Pursuit of Happiness | Taz Skylar [1]

037. hurricane zoe

Zoe and Bree were sitting on a bench, watching as Jay, Taz and Ethan all gathered around a stall. They had been there for the past twenty minutes, more and more money tumbling out of both Jay and Taz's wallets. Neither woman could see what it was that the three of them were so intent on winning, but they at least appeared to be having fun, laughing and joking amongst themselves. At one point, Ethan even ended up hoisted up onto Jay's back, smiling as he watched Taz throw balls at what looked like towers of glass bottles stacked on top of each other.

"He'll make a good dad, you know," Zoe remarked, leaning over to rest her head on top of Bree's shoulder. When Bree turned her head to glance down at Zoe curiously, Zoe grinned against her shoulder and added, "One day."

"One day," Bree agreed, nodding her head and breathing out an anxious-sounding laugh.

"And you'll make a good mom," Zoe said, reaching over to take Bree's hand, sliding her fingers between Bree's. Bree clung to Zoe's fingers, even as Zoe ran her thumb across Bree's knuckles and whispered, "Trust me. I know what I'm talking about."

"You sometimes know what you're talking about," Bree countered, but her smile was real now, filled with nowhere near the amount of anxiety it had only moments before. They sat there together for a few minutes, holding hands and simply taking in their loud surroundings, until Bree asked against Zoe's hair, "Hey, can I ask you something?"

"Sure," Zoe replied, taking her head off of Bree's shoulder and turning her body so that she was facing Bree. Zoe started to untangle their hands, but Bree clung to her, as if she needed the support, and Zoe peered at her curiously. "Bree. What's going on?"

"I . . ." Bree broke off to take a deep breath, which shuddered its way all the way in and then all the way out of Bree's body. Zoe was still watching her like a hawk, her eyes growing more and more concerned by the moment, so Bree tried again. "I don't know if you've seen it, but sometimes people put out empty chairs for people who would be at the wedding if they hadn't passed away. And it just got me thinking about Ivy, and your mom and dad – "

It didn't take much for Zoe to catch on. "You want to put out empty chairs for them?"

"Not empty chairs," Bree said, staring down at her and Zoe's intertwined fingers so that she didn't have to see Zoe's face. The rose tattooed across Zoe's knuckles seemed to almost stare back at Bree as she mumbled, "I was thinking candles. One for each of them. But I wanted to make sure that it was okay with you, that it wouldn't be too much. I feel like I'm asking a lot of you already."

It was a good thing that Bree wasn't looking at Zoe, because then she would have seen the tears glistening in Zoe's eyes as she struggled – and failed – to keep them at bay. Zoe opened her mouth to speak, but when she tried to talk, she felt the weight of tears in the back of her throat, so it took a few tries before she managed to choke out, "That would mean so much to me."

"Thank you," Bree whispered, squeezing Zoe's fingers in hopes that it would be enough to convey everything she felt. Of course, Bree knew that her pain had no hope of rivaling everything that Zoe had been through, but the Carlyle family had been in Bree's life for as long as she could remember and there wasn't a day that went by when she didn't think of them.