Total pages in book: 191
Estimated words: 182070 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 910(@200wpm)___ 728(@250wpm)___ 607(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 182070 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 910(@200wpm)___ 728(@250wpm)___ 607(@300wpm)
The looks on their faces were questioning, so I sighed.
“Some girl posted a picture of them together, okay, nosey? She was sitting on his lap. It hurt my feelings, but we aren’t together. At all. He doesn’t even like me like that. I told him, and he started to say something about how he wished I wasn’t your cousin, Boog. So there. He didn’t do anything wrong. I don’t want to stop being friends with him. If anything, I just need to remember what kind of friends we are, and that’s platonic, and I’ll be fine in no time. I’m not planning on spending the rest of my life spray painting ‘Bianca loves Zac’ onto any railroad cars or overpasses. I’ll find someone else to date, maybe we’ll get married, and maybe I’ll have a couple kids, but maybe I’ll have a couple dogs or cats and be a cougar someday. I don’t know. I’m pretty open. So anyway, I’m fine, nothing happened. I’m not traumatized for life or anything, so can we please never talk about this again?”
Boogie didn’t exactly look stunned, but he looked… surprised? Thoughtful? Maybe even… uncomfortable? “Nothing ever happened between you two then?” he asked slowly.
I shot him a look. “He’s your best friend, Boog. No. We’re both affectionate and comfortable around each other. I’ve never seen his wiener, even though I might have tried.”
He jerked back, and his eyes almost bugged out. “Bianca!”
“What? That’s what you were asking, I could see it.”
Connie nodded, one eye still on her husband. “That is what you were asking, and I would have asked if you hadn’t beat me to it.”
She totally would have.
“He’s my best friend too, Boog. You’re my best friend. All three—four of you—are my best friends.”
And fortunately, my cousin had to know that to his bones because he didn’t wait to nod even though his uncomfortable expression went nowhere. “But you like him as more than that?”
I lifted a shoulder. “I didn’t mean for it to happen, but yeah. I love him, but I can learn to love him as just a friend. That’s where more than half of it goes to anyway. So we’re good, or does someone else have any more dumb questions?”
“I have one question, and it isn’t a dumb one,” my sister piped up, lifting up a hand like she was still in school. “Is that why you’re here looking at apartments?”
“Only like 10 percent,” I told her, a little bit lying but not totally. In reality, it was more like 60 percent… 70 percent.
It would still be nice to see her and the kids and my way too perceptive brother-in-law all the time though.
“I have another question, still not a dumb one either,” she said, and unsurprisingly, she raised her hand again.
“Yes, Connie.”
“Has he checked on you to make sure you’re fine since you left?”
I nodded at her.
And my sneaky sister nodded back slowly.
I turned to Boogie, who was the person I worried about the most. “Are you fine, or are you still about to have a shit attack even though nothing happened and getting my feelings hurt was my own fault? And you can’t get mad at him, because he never ever tried to put the moves on me or anything, even though I kind of wished he would have.”
“I don’t have shit attacks” was what he said first.
Even Richard looked at Boogie.
He ignored us though. “I’m fine. Really. Not really. You could’ve told me, Peewee,” he said, turning his dark eyes to me with the start of what seemed like a hurt expression. Maybe because I hadn’t told him before. I usually told him everything.
Then again, he hadn’t told me he was even thinking about asking his girlfriend to marry him, so he wasn’t one to talk anytime soon.
I was still a little salty over it, even though I’d say we were both even at this point. But we didn’t need to get into that. What we needed to do was smooth this over, because the last thing I ever wanted to do was mess up my friendship with him, or Zac’s friendship with him.
“What was I going to tell you, Boog? ‘Hey, I’ve been hanging out with Zac a lot, and I think I’m in love with him? Again?’” I gave him a look. “I’m sorry I didn’t say anything and just sprung this on you, but I know it was dumb. I knew it was dumb back when I was a teenager. I know it’s dumb and pointless now. It’s like that kind of love is the only thing my heart knows, but I’m going to get it under control. That sounds lame as shit, but it’s true. He’s your best friend, and the last thing I want is to make things weird between you two, when he hasn’t done anything.”