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)
You know, for old times’ sake.
He really had gotten better looking. If I closed one eye, he’d look like he could’ve been the muse for one or two Disney princes. Good for him.
The edges of his mouth turned down as he frowned at me and asked in that same quiet, pained voice from hours ago, “You’re leavin’?”
Well… yeah. I had been. But now, with him looking at me all strange and sad….
Maybe… not?
Shit.
“I can stay if you want me to,” I offered hesitantly before I could overthink it or make up an excuse for why I needed to go. I wasn’t sure why he would want me, of all people, to stay, but….
I definitely didn’t expect the nod he instantly answered me with, that was for sure.
He really wanted me to stay?
O-kay. I could. For a little bit. Just long enough to leave him with someone and say hi to my cousin. We texted a lot, but it had been almost two months since we’d seen each other in person. Traveling for work had eaten up a lot of his time lately. So had his girlfriend.
I nodded back, giving him a little smile that was mostly uncertain—while inside I was pretty much surprised as shit and just as confused—and drove around to find the parking garage, pulling into the first open space big enough that I could easily pull out of. I sucked at parking. And reversing. Everyone teased me for parking a mile away everywhere.
Zac didn’t make a comment when it took me two tries to pull in decently.
I thought about the plain black suitcase in my trunk and figured I’d bring it up once I knew what was going on since he had other things to worry about. Zac and I walked side by side into the hospital, and I couldn’t help but glance up at his face a couple times. His brows were drawn low, and he looked tired. I hoped again, more than anything, that Paw-Paw was all right.
No one paid much attention to us as we walked through the hospital. Subconsciously, I had expected everyone in the world to recognize him, especially in the Austin area, where he’d been everyone’s hero for most of his life. Zac had been an icon here back in his college days. On the occasions that I had been invited to go out to eat with them back then, someone had always recognized him and tried to pay for his food or buy him a drink.
It had been weird, even though it had been the same way, on a smaller scale, back when he’d been in high school.
But as we passed the employees at the front desk and the random people sitting in the waiting areas, no one looked twice in our direction. Then again, Zac was tall but not too tall, and lean and muscular, but not overloaded with bulky muscles like the giants he played alongside. There was also the fact that his hair wasn’t eye catching at his shade and length. His face was very handsome, but there was nothing about it that would force someone to look in his direction. There definitely wasn’t anything outrageous about his clothes either.
Really, he just looked like an attractive, everyday guy.
Except he wasn’t, not really, cracked phone or not. I wasn’t going to forget that.
Zac’s butt cheeks had been plastered to the cover of TSN’s Anatomy Issue—a special edition The Sports Network released once a year that featured professional athlete’s… anatomy. AKA, they were all butt naked but with their crown jewels angled away. I had bought a copy for support. So had millions of other people. I was pretty sure it was still tucked away in my nightstand drawer too.
At the elevator bank, we got in with a couple just as Zac’s phone started ringing once more. He pulled it out of his pocket, took a peek, and then put it right back where it had been.
He caught me looking at him, and I smiled. He smiled back, but it wasn’t anywhere close to being on the same level it had been on when he’d first seen me hours ago. “An old teammate,” he explained in a voice I had never, ever heard from him before, even on TV with people shoving microphones at his face and asking what went wrong, all while hinting that losing had been all his fault. He was that worried.
I just settled for another nod as I wondered if it had been an “old” one from Oklahoma or from before.
One of his cheeks hitched up a little higher in a smile just a millimeter bigger than the one before. “Thanks for bringin’ me, darlin’,” he said in a tired, distracted voice.
“You’re welcome.”
When the doors opened, I walked out ahead of him, following the signs. I stopped at the desk and signed my name in, sensing Zac still behind me. Then I filled in James Travis for him, deciding his first name was too much. You never knew who might read the sign-in sheet. I knew I did.