Page 16 of Only in Your Dreams

You know those people who peak in high school? Zac isn’t one of them.

He’s tall, and solid. Deep brown hair so perfectly tousled in all this wind. The familiar straight jaw, brown eyes like soft caramel. The laugh lines around his eyes, deep and worn-in like smiling is his favorite thing to do. It always had been.

If Zac Porter wasn’t Zac Porter, I’d let him destroy my life. Ruin my credit rating.

But I’m not feeling anything at all about the man kneeling by the fire a few feet away from me, dressing his own cheeseburger.

Instead, I fix my eyes on the plate in my lap. Trying to figure out how much of a massive, inconsiderate bitch I’d be if I told Brooks that I’m brutally lactose intolerant.

So lactose intolerant, I’m even afraid ofsmellingthis cheese.

But he’s gone out of his way to put together this dinner for me. And he was so sweet earlier, when he cooked a totally overzealous lunch once I made my demand for calories.

And here I am, ungrateful, thinking about throwing this gesture back in his face.

The length of my breath is half-galvanizing, half-stalling tactic. But before I can reach for my burger, fully intending to suck it up and quietly suffer the consequences deep in the woods with nothing but the moon and crickets as witnesses, the plate vanishes from my lap.

A new one appears, near identical. The tall burger, the stack of extra pickles. No cheese oozing off the sides.

By the time I register what’s happened, Zac is already planted in the canvas chair next to mine, taking a massive, nonchalant bite from the cheese-filled burger he just plucked off my lap. As though it were perfectly normal that he’d remember my severe dairy intolerance, after all this time.

I should be grateful, but I can’t help the twinge of bitterness. We haven’t spoken a word to each other all day. Not since those tense few seconds by the tent, when it became clear I’d be spending the weekend asleep at his side.

Maybe Connor was the last man to break my heart. But Zac? He taught me the meaning of heartbreak.

And now he’s here. So self-assured, and staggeringly attractive. Making me cheese-less burgers as though nothing happened between us. As though the memory of that night only exists in the deepest, darkest part of my brain where I’ve forced it to live for a decade.

No longer feeling the least bit hungry, I force myself to dial back into the conversation around the campfire.

“So, he’s already sitting at our table by the time I make it to the restaurant,” Summer is saying. “And—”

“He didn’t pick you up for your date?” Brooks interrupts, pulling a face. He’s sitting with his hood drawn up against the wind, covering his dark cropped hair, the soft light from our fire bouncing off his face.

“I’ve been on so many bad dates lately, I prefer to have my own getaway car at the ready. So, I sit and he gives me the whole up-and-down, and tells me I look amazing, even better than I do in my dating app photos.”

“So far, so good,” Brooks says, biting into his burger.

“So far, so good,” Summer agrees. “But then he says—and I quote—‘thank God I beat off before coming here.’”

Brooks chokes on his burger.

“What?” I say, gaping at her. “What do you even say to that?”

“Well, he spared me from answering by adding: ‘don’t worry, I was thinking about you.’”

The sip of water Brooks had just taken blows out of his mouth, spraying into the fire. Summer passes him a napkin. “At that point, I just got up and left.”

“This is why I don’t date,” Brooks groans. “It’s the wild, wild west out there.”

I sink into my seat. If Brooks is right and Summer’s stories are a real glimpse of what’s out there, I might join him in the land of no dating.

For the thousandth time since that last conversation with Connor, I’m hit with all-consuming dread. I never thought I’d be back here. Starting out again after six years. Left with barely anything, because I relied on Connor for so much. He made sure of it, hadn’t he?

“I’m sure it’s different for guys,” Summer tells Brooks soothingly.

“Is it? Because Naomi—”

“Naomi was a status-starved jerk, and you’re better off without her.”

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