into it. “I was thinking, while you’re on paid vacation—”
Vacation? Is that what he was calling it?
“—Could you get your friend Zac to come by and post a picture or two of him working out here?”
This asshole. I winced, shaking my head in disbelief. Did he really expect me to say yes? “No, he doesn’t have time,” I told him, straight up. What was the worst he would do? Fire me?
There was a sharp sound. “No?”
“No.” I should have known there was going to be a catch with his offer. If anything, it should be surprising it had taken him this long to call with his plan. He had more than likely come up with it from the moment he’d made the offer in the first place. “Is that all you needed?”
“No?” he repeated, sounding stunned.
I hoped he was.
“No,” I confirmed. “He can’t. Like I told you last time you asked. I have to go now, bye.” Before he had a chance to say anything else, I hung up. I was snorting at the nerve of him as the front door opened and heard a familiar “Kiddo?”
“I’m here,” I called out as I set my phone down and saved the footage I’d been in the middle of editing and turned on the barstool to find Zac coming in, holding a small duffel bag in one hand and a glass bottle of water in the other.
The only thing off about him was the weird smile on his face.
“What’s wrong with you?” I asked him instantly.
He froze for a second as he dropped his bag against the wall and then headed over to where I was sitting. Zac wrapped his forearm around my neck from behind and pecked me twice on the cheekbone, right by my eye. He smelled like he’d just gotten out of the shower, and I liked it. A lot.
Too much.
“Darlin’, how can you always tell when somethin’s wrong?” he asked, his cheek coming to a pause over the top of my head. I liked that too much too.
Well, if he wanted to be affectionate… I tucked my chin and pressed my lips to his forearm briefly. “Because I know you too well. You’ve made just about every face possible in front of me at one point or another. And you look extra pale. Are you sick?”
He didn’t move from his position, cheek still on my head, and I could feel his chest right behind me, rising and falling.
“Zac?” I cupped his forearm and tried to tilt my head upward to look at him. “If you don’t want to talk about it….”
“I think I might have a fever.”
His arm felt nice and cool under my hand… and he hadn’t looked flushed coming in the house. My Zac senses were going off. “Want me to check it?” I asked him suspiciously.
He paused, then nodded.
“Bend over then,” I told him and felt his arm flex.
“What?”
“I’ll check it rectally.” I laughed. “It’s the most accurate, you liar. What’s really wrong?”
He pulled back a little. That handsome face was still looking totally off even as he narrowed his eyes at me and said, “I’m tryin’ to tell myself I don’t feel good,” he admitted carefully, sounding sheepish. Which was rare because I didn’t think he had a sheepish bone in his incredible body. I mean, body. “I gotta get PRP done on my knee in an hour.”
“What’s PRP?”
Zac took out the stool beside me, pulled my bowl of pasta toward him, and started eating it as he explained to me the treatment that required his blood platelets being reinjected into his body to reduce inflammation he was having that was making his knee achy. The thing was… he looked sick the whole time he told me about it, and I wasn’t surprised once I understood why.
They had to take blood from him, which was bad enough. Then reinject him, several times in several places. To most people, that wouldn’t be a big deal, and part of me was surprised it was still a big deal for him considering the fact he was fixing to be thirty-five and had more than likely gone through who knew how many cortisone injections over his life.
But apparently, Zac was still scared of needles.
Or not scared as I was pretty sure he would insist if it came down to it.
He didn’t need to say the actual words, but I understood.
It was his dirty secret.
I got up, scooped the remainder of the pasta I’d set aside into the same