Page 65 of Only in Your Dreams

I follow Zac out onto the porch, pausing when I catch sight of the rolling green lawn that drops off into a sandy beach.

What the hell?

It’s not enough that this house is absurdly large. The freaking place sits on the water.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. I’ve been around football long enough to have a sense of what college football coaches can bring in. But seeing all this attached to Zac is a shock to the system. In some ways, all I see when I look at him is the kid I used to know. But it’s a man now who sets the plate of waffles down on a large glass table, next to a heavy binder withUOB Huskies Footballemblazoned on the front.

“What’s with this house?”

Zac looks up from his binder. “You don’t like it?”

“It’s…”

I stare around at the massive porch that wraps around the corner of the stone house. A few feet away from the table where Zac sits is the sweetest looking porch swing, hanging from the roof overhang, facing the view of the bay. Down by the water, by the tree-lined edge of the property, is a wooden bench sitting in the middle of a patch of flowers. Daisies?

I’ve never set foot here before. But it feels strangely familiar.

When I look back, I see Zac is still intent on me. As though he’d consider tearing it all down, starting from scratch, if I hated it.

“It’s beautiful,” I say at last. “Was it always here?”

He shakes his head without taking his eyes off me. “It was just land when I bought it. You like it?”

“I love it,” I tell him, rubbing my lips together, trying to make out the prickle of awareness at the back of my neck. I move to sit in the chair next to Zac’s. “It’s just that… I don’t know. It feels so familiar somehow. How long have you lived here?”

Zac pulls his binder closer and throws it open to a page he’d been holding with a pad of yellow legal paper. It might be the sun that’s beating down on us, but I think his cheeks are a little flushed.

“Four years.”

I wouldn’t have been surprised if he said he only moved in last week, aside from the missing cardboard boxes. The interior is just furniture. Nothing on the walls, not even a speck of color, like he moved in and forgot to make the place his own.

“What time do you have to head to work?” I ask when he doesn’t say anything more.

“Not for a couple hours. But I thought I’d get a head start on figuring out how the hell I’m going to win a game this season.”

I lean to get a look at the binder. It’s a playbook, same as he was studying back at camp. “What do you have so far?”

“You mean, how do I plan to miraculously coach the team to its first win in two seasons?” He picks a loose blueberry out of a waffle. “Right now, the plan involves making Brooks shave his facial hair, enrolling as a student, and praying no one notices there’s a guy pushing thirty on the field.”

A burst of laughter escapes me, and Zac gives me a look of such pure affection, I feel it down to my toes.

“Speaking of Brooks,” I say, fiddling with the handle of my coffee mug. “I need to ask you a favor.”

“Anything.”

I set down my coffee, bracing myself for an argument. But this version of me, the one who’s taking charge of her life? She’s going to set clear boundaries and stick to them.

“If we have to do this, if we have to be together to get any kind of sleep, then I don’t want anyone knowing about it. Least of all Parker.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means we pretend we don’t see each other outside the friend group. No one finds out about us, okay?”

Zac stares, deadpan. “You can’t be serious.”

“I’m perfectly serious. I don’t want to deal with the questions. To start something with Parker over nothing. I’m not sure he’ll take too kindly to the idea that I’m hooking up with his best friend.”

“We’re not hooking up,” he points out.

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