Total pages in book: 191
Estimated words: 182070 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 910(@200wpm)___ 728(@250wpm)___ 607(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 182070 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 910(@200wpm)___ 728(@250wpm)___ 607(@300wpm)
Well, I’d done it. There was no going back now.
I got kind of the reaction I’d been expecting. A little bit.
He made a confused face. “You did?”
I nodded, making sure to look him in the eye so that it wouldn’t be something really that bad. Nothing could be that bad if you didn’t have to hide from it. “Yeah. Huge. Just for like a year…” I hesitated. “Or two, but yeah. I thought you were pretty much perfect. I’m glad you didn’t know. You would have been all sweet and understanding about it, and that would have been worse.” It was time to change the subject. “What other secrets you got?”
He ignored my question. “When?”
Damn it. “Did I like you? When I was a teenager, I told you. Now what other secrets do you have?”
He continued to ignore me. “But when? I never noticed.”
“Oh, not that far back. Hold your horses. When I was like sixteen.” I eyed his serious face and smiled. “Seventeen and eighteen too, maybe?” I shrugged. “You gave me a big hug and a kiss, and it all went downhill from there for a while after that. It was a well-kept secret, I guess.”
Well, until I realized that mooning over someone like Zac was never going to mean anything because I was me and he was him, and I wasn’t anywhere near being his type. I might have wished upon a star and every birthday candle I’d had for those couple of years, hoping and wishing and dreaming of the possibility that one day he would look at me and see me. See that I loved him and that I didn’t care about him being some hotshot football player. That I liked him. His humor, his kindness, his love.
Obviously, that had never happened, and eventually, after years of sighing from a distance, I had come to terms with it. I would live the rest of my life loving someone who loved me too but like a little sister.
At least he loved me, I had told myself one day after I’d seen him with some girl he’d been seeing. He didn’t love them, but he loved me. That made me special.
Over the years, it became easier, especially after we lost touch.
And here we were.
On his hotel bed, both in pajamas that were really underwear, with him being a better friend to me than ever before.
And that friend, my friend who I had just told I’d had feelings for, turned his body to look at me with an expression that wasn’t exactly disgusted but completely surprised. “I did?”
That’s how little that had meant to him—a little peck on the cheek—but I forced myself to push it back, to not take it that way. I lifted a shoulder and kept the smile on my face. “Yeah. Right here.” I pointed right beside my mouth where my beauty mark was, purposely not thinking about how I’d gotten hung up on how his lips had just, just, just touched the corner of mine. “I thought of it as my first kiss for a little bit.” I flashed my teeth at him, trying to tell him I knew it was lame, but I was not really sorry.
Those big blue eyes blinked at me some more, and I watched his eyes flick down to where I pointed, his face still confused.
I reached over and patted his bare knee. “But that was a long time ago. I promise I haven’t thought of you like that in a whole lot of years.”
He just kept on looking at me, not moving away, just… there. On the bed. Watching me.
Shit. “What?” I suddenly and instantly regretted opening my fat trap. I should have just stayed quiet and let it go to the grave with me. “I’m sorry for saying something. I didn’t think you’d care. I thought you’d laugh.”
It took a second, but in the following one, I could tell, I could tell, he forced the tight smile onto his face.
And my freaking stomach sank down to my toes.
Past my toes. Straight down through the Earth’s crust.
“Zac…,” I started to say. God, why the hell had I opened my mouth? Dumb, Bianca. I instantly faced forward and figured I might as well try and go downstairs to get a key.
Zac’s hand went to my leg, those long fingers wrapping around the kneecap, swallowing it whole. “Hey.” His eyes met mine, and there wasn’t a hint of panic or disgust on his face. But there wasn’t joy or that easygoing expression that came so naturally to him either. His forehead was furrowed, and his lips looked a little tight, but I didn’t know what to make of it. “Why you tensin’ up?”
I was tense. Exhaling, I tried to shake it off.
As I did, I knew I wasn’t imagining him scooting over close. His mostly bare thigh lined up to mine, his hand was still on my knee, the tips of his fingers anchored around the bone.