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If asked, Taz could only have described the handful of days that sat between Taz and Zoe rekindling their relationship and Ethan going home as tortuous. While Taz liked Ethan, finding him to have inherited many of the qualities that he had admired about Ivy but none of the ones that had made the Carlyle sisters butt heads on a daily basis, but all that Taz really wanted to do was reacquaint himself with Zoe's bare skin. While it wasn't enough to make him harbor any resentment towards the boy, Taz couldn't help feeling impatient as nervous, untapped energy began to build inside him, becoming worse with every passing day.
Of course, the smart thing would have been to keep his distance from Zoe until Ethan went home, to at least negate the temptation of having her in front of him but being unable to touch her. However, if he hadn't been already, Zoe's kisses on the balcony had sucked Taz into her orbit all over again. If there was anything that Taz was doing in regarding Zoe, thinking with his head certainly wasn't one of them.
As such, Taz's coping methods of choice became stealing kisses whenever Ethan's back was turned and trying not to think about the cold bed that awaited him in his hotel room when he returned there every night.
Taz was all too grateful when the day for Zoe to return Ethan to Nate rolled around and he found himself sitting in the passenger seat of her car, listening to her and Ethan talking back and forth while the car's radio played softly from the car speakers. They were talking about the skateboarding session the two of them had had the day before and Taz was so content to listen to the easy, joyful way that Zoe talked that it didn't occur to Taz that he'd been to the house Zoe pulled up in front of until he was climbing out of the car.
"Zoe – " Taz started, joining her at the back of the car as she retrieved Ethan's things.
"I'll tell you after," Zoe promised, reaching over to squeeze his hand with hers before grabbing one of Ethan's bags and depositing it into Taz's arms. "Can you carry this for me?"
Taz took the bag without complaint, hoisting the strap over his shoulder as Zoe gathered the rest of Ethan's things. Ethan was holding the oversized Pikachu that Taz and Jay had won for him as he bounced up the steps to the front door. His hands full with the stuffed Pikachu, Ethan went to use his head to knock on the door, only for Taz to stop him with a hand on his shoulder before he could do it and rapping his hand against the door in a loud knock instead.
When the door opened, Ethan flung himself into Nate's arms, tossing the Pikachu to the side so that he could hug Nate with both arms. Nate smiled, bending at the waist so that he could return Ethan's hug. He looked confused to find only Taz standing on his front step, until Zoe walked up to stand beside him.
"What's the good ex doing here?" Nate asked, grinning as if he was proud of himself, his eyes settling on Zoe. She smiled, but it was thin, something almost prickly visible behind her eyes.
"'The good ex'?" Taz repeated, looking back and forth between Zoe and Nate. Ethan, apparently done with listening to their conversation, wriggled his way out of Nate's embrace and started down the hallway, pausing only to pick up his Pikachu.
"You're the only one of her boyfriends I actually liked," Nate explained. Taz glanced curiously over at Zoe, whose eyes were on Nate. The warning in Zoe's eyes was blatant now, her smile gone from her lips, but Nate vehemently ignored her, chuckling, "All of the other ones were assholes."
"They weren't that bad," Zoe said, doing the best that she could to ignore Taz's eyes on the side of her face, making her face feel hot.
"They were pretty bad," Nate said, still laughing, but he seemed to finally take the hint, dropping the subject. Opening the door wider, Nate stepped aside as if to let them in. "Do you want to come in?"
"Sorry, but we have to drop and run. We have plans," Zoe said, only half-lying.
"What are you guys up to?" Nate asked, folding his arms over his chest and leaning his shoulder against the doorframe.
"Rock climbing," Zoe lied.
Nate nodded, but he didn't look like he quite believed her, his eyes flickering back and forth between Taz and Zoe. When he came up with nothing to prove that she was lying to him, Nate simply said, "Have fun, then. Don't do anything I wouldn't do."
"I've done plenty of things you wouldn't do," Zoe retorted, holding Ethan's things out for Nate to take. Once Taz and Zoe had unloaded Ethan's things into Nate's arms, Zoe bid her goodbyes to Nate and then turned to head back to the car. Nate stood there for a moment, watching Taz follow Zoe to the car before shutting the door and disappearing back inside the house.
When Taz slipped into the passenger seat, Zoe was already in the driver's seat, her elbows braced against the steering wheel as she rubbed one hand over her face. She smiled at him, but he could tell that it was strained.
"I'm sorry about him. He can be a real pain in the ass when he wants to be," Zoe said, sitting back in her seat and dropping her hands into her lap.
"It's okay," Taz replied, leaning across the car's centre console so that he could settle one hand on her leg, his fingers squeezing her knee comfortingly. "You know I don't care, right? I don't care who you've been with. I care that I get you now and that you're in for the long haul. That's all that matters to me."
"I know," Zoe said, unaware that she had started picking at the skin around her fingernails until Taz covered her hand with his, squeezing gently until she stopped. Zoe wasn't looking at him but down at her own lap as she admitted, "It's just not something that I'm proud of."
There was nothing more to say on the matter, so Taz didn't attempt to say anything. Instead, he released his grasp on Zoe's hand but didn't stray far, lingering so that he could begin tracing invisible patterns across the back of Zoe's hand. A smile twitched at Zoe's lips as she watched him do it.
"When you said we were taking Ethan home, I didn't expect them to be living in your parents' house," Taz confessed, his fingers gliding over the rose inked into the skin over Zoe's knuckles.
Zoe shifted so that she was resting back against the car door, allowing her to stare past Taz and at the house they were still parked in front of. Her eyes were far away, as if she wasn't really looking at the house as she explained, "Mom and Dad both had wills, but they obviously didn't account for both of them and Ivy going all at once, so everything kind of just defaulted to me. I put most stuff in storage, but I couldn't really do that with an entire house."
the house went to me. I tried to do something with it, but just cleaning it out gave me more panic attacks than I can count."
"So you sold it to Nate?" Taz asked, the movements of his fingers stilling as his gaze fixed on Zoe's face.
"I gave it to him," Zoe corrected, her eyes snapping back to Taz's face. "For a while, I couldn't go inside without bursting into tears, but I didn't want it to just sit there, gathering dust. So I figured that the best thing I could do with it was give Nate somewhere stable to raise Ethan. I like to think that Ivy would like Ethan growing up in the same house we did, if she knew."
"I think she'd love that idea," Taz told her, taking her hand in his and then pulling her hand up so that he could press a kiss to her knuckles. Zoe's smile was soft as she leaned across the car, turning her hand in his grasp so that she could cup his cheek as Zoe kissed him. Taz rested his hand on the back of Zoe's neck as he answered her kiss, her skin warm under his hand.
"Can I take you home now?" Zoe whispered when she broke the kiss, looking up at Taz through her eyelashes. She let her hand fall from his cheek so that she could rest her hand on his thigh. She was quiet for a moment, as if building up the courage to say more, before she nudged at his nose with the tip of her own and admitted, "I want to feel you."
"Please," Taz breathed, ducking his head to kiss her again. Zoe kissed him back, but then she was pulling away, laughter tumbling from her mouth as she started the car.
