Page 60 of Sacrifice Bunt

“You're making fun of me.” He heard laughter in her voice.

“I'm not. I'm just over here relishing in the fact that you called yourself my girlfriend.” He paused for a second. “For the record, I think of myself as your boyfriend even though it's a super weird word, and I'm not a boy.”

“It is a weird word. How has society not come up with a better phrase for what people are to each other when they're dating.”

“I think they have. Partner, lover, those are both words with similar meetings.”

“Partner is just blah, and I get it if you were a woman and I was a woman. Then you could be my partner, but you can also be my girlfriend, and lover is just...well, it's a Taylor Swift song, so it's not that bad.”

“We're back to song lyrics, I see.” In the last few days, he'd learned of her obsession with song lyrics and naming who the singer was. They couldn't seem to get through one conversation without her finding one in his words.

“I changed my mind. We can call each other lovers. If it’s good enough for Taylor, it’s good enough for me.”

“If it's alright with you, I'll stick to girlfriend and boyfriend.” At least for now. In the future, he had another word that he definitely wanted to call her.

Wife.

He wasn’t afraid of the word. Not any longer. Not in a long time, really. He’d pretty much known she was it for him years ago. He was just happy that, somehow, she was his.

At least until she ran again.

He wasn’t worried. He’d chase her no matter where she went.

They went on to talk until he got home and well after. Her voice helped lull him to sleep, and when he woke up the following day, his phone was still beside his pillow, where he’d left it while talking to her.

Falling asleep without her voice in his ear was only going to get more difficult. He'd gotten so used to it the last few days that he was pretty sure he'd sacrifice a limb if she would forever talk to him while he fell asleep.

The day he’d been waiting for had finally come. The day he was going to get to see Zara again. But first, he had a routine to follow and a game to play, starting with a light run with Heath.

They met in a local park that was reasonably quiet where they could get a run in rather than be inundated with fans. He didn't mind the fans. In fact, he enjoyed them most of the time. There were just some times when he wanted the peace and quiet of being without them.

He was already stretching when Heath sauntered up. “I hear Zara will be here tonight.” He raised his eyebrows in question.

“Keeping tabs on her?”

“Nah, Hannah told me, made me promise, actually, that if you and she got in another thing, I had to let her stay with me.”

“We're not going to get into another thing.” God, please let them not get into another thing. He'd been looking forward to these two days all week. He wasn't sure he could take it if she had another freak out and left.

“I've known Zara for a long time, and I have to say, I'm shocked it's gotten this far between you two.”

They started their jog slowly, each of them warming up. “Did she never date?" he asked curiously, even though she'd told him it was always just sex before.

“Not that I know of. I mean, I’ve seen her out with guys over the years, dancing or having fun. But it was never anything more than that. And I definitely never heard her talk about a guy in normal conversation.”

That piqued his interest. “She talks about me?”

Heath groaned, throwing his head back. “What is this middle school? Yes, she's talked about you to Hannah and Cecilia and probably to all the other ladies in Valley Falls. She’s even mentioned your name to me in conversation.”

He so badly wanted to ask what she said but didn’t want to come off needy, even if he was. Luckily for him, Heath was a talker.

“I don't think she knows she's talking about you when she does it. We’ll be talking about something random, and she'll say something like, ‘well, Noah does this or Noah said that.’ It's getting a little out of control.”

The smile on his face grew, and he knew he had to look like an idiot, but it made him so happy that she talked about him in her everyday conversations.

“What's going on with you?” Noah asked as they picked up their pace.

“I'm just dreading this stupid auction tomorrow night. I do not want to go at all, and this woman from the shelter is a pain in my ass. She's calling me all the time asking me dumb questions like do I have my tux, do I know the address of the hotel, and what my plan is for the date with the winner. I don't fucking know what the plan is for the winner because I don't even want to go on a date.”

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