I missed you, Peewee. Warmth and not a small amount of sadness filled my chest. I couldn’t help but tell him the truth. “I know. I missed you too. I hope we don’t go another ten years without seeing each other.”
Maybe it wasn’t the perfect thing to say, but most of Zac’s smile didn’t wither away afterward, at least. Apparently, he was trying too. “No way that’s happenin’,” he told me, looking straight into my eyes as he did so. “So, you got plans today?”
“Big ones.” I met his gaze dead on. “I have to go grocery shopping. You?”
“I could do some grocery shopping.”
“You buy your own groceries?”
It was his turn to blink. “What? You think I pay somebody to do what I can do myself?”
“Well, yeah. It’s like five dollars. I’m just picky with my produce.” I watched him closer than before and whispered, “Are you having financial trouble? Because a few years ago, I got in really bad credit card debt, and it took a while, but I got out of it, and—why are you smiling like that?”
Yeah, he was smiling and not even bothering trying to hide it. “Smiling like what?”
“Like an idiot,” I told him.
Zac freaking hooted, and it made me laugh. “I’ve got plenty. Promise.”
Well then. “So? Are you serious? Do you really want to go?” The idea of him going grocery shopping period pretty much blew my mind. The idea of him wanting to go with me grocery shopping blew it into another state.
Not that I minded or cared.
That big, quick hand came out of nowhere to boop me on the nose before I could dodge out of the way. “Count me in, darlin’. A boy’s gotta eat too.”
If someone had told me two weeks ago that I was going to be heading into a grocery store next to Zac, who had my reusable bags thrown over one of his shoulders as he tried to be inconspicuous with a burnt orange and white baseball cap pressed low over his head, I would have thought they were full of shit.
Mostly because I still couldn’t believe this cheapskate wasn’t willing to pay a couple bucks for someone else to buy his groceries.
I had made sure to bring that up no less than three more times on the drive there—a drive that consisted of me behind the wheel because apparently someone didn’t “want to drive” and because my car had “a bigger trunk.” I mean, I didn’t care, but if I had to choose between my Honda Accord or his luxury vehicle, I would have chosen his. Mostly because I’d never been in anything more expensive than Boogie’s Audi.
And if he wanted to risk his life getting kidnapped by hanging around the rest of us plebs, I sure hoped his manager had access to his bank account for ransom money, because I wasn’t going to risk my life saving him from a hostage situation. He’d been alive longer than me. I had a lot left to live for.
I told him that too, which made him laugh. “Nah, nobody ever recognizes me,” he’d claimed.
“So, do you have a list or are you just picking up random stuff along the way?” I asked him later on as I pulled out a full-sized cart at the entrance to the store. Zac had teased me about my shitty parking job the entire walk inside.
He was busy grabbing a half-sized one with two baskets, a small one at the top and a bigger one at the bottom. He winked at me. “No list. It’ll all come to me.”
“Uh-huh.” Because that always worked out. I was playing with fire coming without eating something beforehand.
Hearing the sarcasm in my voice, that nearly thin mouth drawled up into a smirk. “I got this, kiddo. Whatcha gettin’?”
I pushed my cart toward the produce first like I always did. “I’ve got a pretty big list.” Turning over my shoulder, I held up my phone to show him my notes app and watched his eyes widen.
He pushed his cart forward to walk beside me. “The last person I knew who used that many groceries was a two-hundred-and-eighty-pound defensive end.”
“I don’t eat out much, and someone is always dropping by and eating at my house.”
He looked at me. “Who?”
I shrugged as I started grabbing celery, falling right into that comfortable trap of I-know-you-and-I-feel-comfortable-with-you-so-I’m-going-to-joke-with-you. He didn’t need to know I was talking about Deepa. “People.”
It took a second for Zac to snicker, but he did as he