Falling for The Wrong Brother

Chapter 2 :Zach

“Hey Zach.” I said “Thanks for coming to get me.”

“No problem.” He picked up my suitcases and we headed toward the exit and out to the parking lot. Zach walked a few steps ahead of me cutting a path through the crowded airport.

“So how’s Jake?” I asked his back.

“The same, “ Zach answered noncomittaly. “He’s at football practice. He’ll be the starting quarterback this year.”

“But school hasn’t even begun,” I pointed out.

“A lot of the varsity teams had try-outs and practices already.

Although my mind was on Jake and how he’d react to the new me, I couldn’t help noticing that Zach had gone a lot of change during the past year.

He was taller than I remembered, and he walked through the crowd with an air of confidence. It wasn’t so long ago that he’d been a skinny, nerdy kid who depended on Jake to protect him from the class bullies. Actually we both had been dependent to Jake.

I had two huge suitcases filled with new clothes, makeups and souvenirs. I knew they weighed a ton but Zach carried them as if they were empty. He must have been lifting weights, I thought as I studied his biceps underneath his shirt. He wasn’t as muscular as Jake, but no one would describe him as skinny either. Zach easily tossed my suitcases into the back of his pick-up truck.

When we were finally on our way out of the airport, Zach said. “I almost didn’t recognize you.”

“It’s my hair,” I said.

“No.” Zach said, giving me a lingering look. “It’s not just the hair.”

“My clothes?” I volunteered. “before my year abroad, I’d worn mostly baggy jeans and flannel shirts. Now I had on a white long sleeve chiffon shirt with cuffs at the end tucked in my shorts, revealing my long tanned legs. I had on black round toe, five- inch heels and a black blazer. I had spent hours  deciding on this outfit, for Jake.

“No, it’s not that either.” Zach said. “It’s really strange. You seem so different. “

I turned and gave him my mysterious smile. Elise, my Aunt said that the secret in getting a guy’s attention is to act more mysterious and alluring. She showed me how to turn my head to look at a boy and how to give him a mysterious smile, sort of half smile. She said no man could resist that smile. I had to practice it on Zach to make sure I just got it right for Jake later on.

And surely, Zach was dazzled. A car behind us had to horn for him to be reminded that the ligh had turned green.

I smiled to myself. “Where to now.” I asked adjusting my seatbelt.

Zach laughed. “Don’t you want to go home?”

If Jake was at home, I’d have made a beeline for home. We’d been neighbors all our lives and we practically live in each other’s houses. But with Dad away in an out of town trip and Jake at  football practice, getting back to the house was the least I wanted to do.

“Can we go somewhere else?” I begged.

Zach gave me his famous smirk. “Sure. Anywhere you want to go,”Zach said with a shrug. He was still the ever obedient bestfriend. “What did you missed the most while you were gone?”

“Sofia’s” I said without hesitation. We always hang there together with Jake and his friends. “I can really use a double milk shake.”

“You know Sofia’s takes forever,” Zach warned.

“The service hasn’t gotten any better?”

He shook his head. His blond hair looked gorgeous. “Nope. It’s all part of the atmosphere.”

“Too bad,”

“Yeah, I need to go to track practice later.” Zach said. “I don’t know if we have time for Sofia’s and to drive you home and then to drive back to practice.”

I had an even better idea. “ How about I go to the practice with you? Just drive me home after practice”. I suggested. I knew Jake’s  football team will be practicing at the school field and the track practice will also be there, so I might just run into him.

“Aren’t you tired?”

“A little, but I’m so excited about being back , I feel energized.” What I didn’t tell him was that the thought of finally seeing Jake again after a whole year was enough to make me lose sleep for a week.

“Okay. So did you learned any French words?” he teased.

“Oui”

“That means ‘yes’ right?”

I nodded.

“Now how about, ‘You are very pretty’ ?” He had stopped at a red light.

“Well there are two ways to say that in French. If you’re saying it to a close friend, you’d say, ‘Tu es tres belle’. But the more formal way of saying it would be ‘Vous etes tres belle.”

“Tu es tres belle” he repeated, gazing directly into my eyes.

“Merci,” I said, feeling my cheeks blush.

In all the time we had spent together in our lives, Zach had never looked at me quite that way.