I got in the car, mostly because I wasn’t sure my knees would hold me up much longer. Also because I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t swoon, smack my head on the side mirror, and forget everything that had just happened. At least the parts I could comprehend.
And this fool was still smiling as he shut the door after I got in, and he was smiling as he climbed behind the wheel and turned on the car. All while I reeled. Stricken. Stuck.
Amazed. Terrified. Confused too.
Mostly confused.
He… he….
I took a breath in through my nose and put my thoughts in order as he turned on his car and turned toward me.
“Zac?”
He looked so earnest. “Yes, darlin’?”
I couldn’t look at his face while I asked this, so I focused on the screen of his console as I asked in a steady voice, “Do you… do you…?” I could barely think the words, much less say them out loud. “Were you…?” I couldn’t fucking stop stuttering. Because I couldn’t comprehend what he’d been trying to imply.
He made a soft sound in through his nose. “Did you steal my damn heart, run off with it, and say I’ll see ya later? ’Cause the answer to that is yes.”
I really was on the verge of passing out, and it took everything in me to whisper, “No, for real.”
“I’m bein’ for real,” he replied easily, one corner of his mouth curled up into a lazy smile. “I’ve thought about it. I’m thinkin’ it happened sometime between you givin’ me that awful pep talk about old Zac kickin’ this Zac’s ass and you throwin’ bombs at me, I’d say.”
He was saying….
He was trying to tell me….
I forced my eyelids not to blink, thought about it a little more, and asked again. “Zac?”
He leaned back into the door and crossed his arms over his chest, looking smug and good and still relieved. “Yes, sweetheart?” he asked with so much love and patience, I didn’t know what to do with it even more.
“Why are you really here?”
“’Cause I love you,” Zac answered.
I glanced away again. I wasn’t going to look at him. I couldn’t. But I would tell him the truth. “You literally said to me that you didn’t think you would ever fall in love because you’d never be able to trust someone enough to do that,” I admitted, willing my heart to be reasonable. To be smart. To not jump the fucking gun and start imagining all kinds of shit when it damn well knew better.
He made an amused sound that only made my heart drop. “True enough.”
I blinked and turned toward him again.
“But….” He trailed off.
I shoved my fingers under my thighs.
“You’re not just ‘somebody,’ are you, kiddo?”
The fuck did he just imply?
He kept talking. Because he couldn’t read my mind. His arms uncrossed, and he sat up straight in the small interior of his fancy car, his head millimeters from grazing the roof as he aimed that gaze straight at me with the strength of a thousand lighthouses. “And there was no fallin’ for you, Bianca. I just did. Just do, you know? Love you, I mean. It was like I told Boog, you snuck up behind me when I wasn’t lookin’ and beat the livin’ shit out of me ‘til I didn’t have a choice but to see you. See who you’ve become. See who you’ll be. You amaze me, kiddo. You’re gonna take over the world one day, and I wanna be there to see it. I wanna be there to help you any way I can. Lovin’ you is the easiest thing I’ve ever done, and it’s the easiest thing I’m ever gonna do. I just know it.” He paused, and his eyebrows went up at the same time his shoulders did. “I’ve never said that like that to anybody before, and I was a little scared, but I figured nothin’ could be worse than not sayin’ it and you leavin’, and wow… that actually felt right. Real right.”
I held my breath, and I’d swear I could hear my heartbeat. Maybe even his too. And right then, I felt like he could read my mind because he smiled at me, and it was tender and different and something I would remember for the rest of my life.
“I’ve missed the hell out of you,” he said, staring right at me.
Yep. I was going to pass out.
“Zac?” I whispered.
“Yes, darlin’?”
If I didn’t throw up, I was going to faint. Maybe throw up and then faint. Maybe shit myself too. Who knew?
But I was nobody’s coward. And I had to know. I had to. “Are you sure you… really feel that way about me?” I asked, swallowing. “Enough to say that? To Boogie? Because there’s friend-love and there’s—”
His hand settled on my thigh. Tilting my chin up, we made eye contact. “More sure than I am of anything.” He gave my leg a squeeze. “More sure than I am of myself. That’s what I wanted to tell you that day you left, but I didn’t know how. I’d never wanna make you pick, and I guess I was worried you’d pick Boogie. By the time I got home though, ready to tell you to gimme some time to sort things out, you were gone.”
I flicked myself on the chin just to make sure I wasn’t imagining it. I wasn’t. It stung.
And Zac saw it because he chuckled, his smile warm and eternal as his fingers moved to slide through mine. “I didn’t wanna risk ruinin’ what I got with Boogie, Bibi, but these last two weeks without you… I’ve been miserable. I wanted you back. I missed every single thing about you. And I had to think about what I had to offer you when you’ve got so much already goin’ on. Today I finally did the last thing I needed to before I could talk to you about it all. Before I felt like I could deserve to try.”
I pressed my lips together for about a split second, my nose tingling. My eyes burning. My soul screaming.
“Bibi?”
“Yes, Snack Pack?”
“Are you gonna ask if I’m sure I’m crazy about you?”
This idiot.
That finally had me digging in deep to figure out how I felt. And there was only one answer I could give him. “No, I wasn’t planning on it. Why wouldn’t you be?” I joked.
And I meant it.
All the little signs… the ones I’d ignored or taken to be something else—friendship, it had been a deep-rooted, immovable friendship—had been there along the way.
Like my cousin had said, he wouldn’t say something and he wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t completely serious. I knew Zac as a jokester as much as I knew him as the man who usually had incredible self-discipline and dreams bigger than anything. He was a man who earned people’s friendship and devotion.
He knew what he wanted out of life more often than he didn’t. But sometimes we all just needed a little push. Whether it was a gentle one or a hard shove was the question though.
And his smile in that moment was as wide as Texas. “And here I was thinkin’ I’d have to make you a list of reasons why I am,” he said with amusement, with so much affection it threatened to break my heart in half.
But only threatened, because I didn’t spook easily. I was used to being given these tiny microscopic chances and running with them. All I ever needed in anything was an opportunity and my greedy ass would take it all.