to be out of here in an hour. I came straight from the airport. I’ve got things to do.”
A hand landed on the padded shoulder of my Buzz costume, giving it a squeeze for a moment before those fingers curled around the nape of my neck and stayed there as we followed after Trevor. There was a line, of course, but he headed straight toward the bouncers, holding out what looked like laminated, holographic passes that the men checked with flashlights and then some kind of blue light before they waved our small group in. I couldn’t hear Amari or CJ over the music coming through the doors and walls as we went through them. It wasn’t anywhere near as loud as a club usually got, but it was still noisy enough that I figured I’d have to stare at mouths the rest of the night to understand what anyone said—if anyone even talked to me in the first place.
There were a lot of people already inside.
And like he could read my mind, Zac leaned in real close, the light wisp of his breath tickling my ear as he reconfirmed, “Hang with me, all right?”
I had already been contemplating this since I’d heard about this thing. “That’s okay. You don’t need to babysit me or anything. I know you might have to do your thing. I’ll be okay for a while. If I want to leave, I know how to get home.” I smiled at him.
His eyebrows went flat under the low brim of his cowboy hat. “Get home? By yourself?” he asked like I’d just said I was going to compete in the Olympics for gymnastics.
I glanced up at his handsome face and nodded. He really was the perfect Woody. But, what? Did he think I was going to go home with someone? He knew I had to work the next morning; I’d mentioned it a minimum of six times. I wasn’t going to stay here all night. He hadn’t planned on it either from what he’d said.
Zac moved closer, dipping his head so I could get a real good look at his lips. “How about this: we’ll stay for an hour, and then we’ll get outta here like Trev is plannin’. We can do whatever you want after that. Deal?”
The “yes” was there, but so was the knowledge he knew people here. “Zac, you know my feelings won’t be hurt if you would rather hang out with—”
He pressed his index finger against my lips.
I blinked at him and said with his finger still over my mouth, “I will lick your finger, and you know I will.”
Zac laughed, booping me on the nose. “I would rather hang out with you than here. You got me? Or do I gotta say it again for the… what? The fiftieth time?”
I didn’t need to watch his face to know he was telling me the truth. So I nodded and asked, “Whatever I want?”
He nodded pretty seriously.
“Okay.”
“What are you thinking?”
“Drive-through Taco Bell.”
Zac blinked. “Drive-through?”
“What, you’re too good for drive-through now?”
“I created a monster.”
“Travis!” someone hollered out of nowhere.
It was some big, burly guy who came walking over. Big. Real big. As Zac turned us toward him, his arm didn’t move an inch.
“’Sup, man?” the man asked. “Are you… Woody?”
“Woody, and I got my sidekick, Buzz, here.”
They hugged each other, and the other man glanced from me to Zac and then back to me again.
Zac slipped his arm over my shoulders before leaning his head against mine. “Bianca, this is Milton. Milton, Bianca,” Zac told him.
I stretched my hand out toward him, and he took it in his huge one, the arm on me not going anywhere. “Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you.” The other man jerked. “You’re the Bianca?”
The Bianca?
“Yeah,” Zac was the one who answered. “The one I was tellin’ you about.”
He was talking about me?
“No shit.” He suddenly seemed so much more interested. “The Baker?”
“Lazy Baker,” Zac corrected him for me. “She’s got more than two million followers on WatchTube. Get it right.”
Here I went keeping my life a secret from just about everyone, and here he was telling everybody.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” the guy snapped his fingers. “With the recipes. Zac showed me your page.”
He had?
His smile was so sweet, I had to blink. I stayed there as they talked about something, but I was too hung up on him telling his teammates about me that I stayed pretty quiet, absorbing it all.