Total pages in book: 191
Estimated words: 182070 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 910(@200wpm)___ 728(@250wpm)___ 607(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 182070 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 910(@200wpm)___ 728(@250wpm)___ 607(@300wpm)
The fingers around mine twitched, and he got this funny expression on his face that made me feel like he was thinking about what I’d just asked. Zac even glanced down at his phone like he was considering it. “I….” He closed his mouth but met my gaze again. His eyebrows were knit together, and for the first time since he’d walked into the house, there was some color on his cheeks. Pink specifically.
“It’s all right; I was just being nosey,” I lied, offering him up a little smile that I also hoped like crazy was neutral. “You don’t need to tell me anything, Zac.”
“I don’t even know ’em,” he said quietly after a second. “I never answer or text ’em back. Not anymore.”
Why the hell had I even brought this up? I should have just kept my mouth shut and minded my own business.
I felt nauseous all of a sudden.
“Not in a long time,” he added in a soft voice that had me glancing down at the floor. I saw him give his phone a little flick that made it move across his thigh an inch. “Delete ’em for me.”
I pretended to look at my fingernails, draped between my thighs.
“All of ’em like that.” He kept going in that sweet voice that didn’t do anything for me.
I shook my head and hunched forward, placing my forehead on top of his thigh, my gaze glued to the tiles on the floor. “I’m too expensive. You don’t want to pay me hourly for that,” I mumbled. “And I’m starting to get a headache,” I told him as I straightened my fingers and tried to slip them out from his.
He didn’t let me.
Those million-dollar fingers tightened around mine in a super hold. “You wanna know what I have you under in my contacts?”
I wanted to shrug, but that felt way too personal. “Peewee?”
“No.” His fingers moved out from around mine, but before I had the chance to ball up my fist and take it away, his were back, stroking my thumb before doing the same to my other four fingers. “Try again.”
That time I did shrug. “Bianca?”
“Nope.” He linked our fingers together again, and I noticed then that they weren’t as cold or clammy anymore.
“I don’t know, Zac,” I told him.
The thigh under my forehead bounced a little. “Guess.”
It took everything in me not to sigh.
He loved me. Of course he liked women and had sex with them. Of course there were a ton of women who wanted to have sex with him and probably jumped at the opportunity to have his number.
I would have been one of them.
You know, if there was a chance. But there wasn’t.
And that wasn’t his fault.
If it wasn’t for our friendship, or the fact that we had grown up together, or the fact that we got along so great, I wouldn’t have any kind of friendship with him. I wouldn’t have him in my life period. It was a one in a billion chance that we’d even met in the first place. That circumstances had connected us.
I didn’t want to punish him for not returning my feelings. Because they were dumb, pointless feelings that did nothing but twist me up into knots and hurt me.
So I tried my best to lighten my voice as I offered, “Okay. Bianca the Baker?”
His leg moved under my forehead again. “No. You don’t need a thing after your name,” he said calmly.
I had to dig in deep to pull a joke out of my heart. “My New Daddy?”
He laughed lightly. “Nope. My Little Texas.”
I snorted weakly and felt him start playing with my fingers again.
“Bibi—” he started to say before the nurse practitioner cut in.
“Zac, I’m going to numb your knee a little and start the treatment, okay? You might feel some pressure.”
I sat up then, moving my grip to sneak through his fingers again. This was why I had come, to be here for him. And I knew I’d done the right thing then when I found him already pale and staring at the needle she was holding at his side like she was about to murder him.
“Remember to breathe,” she reminded him.
He wasn’t breathing. He was staring at the needle.
“Hey.” I squeezed his fingers.
The woman held up a placating hand. “It’s okay, Zac.”
Oh dear God.
I squeezed his hand tighter. “Hey you. Bubba. Look at me. Let her do her job. You sat through me getting stitches like a champ.”
Yeah.
He made it about three minutes before he fainted.
* * *
“How are you feeling?” I asked Zac a few hours later.
He was sitting on the couch, head resting against the back of it. His gaze just slid over to me without the rest of his head moving. “I’m good,” he replied, actually sounding okay.
He hadn’t been sounding okay an hour ago. He hadn’t looked that okay either.