Both my eyes shot open even as that slightly disgusting feeling from the night before—at the reminder that his car hadn’t been out there last night—ballooned up all over again. Gross and thick and reckless.
And totally useless because who was I to get jealous over him? He was my friend, and that was the beginning and the end of it. I had never expected any different.
“I don’t know, Trev,” I answered him honestly.
Because I didn’t want to rat him out. I didn’t need details, but Trevor wouldn’t be calling me at… nine in the morning for no reason.
He must have believed me because he dove right into another question while I was still struggling with the fact he was calling me in the first place. To ask where Zac was. And how had he gotten my number? “When was the last time you heard from him?”
What was this? Who Wants to be a Billionaire?
“Last night. We spent some time with his friends, and then he came back, dropped me off, and said he was going to run some errands.” I’d checked a few news sites while I’d been up to make sure nothing had been posted about Zac being in an accident or something.
He huffed.
“Why? Did something happen?”
“I texted him last night, and he hasn’t responded.”
Welcome to the club. I rubbed my eyes with my wrist as more of that gross feeling welled inside of me. Jealousy, okay, it was fucking jealousy. I highly doubted he’d been in an accident. “Maybe he was just having too much fun?” That made me want to throw up, but I kept it to myself.
He snickered in a way that had me blinking up at the ceiling. At his ceiling. “We’re under crunch time, Bianca. If I text him, he needs to answer. He needs to be on his A game, not partying, getting his picture taken with random women at clubs—”
He’d gone to a club?
He stopped talking, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t because I gasped or anything. At least I hoped more than anything that I hadn’t made a sound. My lips were pressed tight for a reason. And what pictures was he talking about? How did he know there were women?
I’d figure it out later. Maybe.
No. No, I wouldn’t. Because it wasn’t my business.
Oh God, I really was nauseous. I just needed to keep it together a little longer. “Trevor? You there?”
There was a pause. Then I heard him sigh. “Bianca, look, kid, I like you, all right? I got a feeling about you, so I’m saying this because I don’t want you to lose that shine in your eye….”
I didn’t mean to say it, but I did it. “You’re scaring me.” Did he say… did he say he liked me? Just last night, Vanessa had told me all about how mean Trevor had been to her. How much neither one of them could stand each other and about how glad she was that he didn’t manage Aiden anymore.
I felt like there was more to this story, but I hadn’t gotten a chance to ask Zac about it.
So for him—who had never so much as even smiled at me, but he’d eaten my food—to say he liked me and didn’t want me to lose the shine in my eye?
I wasn’t going to like what he was about to say, and I knew it.
“Zac’s the closest thing I have to a son. I know everything about him, all the good and the bad—like you do—and it’s been my responsibility to keep him on track as much as possible because I want the best for him.”
Yeah, I didn’t like where this was headed.
He kept going. “But he’s had one nice, sweet, perfect girl after another in his life since we’ve known each other, and I’m sure you know that. I know he cares about you. Anybody with eyes can see that, but I don’t want you to have any expectations that will end up—”
Why did it feel like I got punched in the chest as hard as possible?
Why did I want to cry?
And of all the words in the world did he have to use ‘expectations’?
It wasn’t like I’d genuinely thought that I’d ever had a chance. I knew that some of my dreams were just that—dreams. Some dreams you have a say in. Some dreams you can make happen…
And there are some dreams you had zero shot at.
You couldn’t make someone love you.
Most importantly, you couldn’t make someone who already loved you, love you any differently.
“No, Trev, it’s all right. I don’t… I don’t have any expectations. I know… I know not to expect anything. I learned that a long time ago,” I told him, trying to keep my voice light and failing. Or maybe not failing. Maybe he wouldn’t notice.
He didn’t believe me, and I knew it instantly. “I don’t want you getting disappointed. Zac is just Zac. He doesn’t ever mean to hurt anybody, and I can tell you’re at the top of the list for him. But sometimes we hurt people without meaning to.”
Sometimes we did. He was right. “I know he doesn’t like to hurt anyone. I just opened the door for him yesterday when he found a lizard in the house. He didn’t want it to die inside.” Trying to be an adult, I held my breath a little, trying to cling to the fact that Trevor had said he cared about me—not that it was a surprise. I knew he did. But one nice girl after another? I could have done without that, not that I wasn’t already fully aware of it. “But thanks, Trev. I appreciate it.”
There was another pause. Another sigh. “Maybe I’m saying this as a selfish asshole because I don’t want you to get hurt and leave him hanging. You’re good with him. To him. Just… hear me out.”
I pressed my lips flat for a moment and tried my best to keep my voice level. “I will.”
At last he changed the subject. “And don’t listen to everything that Vanessa says.”
That Vanessa? I didn’t say anything. How the hell had he known she would say something?
And that must have made him laugh because he knew exactly what I was doing. “You hear from him or see him, tell him to call me. Bye, Bianca.”
“Bye, Trev.”
He didn’t even correct me that time, and it made me feel a little worse.
Dropping my phone on top of my chest, I exhaled and stared at the tall ceiling.
Before I could convince myself that it was a bad idea, or that I had no business, or that friends didn’t do that kind of stalker shit, I grabbed my phone again and opened up the old trusty Picturegram app and went to the search option.
I wasn’t proud of myself, but I typed in what I typed in.
It didn’t take long to find it. Just a few rows down, I found what Trevor had to have been talking about. A picture someone had posted hours ago.
It was of Zac sitting with a woman on his lap.
He was in what looked like a wide booth, with that smile of his that annoyed me, and she was there, perched, with her boobies all up in his face.
My fingertips went numb. The rest of my hands tingled too, if I was going to be honest. I might have even felt nauseous.
I tried to look for any sign that I was wrong, that the picture hadn’t been taken yesterday, but I couldn’t remember what the hell he’d been wearing. And the girl was covering most of his clothes with her body anyway. Did his hair look longer or was I imagining it?
And what? If it hadn’t been taken last night, then it would suddenly be better if it had been a week ago? Two weeks ago? Three weeks ago? I tried to reason with myself.