I would have been one of them.
You know, if there was a chance. But there wasn’t.
And that wasn’t his fault.
If it wasn’t for our friendship, or the fact that we had grown up together, or the fact that we got along so great, I wouldn’t have any kind of friendship with him. I wouldn’t have him in my life period. It was a one in a billion chance that we’d even met in the first place. That circumstances had connected us.
I didn’t want to punish him for not returning my feelings. Because they were dumb, pointless feelings that did nothing but twist me up into knots and hurt me.
So I tried my best to lighten my voice as I offered, “Okay. Bianca the Baker?”
His leg moved under my forehead again. “No. You don’t need a thing after your name,” he said calmly.
I had to dig in deep to pull a joke out of my heart. “My New Daddy?”
He laughed lightly. “Nope. My Little Texas.”
I snorted weakly and felt him start playing with my fingers again.
“Bibi—” he started to say before the nurse practitioner cut in.
“Zac, I’m going to numb your knee a little and start the treatment, okay? You might feel some pressure.”
I sat up then, moving my grip to sneak through his fingers again. This was why I had come, to be here for him. And I knew I’d done the right thing then when I found him already pale and staring at the needle she was holding at his side like she was about to murder him.
“Remember to breathe,” she reminded him.
He wasn’t breathing. He was staring at the needle.
“Hey.” I squeezed his fingers.
The woman held up a placating hand. “It’s okay, Zac.”
Oh dear God.
I squeezed his hand tighter. “Hey you. Bubba. Look at me. Let her do her job. You sat through me getting stitches like a champ.”
Yeah.
He made it about three minutes before he fainted.
“How are you feeling?” I asked Zac a few hours later.
He was sitting on the couch, head resting against the back of it. His gaze just slid over to me without the rest of his head moving. “I’m good,” he replied, actually sounding okay.
He hadn’t been sounding okay an hour ago. He hadn’t looked that okay either.
It had taken everything inside of me not to laugh my ass off when he’d opened his eyes after passing out and asked, “What happened?” I’d had to hold it in until I’d run over to the pharmacy next door and bought him an orange juice, which he’d downed after a bottle of water that the nurse practitioner had provided. She’d told me immediately after his eyes had rolled to the back of his head that men passing out while giving blood or getting injections was pretty common.
I’d told him that on the drive back home, but he’d just given me a dirty look and said, “If you’re gonna laugh darlin’, go ahead and do it.”
It was only because I loved him very much that I held it back, tried to keep a straight face, and said, “I’m not going to laugh. I already knew you were freaked out by needles. I’d probably pass out if I saw a spider.”
“A spider I could handle.”
But not an itty-bitty needle. I didn’t say that, but I thought it. Once he was conscious and his blood pressure was fine, we left the facility and headed home. I’d made him lay down on the couch with a cold towel over his head while he napped and I worked on my computer, trying not to think about the looming possibility of permanently losing my channel.
Plopping down on the chaise right beside his knees, I cupped one. “You want some water? Need anything?”
He sniffed. “A back rub would be nice.”
A back rub?
He sniffed again.
Ah, shit. “All right. Come on, you spoiled ass. Did your grandma turn you into this monster? Because I don’t see your mom doing it.”
He chuckled as he scooted over a little on the chaise and patted the spot between him and the armrest, and I scooted back, wiggling in there. My hands went straight to his shoulders, taking in the heat of his skin through his shirt, and worked the muscles there.
He made it seem like he’d had surgery instead of just fainting a little. I was going to have to tell Boogie so he could laugh. He’d be the only one to understand.
“Is that all right?” I asked him after a couple minutes.
“Oh, that’s so good,” Zac moaned, slumping forward so that his T-shirt stretched tight across his muscular back.
I snorted as I dug my thumbs into his shoulders, kneading the muscles as hard as I could. “You sound like you haven’t gotten a massage this century, you perv.”
His reply was a groan, and it made me snort again. “It feels so good when you do it.”
“Don’t they pay people on the team to do this for you? They’re way better at it than I am.”
Zac shook his head as it dangled forward. “Yeah, but none of ’em do it with love like you do.” The moan he made went straight to my nipples. “Oh, that’s the spot right there.”
Oh God, this was a bad idea. Too late now. I dug in to the spot right at the base of his neck and moved one hand up to massage along the column of his spine, and I felt him turn into goo.
None of them do it with love like you do.
He had no idea.
But I did, and it was a tiny reminder that I’d only been here a couple of days and needed to figure out what I was doing so I could get out of here. I wasn’t Zac’s responsibility, and it would be a terrible idea to stay here too long.
To risk the chance of seeing something I absolutely, positively didn’t want to see.
Did I want to leave Houston? Did I really want to move to Killeen? Or even Austin?
I had no fucking idea, and that was the biggest problem.
Under me—well, my hands—I was pretty sure Zac purred as he curled his back even more. “I’d pay you to do this every day,” he murmured.
My hands were starting to tire out, and I let go of him before sliding my fingertips down the sides of his back and fluttering them against his ribs. His arms slammed down on top of my fingers, trapping them against his skin.
“You’re a bully.”
I laughed as I caught sight of CJ coming down the stairs and into the living room right as I tried to curl my fingers back into his side to tickle him. “Am I? Am I a bully?”
I must have gotten enough pressure in there because he sucked in a breath and said, “YES!”
“You picking on Zac again?” CJ asked as he walked by us, a small smile on his face.
“She sure is.” Zac leaned back, maybe hoping to push me out of the way so I’d let go as he said, “Do you see how she treats me? You see how she manhandles me, Ceej?”
The back of his head came to rest on my shoulder, pushing me just enough away so my fingers couldn’t reach his ribs anymore, but I set them on his shoulders and pecked him on the side of the head as I laughed again.
“Are you putting this down on your list of things to tell Mama about?” I teased him.
He turned his head to look at me, those eyes of his striking despite how pastel they were. “Yeah,” he claimed, but I could see part of his mouth going up into a smile.
“Tattletale.”