Well, at least until he turned, kneeled, and lowered me to the grass right there, where the majority of the trampoline blocked us from being seen by everyone on the deck.
“Lean forward,” he said the second I was down.
I did and grunted the whole time. I was pretty sure I whined too.
He chuckled. “You’re all right; you tweaked it. Happens to me all the time. Relax.”
Relax?
His fingers dug into my lower back a second later, and I straight-up grunted as he kneaded my muscles.
“That was a pretty impressive backflip,” he said from behind as he dug some more into my back and I groaned again. It hurt, but it felt kind of good at the same time. But mostly it hurt.
“I hope it was if I’m not able to walk tomorrow, damn it.”
“You’ll be fine,” he assured me a second before his hands went under my shirt and touched my bare back.
I only froze for a second before I relaxed and let him keep doing it. I mean, he got massages all the time. What was a little bare skin? It wasn’t like he was touching my butt or anything.
“Thank you,” I told him with another grunt.
“You’re welcome,” he said, still working those incredibly strong fingers right above the band to my jeans. I hoped my butt crack wasn’t peeking out. “You gotta be careful so you don’t hurt yourself.”
I waited until he changed the motion he was doing and moved to a slightly different spot. “Thank you for coming to save me,” I told him, trying to ignore the feel of his warm fingertips.
And the urge to shiver over them.
His thumbs pressed deep along my spine, and I winced. “I was more worried about you flyin’ off the side and breakin’ an arm.”
“I just broke my back, no big deal.”
His puff of a laugh was low as he kept on massaging me.
“Zac?”
“Hmm?”
“Who’s watching our tres leches if you’re here?”
I felt a warm weight wiggle in behind me, hot breath blowing against the back of my neck.
“Are you awake?” the voice whispered.
I was on my side, holding my phone up to my face as I replied, “No.”
Connie dug her knuckle into a spot on my spine, and I squeaked when she got me right on a nerve. “You awake now?” she giggled inches from my neck.
Reaching behind me, I tried to aim for her arm, but she was too close and grabbed my fist with both hands, holding it in place so that I couldn’t get her. “Oh my God, why would you do that? My back still hurts, you monster. What are you doing?”
“Ah, you’re fine. I saw you ice it. Luisa’s taking a shower,” she whispered. Her son was passed out on the other bed. He’d been the first one to jump in and shower and had been out like a log by the time I’d gotten out.
“You all right?” I asked her, turning off my screen and rolling onto my back carefully, with another grunt, to get a good look at her. Zac had worked on my back for at least five minutes, assuring me the whole time that I’d be fine later, but it was still achy. I’d walked back to his car like I needed a cane… and gotten teased the whole time for it.
With her hair wet and all over the place, and no makeup, she looked like a version of Connie I hadn’t seen since before she’d been too young to put on makeup. Our parents hadn’t let her until she’d turned sixteen. Well, Mamá Lupe hadn’t let her until she’d turned sixteen was more like it. “I’m good.” She let go of my hand and tried to knuckle me again, but this time, it was my turn to grab her hand and make sure she couldn’t get me again. She raised her eyebrows. “What’s up with you?”
“Nothing, I’m good. Work sucks, but everything else is good.” I smiled at her.
“Are you going to make me ask or are you telling me on your own?”
I blinked. “Tell you what?”
She sighed. “What’s going on with you and….” She made her eyebrows go up and down.
“Who?” I tried to think about what I’d done that evening.
After going outside at my aunt’s house and nearly throwing out my back, we’d all hung around the table and talked—mostly talked shit. In a good way, not the way our mean aunt tried to get away with saying things.
One of my cousins had brought his friend over, but the guy had sat across the table and I hadn’t done more than greet him. I’d been too busy talking to Zac, Boogie, my sister, and the kids to do more. And we’d talked so much crap during that time, even the kids adding in their own quips, it had been a ton of fun.
So… I literally had no clue what the hell she was talking about.
And it was apparent she didn’t believe me.
But then I realized she had to have been doing drugs in the bathroom when she said, “Zac.”
“Zac?” I looked at her. “You on something?”
“Not in fifteen years.”
I snorted and poked at her face.
She grabbed my hand and tucked it under her chin. “I’m not joking. What’s going on with you two?”
“Nothing.”
Had I… done something? Looked at him weird? I liked Zac. I liked him a lot.
But that was it.
But she wasn’t going to drop it now. “You two have been hanging out a ton.”
I kept my face even. “Because we’re friends and we live in the same city. We’ve always been friends.”
“That was ten years ago.”
“What’s the difference now and then?”
“Exactly. That was ten years and a few hundred girls ago.”
Well, that felt shitty, and I could have gone without the mental picture. “Yeah, but he hasn’t known any of those girls since they were three like me.”
She scrunched up her nose. “Yeah, that’s not what I mean, and you know it.”
“Yeah, but you know we’ve always gotten along.”
“And it was cute when you were younger, but now….”
“Now what?”
“Now it just seems a little fishy.”
I didn’t like where this was going and knew I needed to shut it down as soon as possible. “You seem a little fishy,” I muttered.
Connie rolled her eyes. “Just tell me the truth.”
“Nothing is going on,” I whispered, lifting up a little to glance over her shoulder and make sure my nephew was asleep.
He was.
“He’s just my friend.” I swallowed. “And I know he doesn’t see me like that, Con. I think he’s just lonely or something. He probably still feels like he owes me since I ‘saved his life’ a million years ago. And he rarely talks to me about football stuff. I don’t really ask about it much either. He probably just likes getting away from it sometimes.”
That had my sister’s face softening.
“We’re just friends. I’m not following him around like a puppy. He calls me. He invites me to his house. I leave him alone. He comes over sometimes,” I told her in another whisper just as the water in the shower cut off. “And we just get along really well. Like we always have.”
“B, I wasn’t putting it all on you. Him too. I know you would’ve told me if you invited him, but I know that you wouldn’t have.”