That got me another deep, throaty laugh that made me smile. “Think of somethin’. A good one.”
What…?
I had to think about it.
“It’s not really a secret, but… I think you’ve got really cute butt cheeks?” I offered. “It’s like a perfect little peach butt. It was the best one in the magazine.”
His smile was playful and smug. “That’s not a secret, but thank you. That’s why they put it on the cover.”
I laughed. “Conceited much?”
Zac grinned. “Only a little. Tell me a real secret, ’cause I’m not gonna forget.”
A real one? That was hard. There was one I could think of that I definitely didn’t want to share, but what else was there?
I knew it.
Before my brain could catch up with my big damn mouth, I told him the only thing I thought might make him gasp in surprise. Because, and I would tell myself this later so that I wouldn’t be embarrassed, it wasn’t a big deal. It was a reminder of a life from a long time ago, when I’d been a kid. “I used to have the biggest crush on you when I was a teenager.”
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.