Page 17 of Only in Your Dreams

Beside me, Zac heaves a deep sigh. I find him staring grimly into the fire. Summer was right. He hasn’t cracked a smile all day. It’s… unsettling.

Not that I care.

“Who’s Naomi?” I ask, picking up a pickle from my plate.

“His college sweetheart,” Summer supplies. “She broke up with him after…” she trails off, eyeing Brooks, who’s sat back in his chair to glare at the dark sky.

“It’s a funny story,” he says wryly. “I got drafted to the NFL. Played in California a few years, got served up a nasty concussion last year, never played again. I guess Naomi decided she’d grown accustomed to the glamor of dating a professional athlete. She left me for a former teammate.”

I freeze in the act of biting into another pickle. “God, Brooks. I’m really sorry. About the concussion and Naomi.”

Brooks takes a swig from his bottle of water. “Thanks. At this point, I miss the game more than her, you know? I think it’s a sign it would’ve ended either way. If it was the real deal, I’m not sure I’d have ever stopped missing her. But I did.”

I nod slowly, painfully aware of Zac at my other side.

“What do you do now?” I ask, mostly to break the silence.

“I’m a wide receiver coach.” He tips his head in my direction. “You’re sitting next to my boss.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Zac is still staring into the fire. He’s not as tense in the shoulders as he’d been a moment ago, though, and I wonder whether his frustration came out at the mention of Naomi, and how she treated Brooks. Summer launches into another terrible first date story, and I occupy myself with my last pickle.

If it was the real deal, I’m not sure I’d have ever stopped missing her.

By Brooks’s logic—

“You want these ones too?”

His voice is soft, barely audible over the wind. I turn my chin just enough to find Zac holding out his plate, indicating the extra pickles.

“Stop doing that,” I mutter, dragging my gaze back to my plate. “Just stop.”

I can feel his eyes on me. We’ve got a whole campfire to spread around. Yet he still chose the chair next to mine, and now he inches it closer.

“Stop doing what?”

My gaze flicks around the fire as Brooks and Summer burst into laughter, missing this hushed side conversation. “Stop with the pickles and the burger.”

“Clover, you shouldn’t have been eating all that cheese. You’d be doubled over in a second—”

“I asked you to stop calling me that.”

I feel a flood of guilt the second my mouth shuts.

In my peripheral vision, Zac leans forward, pushing his elbows onto his knees. My entire body stiffens. Hair rises at the back of my neck. Muscles start to vibrate, anticipating the onslaught.

For him to tell me not to be a bitch.

That it’s not fair that I’d speak to him like that, think the worst of him when he’s been so attentive to my allergy.

But Zac only releases a long, low breath. “You’re right. It slipped out.”

I turn, watching the shadows from the campfire dance over his face. He’s looking at me like he actually means it. Like I have a right to be upset with him. Like he’s going to let me hold his feet to the fire over the way he hurt me.

Right now, though, he can’t seem to take his eyes off me. With the curved brows and the tick in his jaw, he looks like he’s working hard to keep a string of words bottled up.

“I want to explain—”

“I need some water.” I stand abruptly, bending to set my untouched burger on my seat. But my heel catches on something as I straighten. I gasp, grapple fruitlessly for the arm of my chair as I stumble backward, falling toward the fire—

---