I still couldn’t believe he was here in the first place. “Zac, I’d talk to you on the phone if I knew you were coming. What the hell, man? And why did you change your number? You got a stalker now?”
“Come with me to talk to Boogie real quick, and then I’ll tell you whatever you wanna hear,” he said, watching me with those blue eyes I loved.
I was pretty sure my sister smacked her husband again.
“You’re scaring me,” I told him, going through about a dozen different scenarios in my head. They were all terrible.
The corners of his mouth went up again in that smile that made me feel funny. His eyebrows too. “You trust me?”
I sighed and made a face. “Yes. But I already told him… what I told you.” That I was in love with you. “He knows you didn’t do anything, that nothing happened. Boog knows you love him too much to ruin your friendship.”
His mouth went flat and white at the edges, and his nostrils flared for a moment before those light blue eyes moved over my face again, and he said in a steady voice, “Don’t worry about that. Just trust me, would ya?”
He held a hand out toward me.
And I took it, pretty sure that yet again, my sister whacked Richard.
Just trust him, he asked.
Well… it wasn’t like I had another choice. So I took it.
“I’ll be back,” I told them, meeting my sister’s beady, smug gaze over my shoulder.
She snorted. “Yeah, sure you will.”
Zac squeezed my fingers, and I forgot about her cryptic comment before following after him, asking, “Zac, seriously, what are you doing here?” as we headed toward the lane where Boogie was standing, watching a friend of Richard’s go up for his turn.
I tried to slip my fingers out from his, but all he did was knit his longer ones through mine instead.
He smiled down at me too. “I told you, darlin’. I came to talk to you and your cousin.”
But about what? “I know Trevor is going to be on your ass for leaving. You should be home.”
He tugged on my hand playfully. “I can’t stay all night, kiddo. Just a little while.” He gave me another one of those sugar-sweet smiles. “And he knows where I am.”
I eyed him.
He kept on smiling. “Come on. The faster we do this, the faster we can talk.”
“I could’ve talked to you on the phone. I don’t want you to mess anything up, not when you have a game tomorrow.”
“I’m not messin’ a thing up. You can ask Trev. He gave me his blessin’ to come so I could put him out of his misery.”
Trevor’s blessing? “Were you being a pain in the ass?”
He shot me a little side look that made me snort.
“You’re always being a pain in the ass, my apologies.”
He chuckled at the same time that my cousin happened to turn around, in the middle of smiling when he caught sight of Zac first. Then me holding his hand.
And he didn’t stop smiling, but his face got a little weird. A little tight. Maybe even a little uncomfortable, just like earlier. Basically, it was all three.
I didn’t know what to think of it.
I had told him the truth, and I knew he’d believed me about there not being anything going on between us.
What I was though, was glad that I’d told Boogie how I’d felt. I hated keeping secrets from him, but I knew he understood why I’d done it.
I glanced at Zac to see if he was tense or awkward, but he only looked determined. I’d seen him make the same facial expressions before on game days.
Boogie said something to the friend beside him before coming over, his mouth forming a flat line. He stopped directly in front of us, expression calm but careful and totally like my cousin.
Only then did Zac let go of my hand and go straight into giving him a hug that my cousin returned. A normal one. Easy. Slapped him on the back and everything. It relieved me.
But as he pulled away, my old friend set both hands on my cousin’s shoulders. “You know I love you,” Zac said steadily.
And my cousin nodded seriously, his face grave. “I know. You know I love you too.”
Only these two could tell each other they loved each other like it was the most natural thing in the world. I’d always loved it. And I understood why Zac wouldn’t put anything between them. I really did. Who was I to mess this up?
I really was doing the right thing. I just needed time to get over it—time and maybe a distraction. Maybe I could reschedule my trip to Orlando and make an extended vacation out of it.
“You’re the brother I never had and never wanted,” Zac kept going, bringing my focus back to him and the way he was looking down at my cousin.
That had Boogie grinning.
And it was me who felt a little uneasy. Was this sounding like a breakup, or was I imagining it? I had to be imagining it. I’d seen marriages less supportive than these two’s friendship.
“I love you, all right?” Zac repeated.
My cousin sighed.
What the hell was he sighing for?
Oh God, I had a bad feeling in my stomach. “Why are you two acting like you’re splitting up? Nothing happened, Boogie, I swear.”
“Who says we’re splittin’ up, darlin’?” Zac asked, dropping a hand from my cousin’s shoulder to reach over and take my forearm gently, his rough thumb grazing along the inside of it.
“We’re not breaking up,” my cousin confirmed before focusing back on his best friend with a deep breath and then a long, drawn-out sigh that came straight out of his soul. I was pretty positive even his shoulders slumped for a second, but he set them back into place, and it just made me feel again like they were breaking up. “Say what you have to say
