leaned his weight against me. “What are you doin’ the rest of the evenin’?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Reply to some emails maybe. I did everything I wanted to do today. This working-from-home thing is pretty nice. You?”
I regretted asking the question the second it came out of my mouth.
But he shook his head. “Nothin’. Don’t feel up to much with my blood sugar levels bein’ all weird.” He slid me a look like he was waiting for me to contradict that’s what had made him faint.
I just pinched my lips together.
“Wanna watch a movie?”
“What are you going to watch?” CJ asked from the kitchen. From the sounds of it, he was pulling something out of the fridge and was going to heat it up.
“I don’t know what’s on. I haven’t checked, but there’s gotta be somethin’,” Zac answered before leaning back again to look at my face. “Unless you got a date or somethin’.”
“I’ll watch a movie,” I told him. “I could use a break.”
“I bet, Miss Popular.”
“I will crawl across the floor when you’re sleeping, take off your socks, and tickle your feet, don’t try me.”
He grinned. Then he tried to stick his finger into my ear.
Somehow he grabbed the remote without looking and started changing the channel. I didn’t think much of it until he sat up and scooted all the way back onto the chaise, his hip directly against mine, his leg lined up with my own. One arm went over the back of my neck, and he hauled me into his side.
Then he tossed the blanket over us.
He’s just being affectionate, I told myself as he faced forward again and started going through the movie channels.
He liked… to snuggle.
And I was lucky I was the girl around for him to do it with. The safe one. The one he felt so comfortable with.
Lucky me.
Chapter Twenty
I was downstairs washing my dishes about two weeks later, listening to Zac talking on the phone with his agent—CJ had left to run errands—when the doorbell rang.
He glanced at me, and I shrugged. It wasn’t like I’d invite someone over.
Well, no one other than the photographer who had been by. I still couldn’t believe it had happened, much less grasp just how amazing the pictures she’d taken were. It had taken five days to get all the shots done.
Five days of Zac oohing and aahing with me as he spent his bye week—a sort of week vacation every team got during the season—on the couch and around the kitchen, watching the woman in action. He’d helped me cook and clean and been my moral support the entire time.
Part of me had expected him to say bye and go off on vacation like CJ—who had gone to the Virgin Islands with Amari and another player whose name I couldn’t remember. But he hadn’t gone anywhere, not even to visit his beloved Mama or Paw-Paw. He’d hung out with me. We’d gone grocery shopping, to the movies, to the beach even though it was crazy windy, and we’d gone for a couple of long walks.
And if it hadn’t been for the fact that I still hadn’t gotten my channel back, it would have been a great week we’d gotten to spend together. But the loss had loomed over my head and in my heart even though I tried my best not to think about it since there wasn’t all that much I could do but call and email repeatedly.
Anyway.
By the time I’d rinsed the soap off my hands and dried them, the doorbell rang again. Zac put his hand over the receiver. “Gimme a sec, darlin’, and I’ll get it.”
I mouthed “I got it.”
He needed to focus on his conversation about next season. I’d been eavesdropping the whole time he was on the phone and knew exactly what kind of plan they were formulating.
Sign another year with the White Oaks if they’d take him, or he would go just about anywhere else if they didn’t.
But it all hinged on one major thing: the remaining games of the season.
If he managed to get the team to the playoffs—which I was hoping more than anything happened—then there was a shot. The White Oaks were the dark horse of the season. Mostly because of Zac and the way he’d played and led the team. I’d been on the edge of my seat days ago when he’d been in Arizona and they pulled an upset out of nowhere in the last quarter. I was glad Trevor