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)
“Is that why you’ve been actin’ like yourself sometimes and like we’re strangers the rest of the time?” he asked quietly. “Why you didn’t wanna tell me about your Lazy Baker? Why you’ve hardly wanted to tell me anything?”
Acting like myself? What? Joking with him? And did he really need to point out the fact that I had been cagey and he’d noticed? “Is what why?” was what I decided to pick at first.
That cute chin angled upward just a little as he stared at my face way too closely. I had to fight the urge to tuck my hair behind my ear as those light blue eyes roamed over my face like they had been since we’d started seeing each other again. “You thinkin’ I never texted you back.”
My chest hurt.
“Is that why you’re so tense around me, darlin’? Why you’re always sayin’ bye like it’s the last time you’re ever gonna see me?”
He’d noticed that too?
The arched eyebrow he was aiming at me said, “Yeah, I noticed.”
And my face said, “What do you want me to say?”
And there we were. At a standstill. Because I hadn’t done anything wrong, and in his head, the only thing wrong he’d done was forget about me. Eventually. Because he had pretty much sworn he’d texted me and that I hadn’t responded. Because he’d asked about me, supposedly, and no one had given him details.
Yeah, that still stung. Thinking it over and over again didn’t help ease it. Not really.
Not at all.
Zac took a step closer, and I felt something light brush my forearm. “Peewee, I don’t know what the hell happened, but I know there’s no way I wouldn’t have texted you back eventually. And I swear on Paw-Paw’s life, I reached out to you too and never heard back. I thought you were busy, thought you were grievin’ Mama Lupe too since you had moved to be with Connie after you finished school and were settlin’ in. I know I texted you to check in with you. It hurt my feelings real good when I didn’t hear back from you either, kiddo, but I thought maybe you needed some space. Maybe you didn’t want a reminder like me….”
Yeah, it was still stinging.
“But I swear on my Maw-Maw’s grave, maybe I would’ve taken my time if I was busy or somethin’, respondin’ to you, but there’s no goddamn way I would’ve done somethin’ like that for long.”
Why was it hurting worse with every word out of his mouth?
“You sure you were messagin’ me and not somebody else? You sure you didn’t just forget about me?”
And that had me staring back at him. “Unless you changed your number back then, I had the same one I was always reaching out to you on, Zac.” But that suddenly got me thinking. Had he changed his number and he’d forgotten to tell me? It wasn’t like I had gotten some message back saying the number wasn’t active anymore… but that had been so long ago, had that even been a thing back then?
Did that make sense?
“I’ve changed my number a few times, when somebody’s figured out it’s mine, but I don’t remember doin’ it that long ago,” he kept going, nailing me with that intense expression that felt like looking at an eclipse. “I know I would’ve told you if I’d changed it and your messages would’ve been on it. I know it.”
But he hadn’t.
I knew without a doubt in my mind that I’d texted him. If he’d forgotten to tell me, or Boogie, that was one thing, but it just didn’t make sense. We had texted once a week back then. I wouldn’t have been all the way at the bottom. He wouldn’t have forgotten about me in a month if I’d kept blowing up his phone.
And oh my God that really did sting like crazy.
I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t want to bring this shit back up. I didn’t want to talk about this anymore. It was done. There was nothing we could do to go back in time.
“Look, I don’t know what happened, but I know I messaged you. Over and over again. Not like every day or anything, but like we used to, you know?”
He looked like he wanted to believe me.
“And you never texted me back, Zac. I wouldn’t lie about that. I literally have no reason to,” I said, because I didn’t want him to think I’d been desperately reaching out to him. He could do whatever he wanted to, even if that included not having time for me. But I wasn’t going to get blamed for shit. “Even moving in with Connie and Richard, I wouldn’t have been so busy that I wouldn’t have texted you back. You were my friend, and I loved you. That was a bad time for me after Mamá Lupe passed away and I had to go live with Boogie’s parents for a couple months before finishing school, but… I’m telling you the truth. I tried. I just thought….”