"You need more honey to drown your pancakes in, Hon?" Street popped a fat piece of his breakfast into his mouth.
Zee forked a bite of her pancakes, moving other pieces from side to side then back at the center of her plate. Both of them had picked the diner's special of the day—pancakes with a topping of honey and nuts. She had insisted it was the perfect boost of energy he would need to face his shift, and he agreed on the one condition she would put some calories in too. Now he was two bites away from polishing his plate, but she'd not quite fulfilled her part of the deal.
"Zee?"
"Am I mistaken, or were the ones at Wave of Breakfast way better than these?" She looked up, offering Street a nostalgic beam.
"Too bad it closed years ago."
"Yeah…"
Or maybe not all that bad. Street remembered the balm the closure of the place they first met had been on his sore spots. Being dragged there at every single shift had been sheer torture. He'd been automatically searching for her, hopeful and then hopeless to find her responsive eyes. Agony until his former instructor and patrol partner had had no other choice than to change his eating habits.
"The atmosphere here is close enough, though it doesn't send the same breakfast-at-all-hours-of-the-day vibes."
"Now that I think of it, I haven't had pancakes for dinner in forever." Street had been nauseated by the mere idea after Zee had left LA, but now that she was back, the sweet tooth was back too.
"Maybe if you're nice enough, I can make up for it one of these days." Her eyes had been dancing with mischief, but as she uttered the whole phrase, they went off.
Street set their plates aside and reached across the table, resting his hand over Zee's, her palm flat on the cheap wood. A jolt of awareness sailed through his arm, invading his whole being. It had always been like this with touching her; how had he forgotten all these years?
"It's gonna be alright."
"It has to."
"It will."
"Of course it will." Zee smiled, but Street didn't miss the flicker of doubt in her eyes before confidence took over again.
Their bond seemed to have grown stronger over the years of separation. Twice when he'd most needed it, Zee had come riding the west wind like Mary Poppins. Now it was Street's turn to give back the blessing he'd received. So he squeezed her hand and smiled his best smile. It was all about her.
"Are you sure you can stay with me until they're here?" Zee's wide eyes shot past Street, landing on the diner's entrance, then came back to his face, searching for reassurance. "I don't want to cause you any trouble with your job."
"Late call, remember? I have all the time." And even if this wasn't the case, he would have made time for her. Every second with her was to treasure. Once already, she'd flown away from him at the arrival of the menacing wind.
"Shouldn't you use this free time to sleep? You've worked until the wee hours—"
Her thoughtfulness tugged at Street's heartstrings. "Being in your arms is what made me sleep like a baby for those few hours. Once you left the bed, it just wasn't the same." He lifted a shoulder, then locked eyes with her. "Where you are, that's where I want to be."
"Thank you, Jim." Zee turned her hand upside down, so their palms brushed, and responded to his gentle grasp. "I don't know what I would have done without you."
Likewise, Street thought, caressing the back of Zee's hand with the pad of his thumb and getting lost in her magnetic green eyes.
The liver donation had worked him up and down on multiple levels. Aside from the huge physical challenge, he'd felt misunderstood, left behind by all his friends. Not to talk about his mother... But Zee saw him. She truly saw him. Half an hour after they'd stumbled into each other, he'd felt he wasn't alone anymore. As easy as that.
"Sorry," Street said, conscious he'd been lost in his recent past while chatty customers and busy waitresses filled his silence.
"It's okay. I've been quite distracted myself." Zee's lips curving up didn't come across as effortless.
"Hey." Street studied her gorgeous features, noticing little wrinkles on her otherwise smooth forehead. They had been apart for years, but age didn't do that to her; concern did. "You're one of the strongest and bravest women I know." The other was Chris, no doubt. They had different strengths and different weaknesses. So diverse and yet so similar, they were the two women who split his heart.
"I don't feel very brave right now." One hand still joined to his, Zee used her free one to tuck a wild strand of auburn hair behind her ear. How many times had he made that gesture for her, in public or in intimacy?
"You are. You're braver and more resourceful than you credit yourself for, Mackenzie Miller." Street couldn't help a wince at the sound of her full name in his own voice.
"Oh…" Zee let out a pained sigh. "Is it still that awkward for you to use my married name?"
Street shrugged non-committal. Memories of the night he'd realized that his first great love had moved on and fulfilled all her dreams without him came flooding his mind.
It's the whisper of the moon, carried to my soul by the wind.
Listen to my heart sing
What I wish it could have been.
He cleared his throat, trying to shake the song off. "I was out with friends the first time I heard that name, your new name, through the radio."
Zee smiled an uncertain smile.
"I wasn't paying attention to the speaker when he announced the singer, but from the first notes of that song, something clicked," Street said, his chest tightening. Then he huffed a chuckle to loosen the tension in his muscles. "My buddy threatened to call an ambulance on me because instead of inhaling the snacks as per usual, I didn't as much as glanced at the bowls."
"I would have worried too." Zee played his wrist with her fingers like his veins and tendons were cords of her guitar.
"My stomach was in a knot. But the song was breathtaking." He took a deep breath as if reliving the same sensation. "The style was a bit different than what you got me used to, but somehow, that song was so… you. And there was no way I could mistake the voice that sang just for me countless times."
"I've always adored singing for you."
Her words shot right through his chest to his heart. Were they alone, he would ask her to sing right now. "I was so proud that you made it. That your dream had come true."
Zee's eyes moistened. "Despite what I did to you?"
That song, her first hit, came to his memory again.
I've been walking on the moon,
Breathing the oxygen that was you.
You took me wandering on the moon,
And I still walked away from you.
Street's smile turned wistful. "I even fooled myself that I was the man of your romantic tale. Then the speaker called you with that name so foreign to me. It was a punch in the gut because I just knew it wasn't a simple pen name, and I was grateful my stomach was empty. All my certainty went up in smoke because deep down, I knew."
"Oh, Jim…"
"I was a fool. That moment, I knew that it was over for real."
"My 'Shine, it was never really over." Zee covered their joined hands with her other one. It was a gentle touch that held the strength of a grenade, the shockwaves reverberating through Street's chest.
"I know that now."
"Leaving you without even an explanation had been one of the most difficult things I ever had to do," Zee went on, locking her eyes with Street. "But my family, the life I lived after I left you… I don't regret any of that. Not a single day. Every moment shaped me. Strengthened and inspired me. But you…" she breathed that last word, letting a whisper carry it to his ears before continuing. "I wrote my best songs thinking of you. Of what we had, of what we could have had if…"
We're walking parallel roads,
We're living distant lives.
It's what was written in the stars for us.
It's what did us part.
Street swallowed around a lump in his throat and squeezed her hand. He'd put the past behind. They couldn't go down the if road.
"I grew up with the Hollywood dream," she continued, "despite everyone at home telling me I would be more successful with my music right there where I was. I didn't care. I wanted to chase the life I envisioned from watching TV." Zee took one hand away from his and rested her palm flat on her chest while drawing in a deep breath. "I was so naive. This city didn't give me what I came here searching for. On the contrary, here I understood I was more lost than I thought I was. That the music style I was chasing wasn't mine. It wasn't me. Those people at home were right." A sad smile turned into the sweetest beam Street had ever seen. "But LA gave me something I couldn't have had at home. It gave me the chance to meet you. To fall in love with you. You're the man who changed me, not this city, not the…" she trailed off, looking through his soul, searching for the right words from the heart of an artist. "You gave me faith in my own abilities. Confidence in myself I never dreamt of having inside me. You give me back my life."
Guardian of my soul,
You made my heart whole.
Those were the ending notes of the song, but if they held the truth plain and simple, she wouldn't have left.
"You already had all that in you." Street returned her intense gaze. "I just pointed a spotlight there."
"Had I not met you, James Street, I wouldn't have been able to survive what life had thrown at me."
Her words reminded him how much he wished he'd known the lyrics of her song during the first most painful months of their separation.
When you feel lost and lonely,
look up at the sky.
There's where you gonna find me.
There's where I find you every time.
The thought he'd been partially responsible for her leaving him as she did was heart-splitting. And he couldn't believe he had anything to do with her surviving some of the nightmares she'd had to live through. But he was proud of her, of everything she achieved over the years of separation. Too proud for putting himself before her.
"You're too humble, Zee," Street said with a tender smile.
Zee. The sound of her nickname was so much sweeter on his lips than her married name. Now that her parents were gone, she'd admitted to him, no one called her Kenzie anymore. After she went back home, she'd chosen to go by the nickname he'd given her with her inner circle of friends. While he'd been too hurt to cherish those memories, she'd wanted to feel him close. And then she'd chosen to develop a career with her full name to keep a semblance of privacy. She valued this gift he gave her too much.
Before their conversation could turn even more cheesy, a waitress in a pasty pink uniform interrupted them with a refill of coffee. Zee broke contact with Street's hand, almost startled, and leaned back on her booth. The old lady smiled warmly, took away their plates, and asked them if they needed anything else. After a negative response, she left them to their conversation and their patient wait.
Street smirked, aiming to alleviate Zee's stress. "Any chance you still have your old uniform?"
"Oh, please." She waved the comment off. "I hated that thing."
"Aquamarine is so your color. The way it brings out your eyes took my breath away the first time I saw you. But you still take my breath away every time I see you." He leaned in across the table to be able to drop his voice for only her to hear. "Whatever you're wearing… or not wearing."
A blush took over her fair complexion. "And the first time I saw you, you were so unbelievably sexy with that glistening badge above your heart."
"Oh, and now I'm not sexy anymore?" Street pricked her with the question, not a tad unsure of his body despite the challenges of the surgery he'd just put at his back. The fact they had not made love since she'd come back into his life was not due to lack of attraction or lust.
"Now is different." Playfulness was gone from Zee's eyes as they got lost in her steaming mug. "I said I don't regret anything, and I meant it." She looked up at Street without loosening her grip on the ceramic. "But it was all easier when I was just Zee Coulter. A simple country girl in the big city, waiting tables during the day and chasing impossible dreams at night."
Searching for something to lighten her mood, Street's lips twitched. "And eating men for breakfast."
"You weren't all that innocent yourself for how I remember it," Zee said in mocked disbelief, swatting his arm.
"I guess not." He shrugged, managing to lift only one corner of his mouth.
He could admit someone had called him a wannabe playboy over the years. And he had not cared about it. What he would not admit in front of Zee was how careless and more one-night-stand oriented he'd become after she'd trampled his heart. And he cared about that now. He cared about the desire to have what Tan and Bonnie had. Something he'd disastrously tried with Molly. Something he'd seen himself having with Chris until he'd ruined everything with her. Something that Zee—
"It was fun," she said, breaching through his thoughts with a smile. "Easy." She darkened.
"Easy didn't last for long." Street breathed, trying to put that expression in words.
"Easy never lasts." She nodded, her eyes shimmering like the ocean at dawn.
"You know what? SWAT thought me easy is not always the way to go. Back then, we were both too young, honey. And you, you were charged with an impossible choice." Street reached out for both her hands, unclasping them from the coffee mug. "You were put through so much, and I can't blame you for doing what you thought was best for you. What you thought was best for both of us." He peered intently in those emerald pools. "I don't blame you for taking care of your heart."
"You mean not anymore."
He sighed, still holding tight to her hands. "I've never blamed you."
"Don't lie to me now. You never did it before."
"Okay. When you left me," Street hesitated, searching for the right words not to hurt her too much while his brain refused to go back to replay those dark days. "It had not been a piece of cake, and I might have blamed you more than a little. But now that I know why you left, I just—"
Zee shook her head. "I'm sorry, Jim. For everything."
"It's all in the past. And you know how—" Street was interrupted by the entrance door jingling open, which made Zee's eyes dart to it. Her expression shifted from nervous to disappointed, just to go back to forcefully controlled. "Look at me," he softly ordered. "It's going to be okay. They're going to arrive soon."
"Of course. It's just…" she sighed. Her hands reached for her purse, one tugging it close, the other searching for something inside it. When she found it, she instantly calmed. "Time is ticking, and it took so long to contact Emmalyn. Even longer to arrange this meeting. All without explaining to her and her husband all the… details over the phone."
Naturally, Street blamed himself for making her wait for something this important. The universe had chosen the perfect moment to send Zee back into his life. It happened while he was sending Hicks the 'I'm officially cleared for limited duty' text. He'd literally just received the green light from his doctor. For weeks, he would be stuck behind a monitor while his family was out there kicking asses and saving lives. Which was some degree better than being stuck at home while they risked their lives, but still not enough. But then he'd stumbled into Zee, passing from floored and gloomy to impatient to start working in the bullpen. He would have had the resources to do some unofficial digging for Zee. Except it took awfully long to track those people.
Zee heaved another unconscious sigh, "The thing is, I need to make up my judgment on them before even thinking of having them agree to my plan."
"They're really good people from what I could gather about them."
"I know that I'll like them. I know Emmalyn is different from the rest of her family. Just like Dillon..." Zee's eyes got wide and damp even as she fought to keep emotion under control. "But I can't drag this thing out, Jim. You know I can't. Everything must go according to plan. It's vital."
"It's going to be okay," Street repeated, getting up from the overstuffed booth he was in to settle across the table beside Zee. He dragged her into his side with all the care he was capable of. "You'll see they are great people, and they're both just gonna love you." He rested his lips on her head. "Just the way I do."
Her smile warmed his heart. "You know you've been the first man I told those three words to? And I meant them."
"You were the first woman to hear the words from me. And I still mean them."
Zee leaned in and rested her head on his shoulder.
"Now put Moody away," Street said, mouth resting on her hairline. "It doesn't serve you."
"Moonie. This is all for her."
"Not talking about the bunny you're hiding in your purse." He cuddled her closer. "This… aura around you. It's all going to be okay. I feel it." He couldn't promise, but he would do everything in his power for everything to go as she wished for.
-o- -o- -o-