Fairyville (Fairyville #1)(27)
Author: Emma Holly

Well, well, Magnus thought. Isn’t this getting complicated?

Whether the complication was good or bad he didn’t know. Historically speaking, Murphy men had always had sufficient charm to collect harems.

Chapter Seven

Zoe’s legs were even better than Alex remembered, curvier, with more muscle in the thighs and calves. He couldn’t take his eyes off them as she preceded him and Bryan down the stairs. Knowing Bryan was watching made him feel vaguely guilty, but Zoe had haunted his self-torturing fantasies for so long he couldn’t stop himself.

Zoe was the one who got away.

Hell, Zoe was the one he’d thrown away in his stupid teenage hormone fog. He’d never stopped wanting her, not for one single day, and the idea that—theoretically—he could have her now was driving him insane.

When that lunk who managed her had tried to claim her as his girlfriend, Alex had wanted to crush his knuckles into dust. The pity was, Magnus had barely noticed. That was the problem with men that big: They didn’t have the decency to wince when you were giving them your best power handshake.

"Hey," said Bryan, elbowing his ribs as they threaded through the crowded lobby. "Check out the shoes."

Alex wasn’t in the mood to be entertained, but he looked in the direction Bryan pointed. Magnus was talking to Mrs. Fairfax, the woman who owned the inn, no doubt assuring her that her guests could go back to bed because his "girlfriend" had saved the day. Annoyed by the reminder, it took a moment for Alex’s eyes to slide to Magnus’s feet.

"Shit," he said. Zoe’s manager was wearing the same stupid f**king yellow cartoon high-tops Alex had been forced to buy on the drive here. Alex had switched them for a pair of sandals first chance he got, but this man didn’t seem to realize the things weren’t standard adult wear.

Bryan had started to snicker, but the minute Alex turned his glare to him he stopped. Most men would have kept up the ribbing once they knew it bugged him, but Bryan’s eyes went soft.

"I get it," he said with almost too much understanding. "This particular coincidence is just between you and me."

He couldn’t have turned the screw on Alex’s guilt any better. Bryan liked Alex, and Bryan had finally gotten into his bed, in part because Alex was too freakishly horny to do without. It didn’t matter what Bryan said about his lack of expectations; he didn’t deserve to watch Alex squaring off with this tower of muscle over someone else.

"Bryan." Alex put his hand on his friend’s shoulder.

Looking back later, he decided everything was context. Mrs. Fairfax had known Alex looked familiar when he checked in, but until she saw him in Zoe’s presence and with another man, two plus two hadn’t equaled four.

Once it did, she sucked a shrieking gasp that echoed through the room.

"I know you," she said, her grandmotherly face quivering with rage. "You’re that perverted Goodbody boy, the one who ruined Coach Vickers life. How dare you come back after the heartache you caused this town? Tom Vickers was a good man. The least you could have done was stick to your own kind!"

Her outburst shouldn’t have shaken Alex. It was only what he’d heard a hundred times before, what he’d expected before he came. All the same, he had to swallow a lump the size of Mitten Butte before he could speak.

"Believe me," he said as levelly as he could, "I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have a job to do."

"A job!" Mrs. Fairfax’s cry drew every eye that hadn’t been on her already. Parents began to hug their children to their sides. "You don’t deserve a job! Trash like you deserves prison!"

She was closing the space that separated them, her hand coming up to strike like she was in some damn catfight on a soap opera. Alex didn’t know how to stop her and wasn’t sure he wanted to. His face felt like it was frying with self-consciousness, his feet frozen to the ground. Let her slap me, he thought. There just wasn’t a good way to defend yourself against a woman your mother’s age, especially when you knew her accusations held a lot of truth.

And then Zoe was between them like a Fury, straight-arming Mrs. Fairfax’s shoulder so she had to stop.

"You are so not doing this in front of me," Zoe said.

Airs. Fairfax wasn’t the only one whose jaw dropped. Alex had never heard sweet Zoe Clare sound like this. Her declaration had been so deep and angry it was a growl.

"Zoe," Mrs. Fairfax protested. "How can you defend him?"

Zoe put her fists on her hips. "I can defend him for three very good reasons. First of all, Coach Vickers probably was Alex’s ‘kind’ all along. Loath as this town was to admit it, men don’t turn homosexual overnight. Second of all, Alex was a teenager, which ought to cut him slack by itself. Third of all, even though he was a teenager, and could have stayed nice and cozy as everybody’s poor victim, he chose to come forward and tell the truth. It wasn’t his fault people were angry because he wasn’t the perfect golden hero they made him out to be. They built that pedestal, not him. He chose to do the right thing."

"The right thing! But he hurt you worst of all."

Mrs. Fairfax’s astonishment had turned to pleading. She’d obviously been sure her stand against the depravation Alex represented would be approved, but Zoe didn’t back down an inch.

"He was a kid, Mrs. Fairfax, and aside from Coach Vicker’s involvement turning it into a public stink, what he did was no worse than kids do to each other every minute of every day. If I can forgive him, I see no reason why people whose hearts weren’t broken can’t do the same."

Her voice had a ringing clarity. One of the teenage guests, a boy with a nose stud and a Nine Inch Nails T-shirt, began to clap. He was quickly shushed by his parents, but the brief offering of approval tipped Alex into a welter of emotion from which there was no turning back. His eyes went as hot as his face had been a minute earlier. Zoe forgave him. His knees began to shake in reaction, like he might fall if he didn’t sit.

"Shit," he whispered, and grabbed the edge of an end table.

Mrs. Fairfax was murmuring a flustered apology and backing off. As she disappeared somewhat huffily into the office behind the reception desk, Zoe thrust her hands into her curls. Her hair had been skewered messily atop her head, and her elbows stuck out on either side. As she stood there, the other guests began to drift away. She exhaled loudly and turned to him.

"Sorry," she said, her expression wry. "Didn’t mean to cause a scene."

He couldn’t help it, he smiled at her, then felt his heart turn over when she smiled back. Those gray eyes of hers were sweeter than spring rain. "I don’t think you need to apologize."