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)
CJ dipped his chin as he shook it. “All right.” He closed the door. “Zac hollered down, said to give him a minute.”
I followed after him down the hall into the main room. “Okay.” Unzipping the bag in my hand, I pulled out the two containers I’d brought just for him with “CJ” written on a note at the top of them and held it out when we stopped in the kitchen. “Here. I brought you some frozen yogurt I made. It’s strawberry. The other one has strawberry almond cake in it.” I smiled. “They had frozen strawberries on sale, and I went a little apeshit.”
Those brown eyes lit up, and he didn’t waste a second before plucking them out of my hand. I was pretty sure I wasn’t imagining the fact he pulled them toward that wide chest hidden beneath a gray college T-shirt and held it there either. “Is it as good as your nice cream?”
He’d made my nice cream too? How else would he know it was good? I’d ask him later. Maybe. If there was a later. “It’s different, but it’s good, I think. But I’m biased.”
I was pretty positive he really did pull the containers in even closer to his chest. “Thank you.” Brown eyes flicked down to his frozen yogurt. “You made it for a vlog?”
“Yeah. The almond cake is one I made before; I just changed a couple things to the original recipe.”
“By yourself?”
I nodded. “I don’t have anyone who can do one with me any time soon.” And because I had no shame, I grinned at him. “If you ever want to do one, let me know. But no pressure.”
The buff man blinked. “Serious?”
“I’m for real, if you’re for real. Anytime you want, but you don’t have to.”
CJ nodded, but I could tell he was thinking about it.
Or maybe he was thinking I was out of my damn mind.
“Sorry about that, Peewee,” echoed through the living room and into the kitchen.
Feeling high from CJ hinting that he’d made my recipe and sounding so interested in guest starring in a video, and also a little bad because I figured Zac hadn’t gotten good news about the team in San Diego since he was back here, I glanced at Zac who was walking across the living room from the direction of the back staircase and gave my longtime friend a smile that was even bigger than any of the ones I’d given him before.
Here. Now. Trying. That was my motto with this guy from now on. The past was mostly still in the past.
“It’s okay,” I called out to him, sucking up the bright expression on his face and trying not to notice how his old college T-shirt fit him, showing off that long, muscular torso.
He was smiling as he came up to me, and we both reached for each other at the same time. My arms went for his neck, going up to my tiptoes, and those long, strong arms of his wrapped around my back, pulling me into his chest, letting me get a solid feel of all those lean, hard muscles from his throat down to his hips pressed against me. I was pretty sure even his cheek went to the top of my head.
He squeezed me just as tight as I squeezed him, and I knew I didn’t imagine the deep breath he let out right before saying into the top of my head, “You sure do give the best hugs.”
“You do too.” Because he really did. They were so warm and tight.
It was me who pulled back then, but it was him who flashed those pretty white teeth as he looked down at me. “I was running late and popped into the shower real quick. Sorry ’bout that.”
“No big deal. CJ was—”
Settling onto my feet, I turned. CJ was gone. So was his frozen yogurt and his almond cake.
Okay.
I snapped my fingers. “I brought you a few pieces of that almond cake you asked about and some homemade ice cream. Well, it’s kind of ice cream, it’s frozen yogurt. If you want it. But if you don’t want it, or you don’t like it, it’s okay. CJ might eat it. I brought him some too, but he took off with it, I guess.”
Zac had started frowning about halfway through me talking, and it was full-fledged at the end of it, wiping off every trace of the beaming face he’d been shooting at me when he’d first come into the kitchen.
“What?” I asked him.
His frown was only a little subtle. “I’ve been meanin’ to ask, what’s up with you?”
“What do you mean?”
Zac lifted both hands in the air, index and middle finger up and formed into quotation marks. “If you want it…”
What?
He kept going with the air quotations. “If you want to… you have better things to do with your time,” he repeated, throwing out words I knew I’d used on him over the last few times we’d been around each other, but hadn’t realized he’d actually noticed.