“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.
Shit.
Zac’s head tipped to the side. “What’s up with all that, darlin’?” he asked, sounding very, very careful all of a sudden.
Double shit.
Chapter Nine
“Meant to ask you the other day when you said somethin’, but it slipped my mind,” he drawled on, definitely thoughtfully, looking at me real close in this way that was too observant.
I’d been that obvious?
Those light blue eyes got even more watchful, and I couldn’t trust the way one corner of his mouth slid a bit to the side.
I scratched the tip of my nose. “Nothing.”
Yeah, that lopsided smile totally dropped like a freaking fly in the blink of an eye, and I wasn’t ready for what came out of his mouth next. “I’ve been thinkin’ a lot about it, you know.”
Thinking a lot about what?
“I saw you follow me on Picturegram.”
Yeah, he went for it. In a too-still voice with that piercing gaze aimed straight at me.
How did he know I followed him online? Had he finally looked me up?
“Why didn’t you tell me you lived here? Last I heard, you were in North Carolina with Connie,” he kept going, but for some reason, even though he was looking at me, it didn’t feel aimed in my direction… more like in general, like it was the first time he’d really thought about that. “Why didn’t anybody else tell me either, kiddo?”
And that didn’t exactly hurt my feelings. If there was one thing I’d learned over vlogging the last few years, it was my limits for the things that could actually hurt me. I didn’t flinch over people picking apart my looks or personality anymore, but it had hurt me for weeks back in the day. A lot of comments had robbed me of sleep. People being mean had made me want to quit a time or ten. Fifty. A hundred. A thousand.
So now….
Well, now, Zac taking ten years to question what had split up our friendship had the ability. To an extent. Only because I’d beat the reality into my heart over the years.
All I managed to do was give him a wonky smile, mostly because I didn’t know how to answer
