“Trevor’s still mad at him about the party,” CJ said out of nowhere.
What party? The one here weeks ago?
“I hope someone signs him. He’s got a lot left in him.”
I glanced up to find my new best friend eyeing the container of scones in front of me. I nudged them toward him again and watched as he pried the lid off and plucked two more out. I wanted to ask him if he knew anything I didn’t—but when you knew nothing, which was exactly the amount of knowledge in my brain regarding Zac and his career, everything was information—but kept my mouth shut.
If Zac wanted me to know, he would just tell me himself, right? Not that I was expecting anything. And hadn’t I literally just told myself to mind my own business like fifteen minutes ago?
Luckily and unluckily, I didn’t have to wonder about it too much because CJ’s phone started ringing. The ringtone must have meant something, because the next thing I knew, he was shoving his stool back, saying, “I need to take this. Thanks for the scones, Bianca.”
All I managed to do was say, “You’re welcome, CJ,” before he was heading out the doorway and up the staircase.
Well, that had been interesting.
It had made my whole day.
I twisted again to glance where Zac had disappeared to. I couldn’t hear him anymore. Maybe he just wanted some privacy to finish up a conversation that didn’t sound all that pleasant. Made sense. I could wait.
As I sat there, I pulled out my phone and opened my email app, figuring I might as well get some work in while I waited. Random people messaged me all the time with various cooking questions, especially when they were trying to tweak one of my recipes, and I tried my best to write them all back. Most of the time I did it while I was on the toilet, but there was no point in sitting around not doing anything, was there?
I answered one email. Two. Three. Four. Five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, and after the fifteenth one—from two days ago—had been replied to, I glanced at the clock on the microwave across from me… almost an hour had gone by.
Disappointment shaped like a sledgehammer hit me right in the center of the chest.
Did he forget I was here?
Something hot and uncomfortable layered itself over my sternum, and I turned again to see if he had come back and was just… being quiet. Wishful fucking thinking, and I knew it was. I knew it.
Quietly, as freaking quietly as I could, I scooted off the stool that my butt had molded itself to and crept toward the staircase.
Unless he had an invisibility cloak on, he wasn’t there. Something that could have been his voice floated down the stairs. He’d given me the finger to ask me to wait for him…
But that had been an hour ago.
Who the hell talked on the phone for that long? Okay, maybe me with my sister, but I’d get off the phone with her if I had something to do or someone was visiting.
It’s probably something really important, my brain tried to reason.
But….
I did have things to do. And apparently so did Zac.
Things that didn’t include me after all.
Chapter Six
I spent the entire ride to the grocery store trying my best not to be disappointed about what happened at Zac’s place.
More like… what hadn’t happened.
But like most things, it was easier said than done, like when my New Year’s resolution was to wake up at five in the morning every day to work out before my shift. I hadn’t taken into consideration that I rarely went to bed before two in the morning.
The truth was, I was disappointed in how disappointed I was.
I knew better.
I had gone there with the intention of apologizing, and I hadn’t done that.
Because I’d been forgotten. For not the first time in my life.
My stomach felt off no matter how much I “understood” that Zac was “famous” and probably had a ton of things going on. He was busy with his own life. I was busy with my life, and of course he was even busier than me. He’d invited me when he’d thought he had a moment and didn’t I know things came up? Of course I got it. There had been plenty of times when I’d had to pull over or go straight home from work because something had happened to my website, or if I got an email about a mistake someone had found on a video or a post and I had to do damage control.
I told myself that Zac had asked me to come over because he’d wanted to see me.
And I was disappointed because I’d literally seen him for maybe five seconds from a distance.
If something wouldn’t have been happening, he would have come down. But I’d met CJ, and he’d known who I was and had even made one of my recipes. That should have been enough. It would have been more than enough in any other situation.
But my stomach—and my heart—didn’t give enough of a shit.
Because that molasses-like layer of “my friend had bailed on me” didn’t really go anywhere on the drive or during my shopping trip.
Telling yourself something and believing it were two totally different things.
But the call that came to my cell while I was in line at the checkout counter had helped. Some.
I’d been surprised as shit when my phone started ringing while I was loading my groceries onto the conveyor belt and taken a peek at the screen to see 512-555-0199 flash across the screen.
I looked at the number for a second and thought about not answering it. But I did it anyway, because I wasn’t an asshole. Because I had wanted to try.
I just wasn’t going to put much weight into any of my interactions with Zac, mostly because I wasn’t going to expect anything.
If you didn’t have expectations, you couldn’t be let down.
Before I
