The Search For Shattered Pieces *Complete*

Chapter Twelve: Overhead Tricep Pull and Trunk Rotation

Zachariah:

I rub what I'm sure is grit from my bleary, bloodshot eyes, blink a few times and take several deep breaths before exiting my car. Godamnit! I had promised myself that today...tonight would be different! I was going to get home at a reasonable hour...a human hour. These fucking vampire hours were ridiculous, and I needed to spend more time at home...time with mom...my brothers...and Lyra. Yes—time with Lyra.
    "Fuck me," I mumble, as I rub my temples, trying to stave off the headache I can feel is coming. My promises are clearly worth shit, hell if I can't keep a simple promise to myself...I can't hope to keep a promise to... "What the hell?" My previous thought dies off and disappears as my eyes focus on the lights that are beaming through the trees and perfectly manicured hedges.
    The only building in that direction is the rink...and there is only one person I know who would be in the rink at this hour. Good God, what the hell is she doing in the rink at this time?

                                      ⛸⛸⛸

Lyra:

    "Two...three...cross...break...again Lyra...again. Two...three...cross, break...damn!" I jam the toe of my skate into the ice and flinch as shards of delicate cold sparks seem to ignite from the surface. "Great, just kill the ice while you're at it, idiot," I mutter. "Because it's the ices fault that you're fucking up royally." I feel my shoulders slump as if in defeat and squeeze my eyes shut to force back the moisture that is burning right beneath my lids. "No time for tears, losers take time to cry," I whisper, "...champions don't stop...they don't stop."
    My back stiffens, and I straighten my shoulders. "Vy khotite stat' chempionom, Lyra? Vy rabotayete, poka ne istechet krov'yu tol'ko zoloto....bleed Gold, Lyra...you work until you bleed Gold."
"Dove...what the hell are you doing here?"
I whip around, the words...his voice, Zach's deep, warm voice breaks my almost hypnotic state. Dove? I hate the warmth, the glow that fills my body at hearing the endearment.  No, I don't hate it...I love it...and God, that realization scares the everloving hell out of me.
"I could ask you the same thing," I say, and watch as a frown pulls at his beautiful lips.  Beautiful lips? Yes, they are beautiful, stupidly beautiful...in fact, models everywhere weep with envy.
"I'm just getting back from the office.  What's your excuse?"
I narrow my eyes.  "Do I need one?" I ask, "...An excuse, that is.  Bethany and...and...Stefan told me I could access the building at any time." I watch as Zach's frown deepens.
"It's after three a.m. Lyra."
I fight the urge to roll my eyes at him.  "Yes, Zach, I'm perfectly capable of telling time, thank you very much."
"Lyra...what the hell are you doing on the ice at three a.m. in the Goddamn morning?" His voice is filled with the heat of his exasperation.
"What does it look like I'm doing, Zach?" I snort, "Practicing, Zach...I'm practicing, can't you tell?"
"Lyra, Dove, you have school in less—"
"—Yes, yes, I know.  But I've got this, trust me Zach, I've got this.  I've done this before...in fact, this is pretty common for me."
"What? Insomnia?"
At that, I do roll my eyes at him.  "No, Zach...practicing all night." I watch as a broad range of expressions filter across his face.
"You..." He clears his throat and continues, "you are used to skating all night...and then going to school?"
I nod.  What? Why is he looking at me like that? I mean...he's the freaking vampire that is rolling on home after three a.m. from the office no less. At least I'm on the premises of my home...well...my sorta home. Okay, it totally doesn't feel like my home, but whatever...I have a place to crash, AND a training facility that rivals any of the USFSA facilities across the country. In fact, I'd hazard a guess that sperm donor's rink and facility far exceeds ANY of the USFSA facilities. If anyone should be looking at anyone with a "What the fuck, and you look like you have five heads," it should be me...looking at Mr. too hot for his freaking suits, business-I-rule-the-world- Zachariah Parrish.
    Okay, seriously, he was going to give me a complex if he kept staring at me with that stony face of his—okay, fine, another one—because let's face it...I probably had a few complexes under my belt already...more than a few? Hmmm...not the time for inner searching, Lyra. You're getting sidetracked—again. Where was I again?
    "Oh yes...on three...cross, pivot, arms move up, and..."
    "Lyra!"
    I stop and blink, Zach's gorgeous face comes clearly back into focus. Shoot...yeah...I was back to...
    "Lyra...is this going to be a regular occurrence, then?"
    "What?"
    Zach shakes his head, and...wait...did he just roll his eyes at me? "You...rink...after three a.m. with school biting at your heels..."
    I don't hesitate in answering him. "Yes. Well, no. I'll probably start even earlier in the evening, and well..." I wrinkle my nose, "...If I bring my school clothes and my toiletries with me, I can just shower in the dressing room and change...and...yeah, that would work...I'll just ask—"
    "—LYRA!"
    "What?" I find myself frowning. Why does he look frustrated now? No...not frustrated...upset. "Uhm, Zach? Is something wrong?"
    "Is something wrong?" The look on his face is one of astonishment now.
    "That's what I said, Mr. Parrot."
    Zach runs a hand carelessly through his thick, Vidal Salon looking hair and seems to be weighing his next words carefully.
    "Lyra...Dove...there is no way in hell that you're going to to bring your school uniform, toiletries and well, whatever else you uh...use in the bathroom here. I mean...I think the carbon in the rink has gone to your head...you're clearly out of your mind right now."
    Wait? Is he serious? "You're joking, right, Zach?" I wait a moment...his expression remains the same...it doesn't look like he's joking...okaaaay then...he's not joking. "Zach you are not my dad... hell, you're not my keeper...you can't tell me what, I can, or cannot do. And do you hear yourself? You're being ridiculous. No, you are ridiculous right now. I'm seventeen, almost eighteen...not eight...and I've been "handling myself" for a very long time now. You have absolutely no idea what you're saying...well, of course you know what you're saying...I mean you don't have short term memory loss...so yes, you should remember what you said, uhm, what you say, especially since you just said it, really...so..." Ding, dong and damn, I'm doing it again.  I sound moronic, and I'm embarrassed as all get out by the fact that my used-to-be-rare verbal diarrhea, has become a habit, a habit that—because yes, I am just that lucky—keeps occurring in the presence of Zach, hell all of my stepbrothers.  And, I can feel my cheeks burning, and I know my normally pale complexion is shockingly, horribly beet red.  So verbal diarrhea, and a beet red face, seriously, how, why does this keep happening?  I mean, I even began my "let Zach have it, you tell him how it is," so well.  Granted he is still staring at me, and his stares produce the strangest and yes oftentimes disturbing feelings to course through me.  Which in turn fluster me, because if I'm honest with myself, I don't get flustered easily. I am still stewing, in my flustered state when Zach speaks again.
    "I know that not sleeping, and skating for six, no, wait...more than six hours?" he takes my silence as answer enough and his frown deepens, "how many hours, Lyra?"
"How many hours..." I let my words trail off as I try to figure out how best to finish answering him without making that sad, frustrated look on his face worse...it's making my chest hurt just looking at him looking at me.  I think the pain is sharper, deeper still because even without speaking the words, I know that somehow I am the cause of the sadness and hurt I see on him. 
"...Dove...how many hours have you been here already?"
I blink rapidly.  This, at least, I can answer.  "Eight and..." I look over his shoulder at the digital clock on the wall, "...eight and a half hours." Zach's face pales so drastically and so suddenly I'm worried that he may actually be ill.  Before I know it, or even realize, I am standing right in front of him, my hands coming to rest on both of his arms as if to steady him.  "Take a few deep breaths for me, can you?" I ask.  "I'm going to get you some water and..."
"—Lyra!" Zach says my name forcefully, his head shaking back and forth, all the while his beautiful eyes are now wide and full of...what...disbelief, horror...what? "Lyra," he says my name again, this time softly. "...Are you seriously trying to...to...take care of me right now?"
    Is there something wrong with that? He's probably thinking I'm nuts right about now...that we haven't known one another long...but...he's...well...I could so easily care for him...no...I do care for him. It's crazy really...stupid even, but God, I do...I do...so completely care about him. And I find, that I can't, standing here in front of him and staring into his magnetic eyes, lie.
    I take a deep breath and nod. "Yes...I...I know you probably think I'm totally uh...weird...or crazy even, since, well...you and I just, well, haven't known each other for very long, but you, well you've been so kind to me and..." kind to me? Oh God, that was lame...God I sound totally lame. Why, even with the recognition to myself that he flusters me, can I not manage to speak to him without eventually rambling and coming across as a total idiot? "And I like you...I really like you...you're just..." Oh shit, I'm speaking some more, and it is getting worse, "I mean... I mean...I don't like you like you, like you know, like a girl likes a boy and..." Shut up Lyra! Shut the hell up. "Fuck," I spit out, and I cover my face with my hands, "Just kill me now." I give up.
    Zach pulls my hands away from my face slowly, gently. And when I finally get enough courage, I open my eyes and peek up at him. He's looking at me with...well...how the hell is he looking at me. He's definitely not angry, mad, or...frustrated with me anymore, at least not if the weird expression on his face is anything to go by. No...there is a softness in his eyes now, tenderness even? And something else dances in his beautiful eyes...something I can't exactly identify...but I know whatever it is, my heart has started to beat faster, and my belly clenches.  It's unsettling, no, I'm unsettled but well, I'll take it.  I'll take anything over the sadness that was present there just moments before.
"God, just...God I've just, well I have to...shit I'm going to hell..." Zach breathes out just before I find myself engulfed within his arms, his really strong and warm and oh jeez amazing arms. My face is pressed against him and I'm breathing in his scent, and Jesus, Mary and Joseph he smells so good...like beyond good and...
Wait! Oh my God. I. Am. Hugging. Zach. No...he's hugging me, no that's not right either...I'm...I'm...well I'm pressed really tightly against him and okay, yeah our arms are around one another...so I guess we are technically hugging...but this feels...uh...this isn't like any hug I've ever had before. And...I've never felt as if my heart is in my throat before when I hugged anyone else.
    Oh my God, Oh my God, Lyra, you're having a panic attack. That's what's happening...you're having a total...NO! NO! WAIT! This isn't a panic attack...I don't feel as if I need my inhaler, and well I do feel tingly and strangely uh, buzzy...but not in the way I do when I'm beginning to hyperventilate and fall into one of my "episodes." Okay...so no panic attack.
    I feel a deep swell of relief and my body sinks easily...almost naturally, deeper into his embrace. His embrace...that is what this is. What started off as a hug, or a sort of hug, has turned into an embrace...a really, really amazing embrace. And...uh, he, no, we, are still in said embrace.  My brain...the thoughts in my brain feel like a Rubix Cube; all the sides and colors are supposed to match up, make sense...but they don't, and the "getting there," is freaking difficult as hell.
My mind is still furiously whirling, and my body is buzzing, yes, seriously buzzing, when I feel Zach's arms move across my back, and then...Oh. My. God. his hand...his hand is on my ass.  Holy shit! Zach, Greek God beautiful, incredible, Zach is...copping a feel—no—he's doing a helluva lot more than copping a feel, as I am now pressed, fitted against him in such a way that it must appear as if we are one entity.
The buzz that had been running through my body has disappeared, only to be replaced by an inferno, and tingles so strong they feel like electric shocks.  I can hear my heart-beat, a symphony of drums, beautifully synced, playing to an age old beat, and my chest feels tight...but not in a bad way—in an anticipatory way...a tightening that seems to signal something greater...something thrilling...something I need, crave more than my next breath.
I am just coming out of my incredible, tingly, manic thought stupor, when time halts...life stills on a heartbeat, and all thoughts; rational, irrational, or manic, flee—his lips capture mine.
    My world ends...and begins again.