Page 74 of (Not So) Famous in Paradise

The oven buzzer dings, and Adam pushes away from the table, laughing. “Sounds to me like you’re transferring all your self-esteem issues to her as the source instead of recognizing they’re all in your head.”

“Gee, thanks Dr. Adam.” My voice drips with sarcasm, but his words roll around in my head. I grasp at them, looking for any truth. If there is, I can’t find it. But it would be nice if I could.

“I’m serious, Zach.” He pulls the cake from the oven, and the whole room fills with the smell of warm chocolate. “You don’t give yourself enough credit for how talented you are.”

I scoff. “At sports, sure.”

“Yeah, for sure. But also at a lot of other stuff.” He sets the cake on a ceramic trivet decorated with blue and red Scandinavian designs.

“Like what?” I ask tentatively. Because he seems sincere but complimenting each other isn’t something we do.

“I don’t know. Lots of stuff.” Adam waves his oven-mitted hand over his cake to cool it, but I don’t think the heat billowing off it is what’s making his ears pink.

“Yeah. You said that. But could you give me some specifics?” It’s enough that he thinks I’m good atstuff, but I’d like to see his face turn as red as his ears.

“Dude.”

“Duuude. How am I supposed to believe you when you can’t give me one example?” I suck in my lips to keep from grinning.

“Fine.” He pulls off the oven mitt and stuffs it in a drawer. “You’re good at taking care of people. You know what they want, and you care about it too. Like with Mom. I can’t sit throughThe Sound of Music, but you do it all the time.”

“I’m not doing it now.” A smile almost slips out, but Adam is too busy concentrating on a spot on the counter to notice.

“You would be if I wasn’t in here for you to harass.” He glares over his shoulder at me, and my smile busts out. Adam returns it with a reluctant one of his own. “You’re loyal, too. You saved me from Dakota, but you also kept your promise to her not to tell me she’d cheated.”

My head jerks up. “You know about that?”

He nods. “I got it out of Georgia a while ago, once she knew I was over Dakota.”

“I’m sorry, bro. I—”

Adam puts up a hand to stop me. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I should have known you were protecting me.”

I open my mouth to say something, but he doesn’t give me time.

“The things you’ve done for Georgia are nice too.” The words barrel out of his mouth, and I know we’re done talking about the rift between us. It’s fixed and over.

“Going on the show with her, finding that picture,” he continues. “Knowing that she’d love it as soon as you saw it. You’re good at being thoughtful, especially to the people you love.”

At the mention of Georgia and the painting, my chest falls. “I wish it had worked better. I wish she could see me as something more than a friend.”

“Then maybe you should try telling her that.”

I shake my head. “I already told you, I can’t.”

Adam shrugs, then opens the freezer and takes out a carton of vanilla ice cream. He slices a piece of the still steaming cake and tops it with the ice cream. When he carries it to the table, I expect him to sit down and dig in. Instead, he slides it across to me.

“Then I guess you’ll have to keep trying to show her,” he says before handing me a fork.

“How? Everything I do while we’re shooting, she thinks is acting. Between the hours I spend with Georgia on-camera, then helping you and Britta, and trying to sell houses, I don’t have any extra time to spend with her off-camera.” I shove a bite of cake in my mouth. The heat of it mingled with the cold ice cream combines to a soothing warmth that travels all the way down my throat, somehow taking my growing frustration with it.

Adam sits down across from me with his own piece of cake and takes a small bite. He chews it slowly before swallowing. “So, you’ve got to convince her you’re actually in love with her while you’re pretending to be?”

“Love may be too strong a word.” I lift my hands to slow his roll.

He answers with a laugh. “Dude. No, it’s not. Quit trying to fool yourself. You think you and Carly didn’t work out because of her, but you were never going to work out because she’s not the one you were ever in love with.”

I have no answer to that except for the unanswered text I got from Carly hours ago. She’s been texting me every day, begging for a second chance, telling me how depressed she is. I text her back, but never right away, and only to check on her. Not once have I considered getting back together with her.

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