“Are you a chef or something, Peewee?” Zac asked, turning slightly in his seat so he could kind of see me behind him.

“No, I’m not,” I answered him before glancing out the window. I wasn’t sure how much he knew but was pretty certain he didn’t know anything about my life. And to an extent, I’d rather keep it that way. It wasn’t like we had time, anyway, to go into what I’d done with my life in the five minutes we had to get to my apartment. So I changed the subject. “Hey, Boog, are you going to Lola’s quince?”

My cousin groaned. “I don’t want to, but I’m sure I’ll end up there. You want to stay at my place?”

“It’s all right. Connie and I are probably going to split a hotel room,” I answered him, still looking out the window.

Guilt was a bitch though.

And I felt bad for barely answering Zac’s question. And for barely speaking to him. The problem was that I didn’t know what to ask him or even how to treat him even though he had done nothing but smile at me. How are things going? Maybe terrible. Do you know what you’re doing? Great job reminding him he’d basically been released from a team he’d been with for five seasons. How’s your grandpa? Let’s remind him Paw-Paw had been in the hospital and he’d been worried sick.

None of it seemed like a good topic.

And we really, really didn’t have time.

Before I could think something up, my cousin turned his car into my apartment complex and put in the code to go inside. The only reason I’d offered to meet him outside was because I’d been hungry and had just wanted to go instead of waiting for him to get through the gate. In no time at all, he was in front of my building.

Unbuckling my seat belt, I scooted toward the middle of the back seat and gave my cousin another choke-hug. “Bye, Boog. Thank you for dinner. Have a good meeting tomorrow. I’ll text you about Connie and Guillermo coming.”

He patted my elbow. “Text me when you get in.”

“Make sure to tell Lauren about the Kegel exercises. Oh hell no, don’t make that face at me.”

He made some noises that didn’t make me all that confident he would, but whatever.

I held my breath and turned to the right to see Zac angled in his seat just enough so he could look at me with those light blue eyes and that perfect face. His grin was wide. I gave him a little smile as the guilt ate me up. Reaching toward him, I set my hand on his forearm. “Bye, Zac. It was nice seeing you again so soon. Take care of yourself, okay?”

The hand not resting on his thigh cupped mine between his forearm, and his gaze locked on me, his forehead slightly furrowed like he was confused or thinking about something. But the corners of his mouth still tilted up a bit in that forever Zac smile. “I’m really glad I got to see you, kiddo,” he said, seriously and slowly.

For a second, I thought he was going to say more.

And in that next second, I decided I didn’t really need to hear him say anything else.

I pulled my arm back, patted him and then Boogie once more, and threw the door open. “Bye! Drive safe!” I slammed it shut before they both finished telling me to be safe too.

And like the coward I apparently was, I ran up the steps to my apartment and kicked myself in the ass for being so mean.

But it really had been for the best.

Chapter Five

“…don’t pay you to talk to each other.”

I stared at Deepa, my coworker, employee, and friend and saw that it wasn’t just my nostrils that were flaring. Hers were too. We’d been staring dead-ass into each other’s eyes for the last two minutes.

Two minutes I would never get back.

Two minutes that consisted of us looking at each other so that we wouldn’t have to look at our boss while he chewed us out. Again. You’d figure I would have gotten used to it after two months, but nope. Neither had Deepa by how easily her expression had gone blank the second he’d started talking.

The man chewing us out was leaning against the counter, continuing to freaking ramble on and on and on, all because he’d happened to come out while we’d been talking about this member—one of the MMA guys—with the biggest, roundest booty either one of us had ever seen. Every time he came in, we talked about how majestic the thing was… and whether it was real or not.

So yeah, of course we discussed it. Everybody noticed that thing. I’d even go as far as to say it was mesmerizing. Implants or not, it was something special.

And of course, that was when Gunner walked by and caught us.

Because we’d been too distracted talking—and staring—to notice the side door opening. We’d gotten really good at keeping an eye out for him and immediately making it seem like we were busy so that we wouldn’t get caught. Like we had. Like fucking rookies.

“We’ve talked about this before,” Gunner kept going, oblivious to the fact we were both tuning him out as much as humanly possible.

We’d gotten really good at this in-one-ear-and-out-the-other thing.

Deepa and I had hit it off from the moment we’d met right after I got hired. She was my work best friend, and she helped me out a few hours a week at my apartment when I filmed. We’d met when she was eighteen, and she had reminded me a lot of myself at her age—young, alone in a different place than where she’d grown up, and just trying to get by. But she was an only child of a single parent who lived too far away to visit regularly. I felt protective of her, and I wanted the best for her.

She was the only person at Maio House who knew about my “side business.” But as friendly as we’d been before—because she really was the only reason now why I hadn’t walked out of the gym like so many of our coworkers had—nothing had brought us together more over the last couple of months quite like our mutual hatred for the same person: Gunner.

“You get paid to work, not to stand around chatting,” our new boss complained. “If you need more things to do, let me know. And if you don’t want to work, then that’s fine with me too. The McDonald’s down the street is hiring. They posted a sign.”

I hated him.

And I wished I knew Morse code so I could tell Deepa that with my eyelids.

“Have I made myself clear?”

Had he made himself clear that we were paid to work the front desk—and in Deepa’s case the juice bar—and couldn’t exactly walk away from the counter to go do other things?

I didn’t trust myself, so I just nodded, and so did my friend.

“It’s business, ladies. Don’t take it personally. One day, if you’re lucky, maybe one of you will be a business owner and understand where I’m coming from,” the asshole went on.

If this dickwad only knew.

He could suck on his condescending advice.

I was my own business. And the only reason I was still around was because of the dumb decisions I’d made in the past—financial and personal.

A few days ago, after I’d gotten home from eating dinner with Zac and Boogie, I’d laid in bed and thought about my future more than I had in a while. I thought about what I wanted. Mostly though, I thought about what I dreamed of—after I’d beat myself up for being so cold to Zac and not answering his questions or asking my own.