabbed Zacky’s hand. When he felt me jerk the third time he chuckled and wrapped his arm around my shoulder. I leaned against him and couldn’t deny how nice it felt.

“Okay this got really stupid really fast,” I tilted my head up to say after the guy started collecting his victims blood in jars.

I realized how close our faces were when he looked down at me. He slowly brought his lips to mine and I melted against him. It was a lingering, gentle kiss only broken when the old lady sitting behind us made an annoyed noise. He pulled away, laughing.

“Do you want to get out of here?” he asked and I nodded.

“Where to now?” I asked, smiling when Zacky’s arm found its way around my shoulders again. I wrapped my right arm around his waist and leaned against him. It didn’t feel awkward like I thought it would to be here with him. Once we both finally allowed ourselves to enjoy it, it all came naturally.

“We can go to the beach, it should be deserted by now.”

“Sounds good to me!” We got back into his car and he drove us to the beach. The moon was full, giving us a decent view of the water for nighttime. We left our shoes in Zacky’s car, rolled up our jeans, and went to walk in the edge of the water. It was so peaceful. Nothing to focus on but the sound of the waves crashing against the shore and the feeling of Zacky’s hand in mine.

“It kinda feels like we should’ve been doing this a long time ago,” I finally said.

“To be fair, I did put myself out there a long time ago,” Zacky pointed out. I bumped my shoulder against his and laughed when he almost lost his balance.

“I know, Z. Sometimes I wish things would have gone differently back then. Dating Johnny was the biggest mistake of my life.” I kicked at the sand.

“You have no idea how much I wanted to kick his ass every single day after he started talking to that girl. It killed me to know what it was going to do to you when you found out,” Zacky said. His words made me pull my hand out of his and take a step back.

“Why didn’t you tell me before I came back? I could have known what I was up against instead of just having to guess.”

“I thought I didn’t tell you simply because he deserved to be the one to tell you. Now I think I was just being selfish. I didn’t want to be the one to hurt you.” He reached for my hand again but I turned and walked away. I didn’t want to be mad at him. I needed a few moments to collect myself.
“Damn it, Melanie don’t walk away. I’m sorry!” I quickly spun around to face and put my hands on his chest.

“I believe you, but I just can’t understand why you’d keep something that big from me,” I said.

Zacky looked down at me and took a deep breath. “Because I’m a fucking idiot, that’s why. I was letting what I wanted get in the way of what was best. You deserved to know as soon as I had even a suspicion.”

“What you wanted?”

“I was afraid that if you knew then you wouldn’t have come back and I didn’t want that to happen. I love you, Melanie, I always have. I know you don’t feel the same way about me, but I hope you can understand. It would be like ripping my own heart out if something I said kept you from coming home.”

“You’re right, I don’t love you like that. To be honest, I’m really not sure what my feelings for you are, but I think I’m ready to figure them out. Even though it scares the shit out of me, I want to see what can happen between us. Life is too short to not take chances.”

Zacky reached up and brushed my hair behind my ear, letting his fingertips linger on my cheek. “Next time don’t lead with I don’t love you like that,” he said quietly.

“Sorry,” I barely had time to whisper before his lips were on mine.