The Wall of Winnipeg and Me - Mariana Zapata Page 0,20

love with Zac. He was a little full of himself, but he was a pro football player, so it wasn’t exactly a surprising trait. Plus, he was tall, and I loved tall guys. In the end though, all I felt and had ever felt toward Zac was friendship. The fact that I’d gone out to buy him hemorrhoid cream a couple of times probably helped solidify the lines in our friend zone.

“I’ll make you meatloaf anytime you want,” I told him.

“You said it.” Zac grabbed a banana from the metal tree next to the fridge. “I’m so damn happy to hear you did it.”

I shrugged, happy but still a tiny bit nervous about the situation despite knowing it was mostly unreasonable. “Me too.”

For a second, I thought about telling him how Aiden had been acting an hour ago, but what was the point? They had polar-opposite personalities as it was, and I knew they got fed up with each other at times. Really, when I thought about it, I wondered how or why they still lived together. They didn’t spend much time together or go out and do stuff that friends did.

But with one guy who felt so uncertain with his position on the team that he didn’t want to buy a house, and another who wasn’t even an American resident, I guess they both found themselves in weird situations.

“How much longer are you—?” Zac started to ask just as his phone rang. With a wink, he pulled it out of his pocket and said, “Gimme a sec it’s—damn, it’s Trevor.”

Ugh. He and Aiden had the same manager; it was how they ended up living together.

“He knows?” he asked, pointing down at the illuminated screen of his phone.

I scrunched up my nose. “He hung up on me.”

That earned me a laugh. “Lemme see what he wants. Then you can tell me what he said.”

I nodded again and watched as he answered the call and headed toward the living room. Setting my bag on the counter, I started cleaning up the kitchen, remembering at the last minute that it was trash day. Pulling the bag out, I put another one in there and then headed into the garage to grab the city-issued can.

I slapped the button to open the garage door. I held my breath before opening the bin lid, throwing the bag in, and then dragging the can down the driveway toward the curb. Just as I was setting it in place, a woman ran by across the street in a steady pace, heading in the direction of where one of the subdivision’s walking trails started.

Something, which was as close to jealousy as I thought I could get, panged through my stomach. I eyed my knee and flexed it a little, knowing I could jog if I wanted to, but most of the time I was too tired. Years of physical therapy had done a lot and I knew my knee would ache less if I actually exercised regularly, but I just didn’t have the time… and when I did have the time, I spent it doing other things.

What a bunch of excuses, weren’t they?

I wanted all these things out of my life…

I had finally put in my notice to quit and everything seemed to be going okay. Or at least, things could have been a lot worse than they were. Maybe it was time to start working on other things I wanted to do. I’d been so focused on building up my business the last few years that I’d put off doing a hundred other things I could remember wanting to do when I was a kid.

Screw it.

I only had this one life to live, and I didn’t really want to sit back and not accomplish the things I wanted.

It was time, damn it.

Chapter Four

The thing with having a terrible day is that a lot of times, you don’t know it’s going to be a bad one until it’s too late; it isn’t until your clothes are on, you’ve eaten breakfast, and you’re out of the house, so it’s too late to go back to request a sick day… and bam! The signs stare you right in the eye, and you know your day has instantly gone into the shitter.

I woke up that morning at five o’clock, slightly earlier than usual because it was going to be a busy day of running around, to the smell of my coffee machine going, and my alarm clock blaring the most obnoxious