a roll right then too—a different kind of roll—right at that moment, and I knew what was happening. I was giving myself a chance. Reminding myself of what we had. And that was friendship. A friendship that would span decades.
And I was going to hold on to it with both hands.
Or at least with one at the moment.
Reaching behind me, I smiled and swiped at the air… and then I made it so I was throwing an imaginary ball at him.
It wasn’t all that imaginary.
I threw my fart at Zac.
I threw it at him and said, “Attack.”
In the time it took him to blink in surprise, he farted too, but not a quiet one, a loud one that must have rumbled his butt cheeks…
Then he was cupping and throwing one right back at me, laughing.
I loved him, and I knew it. I really did. And I had no fucking business doing so.
Chapter Fifteen
Zac had been staring at the heels of my boots on and off from the moment he’d pulled up to find me outside, waiting for him.
And he was staring at them again now as we walked from the enormous parking lot settled across a few acres surrounding the haunted house.
There weren’t too many cars in the lot yet. Then again, we were there fifteen minutes before the doors even opened in the first place. Zac had said that his teammate had wanted them to be the first “visitors” through on opening day. To avoid the crowds, I guessed, and to have pictures taken of them to put up on social media.
Them being Zac, CJ, and Amari, who had been in his car when he’d pulled up to get me. We’d talked about CJ “practicing” cooking the entire ride over. Zac had been trying to teach him.
“You sure about those?” Zac finally asked, pointing toward my feet with his chin.
I lifted my toes. “Yeah, why?”
“You don’t think tennis shoes would’ve been better to go through?”
“They’re only wedges, and they aren’t even three inches. I can run in taller than these,” I scoffed. “I got this.”
His face implied he didn’t believe me.
“Promise. Connie trained me to run in heels.”
That got me an eyebrow lift. “Trained you?”
“We were bored one night.”
He blinked, but he shook his head with a smile after that.
In jeans, his usual boots, and a light gray T-shirt I’d seen him wear once or twice by that point, he looked happy and great—not at all like the man who had shown up to my apartment looking so sad the day before. More like the man who had thrown his fart at me… after I’d thrown one at him. And even more like the man who had sang about walking a line, crying in the rain, and then cried laughing with me after yelling at the top of our lungs about carving our names into pickup trucks.
And today, he seemed back to normal when he’d rolled down the window and hollered, “Let’s roll, Bibi. Ticktock.”
Based on the expression he was giving my shoes again, he was definitely in a familiar mood.
“Don’t worry about it, Snack Pack,” I told him. “You’re more likely to trip in your boots than I am. These are super comfortable.”
Yeah, he looked skeptical as hell, and he wasn’t trying to hide it. “You roll an ankle, and I’m leavin’ you behind, kiddo.”
I snickered. “Pssh. I go down, and I’m taking you with me.”
Zac’s hand landed on the back of my neck as he chuckled.
Behind us, Amari—I knew it was him because CJ’s voice was really deep and this one wasn’t on the same level; it was just a normal, nice voice—asked, “How do you two know each other again?”
Zac kept his warm palm on my neck as he answered with, “Bianca’s grandma used to take care of me.”
I looked up at Zac and found those soft blue eyes on me. I smiled. He smiled back.
Sure enough, there were maybe twenty people in line to get into the haunted house. There were a few handfuls of employees dressed as everything from zombies to these really ugly clowns with blood and fake guts stuck to their masks and clothes, creeping around the roped lines set and ready for the crowds that would no doubt start showing up. Maybe not today since it was only the beginning of October but closer to Halloween, for sure.
“Did one of y’all tell him we’re here?” Zac asked over his shoulder.
It was Amari that replied. “I did. He said to hold up