someone had always recognized him and tried to pay for his food or buy him a drink.
It had been weird, even though it had been the same way, on a smaller scale, back when he’d been in high school.
But as we passed the employees at the front desk and the random people sitting in the waiting areas, no one looked twice in our direction. Then again, Zac was tall but not too tall, and lean and muscular, but not overloaded with bulky muscles like the giants he played alongside. There was also the fact that his hair wasn’t eye catching at his shade and length. His face was very handsome, but there was nothing about it that would force someone to look in his direction. There definitely wasn’t anything outrageous about his clothes either.
Really, he just looked like an attractive, everyday guy.
Except he wasn’t, not really, cracked phone or not. I wasn’t going to forget that.
Zac’s butt cheeks had been plastered to the cover of TSN’s Anatomy Issue—a special edition The Sports Network released once a year that featured professional athlete’s… anatomy. AKA, they were all butt naked but with their crown jewels angled away. I had bought a copy for support. So had millions of other people. I was pretty sure it was still tucked away in my nightstand drawer too.
At the elevator bank, we got in with a couple just as Zac’s phone started ringing once more. He pulled it out of his pocket, took a peek, and then put it right back where it had been.
He caught me looking at him, and I smiled. He smiled back, but it wasn’t anywhere close to being on the same level it had been on when he’d first seen me hours ago. “An old teammate,” he explained in a voice I had never, ever heard from him before, even on TV with people shoving microphones at his face and asking what went wrong, all while hinting that losing had been all his fault. He was that worried.
I just settled for another nod as I wondered if it had been an “old” one from Oklahoma or from before.
One of his cheeks hitched up a little higher in a smile just a millimeter bigger than the one before. “Thanks for bringin’ me, darlin’,” he said in a tired, distracted voice.
“You’re welcome.”
When the doors opened, I walked out ahead of him, following the signs. I stopped at the desk and signed my name in, sensing Zac still behind me. Then I filled in James Travis for him, deciding his first name was too much. You never knew who might read the sign-in sheet. I knew I did.
“I put you down too,” I said as I turned around.
Those familiar-not-familiar blue eyes slid to me, his chin tucked. “Thank you,” he repeated, voice still off and flat.
We were just walking by a glass-encased waiting area when someone called out, “Zac! B!”
I knew that voice. I loved that voice.
I turned around, already grinning because I couldn’t help it despite the circumstances. Sure enough, Boogie was waving at us as he got up from the seat he was in. In his fitted pants and tailored shirt, he had to have come straight from work. But one glance into the waiting room told me that he wasn’t alone. A woman was sitting in the seat next to the one he’d been in. She lifted her hand, and I lifted mine. His girlfriend.
Bleh.
Looking away from her, I got to watch as Boogie and Zac clashed in a hug.
The thirty-five-year-old and the thirty-four-year-old. They’d been best friends since third grade when Zac had moved to Liberty Hill to be closer to his grandparents, who happened to employ Boogie’s dad at the time. His parents had never married, and I wasn’t sure if Zac knew who his dad was.
Boogie and Zac had met at Mamá Lupe’s house when she’d started keeping an eye on him after school while his mom worked. They’d gone to the same middle and high school. Even when Zac had gone to college in Austin, and Boogie had gone to San Antonio, they had still seen each other at least one weekend a month. When Boogie when to Zac’s games, he would always come pick me up and take me with him. Then he’d go back after dropping me off and hang out with him… and whoever else they were with.
Unlike my relationship with him, I had never doubted how much those two cared for each other,