But none of that changed the weird silence that filled that sliver of a second before Zac started to say, “Bianca—”
I didn’t want to hear it. I was going to focus on the good. On the here.
“So, did they put Paw-Paw on medications? Boogie didn’t say,” I cut him off.
“So… whatcha been up to?” Zac asked me half an hour later after spilling all the beans on Paw-Paw’s health and throwing in a couple more stories about him that I’d never heard before that had me cracking up.
And most importantly, skirting around our past.
What have I been up to? Instead of how’s life been the last ten years? I wasn’t the only one on strange ground, and that was all right. I hadn’t wanted things to get awkward after his last comment about not realizing he’d missed me.
I knew he wasn’t trying to hurt me by reminding me again that we hadn’t seen each other in so long—and definitely not why that was—but… I was choosing not to let it bother me.
And if it was still just a little bit of a sore subject, that shit was on me.
But honestly, really, it was the easiest thing in the world to forgive Zac for just about anything when talking to him was like slipping into a favorite pair of matching socks that had been separated by a magical dryer for months. If I wanted to be less technical, like riding a bike. He was so likable and dumb and talking to him was too…
Natural. Hanging out with him, talking to him, was just… easy. Somehow that was annoying and nice at the same time.
“You workin’ at a gym? I think that’s the last place Boogie told me you were at.” He’d kept going with the questions after telling me about Paw-Paw Travis calling him at six in the morning to ask how to buy some sunglasses he’d seen on the television that would help his night driving.
It had been six years since he should have given up driving, but that hadn’t stopped him, apparently. Paw-Paw claimed he only wanted to drive around the ranch.
Wait.
His question took me a second to process. Boogie had told him where I worked? I couldn’t remember mentioning anything about it in the car when we’d gone to dinner.
Had he asked Boogie?
He knew about the gym but not my WatchTube channel?
“Yeah. I work a few hours a week at the front desk at Maio House,” I told him as I scooped a load of sausage and greens from my plate and pondered that over. That was enough information without being too much. “It’s a gym in one building and the building next door is for MMA and stuff.”
From the corner of my eye, I could see him glance at me as he swallowed his food. We had moved to sit in the living room on the couch, but the television wasn’t on. I had a glass of pink lemonade sitting beside me on the tiny side table.
“You do MMA? How long you been there?”
I shifted, angling my butt into that corner to face him a little better. His profile was sharp under the overhead fan lighting, but he looked relaxed, slouched and sunken into the coffee brown couch I’d inherited from a friend of my cousin’s, all long limbs and skin that had gotten tanner and tanner each year. He had an elbow propped on the arm of it and was holding his own bowl in the air on his palm. “No. Not at all. I’ve been there about three years now, but the original owners sold it not too long ago, and I don’t like the new people much.” Or at all. “Hopefully I won’t be there too much longer.”
Why had I said that out loud?
Unfortunately, he was paying attention. “What’s the plan after that?”
I ate another spoonful of sausage and waited until I swallowed it to tell him vaguely, “I don’t know. I was playing around with the idea of moving, but I just started thinking about it. We’ll see.” I hadn’t mentioned it to anyone, but if he brought it up to Boogie, it wouldn’t be a big deal. I’d probably talk to him about it sooner than later anyway.
Zac’s eyes had flicked up to me when the “m” word had come out of my mouth, and they were still there when I finished. Those light brown eyebrows knit together; they weren’t really thick, but