Page 62 of Not Until I Found You

“I still enjoy an Ensure drink every now and then,” he admits with a shy smile. “But that secret stays between us, okay?”

“Okay.” I smile, liking that I have a secret about him.

“It’s your turn. What’s something you’ve never told anyone?”

I lay down a card and bite my lip, heat creeping up my neck as the confession surfacing has me already embarrassed. “You can’t laugh at me.”

“I can’t make any promises. If it’s funny, I can’t control how my body chooses to respond.”

I roll my eyes, buying myself a second as I study my hand before laying down a wild card. “Red.”

“Thanks,” he says, immediately slapping down a skip and a draw four, a smug grin tugging at his mouth. “Now spill.”

I draw my cards, pressing my lips together to hide my smile. “When I was eight, I found a baby opossum in our backyard. I couldn’t find its mother, so I brought it inside and asked my mom if we could take care of it.”

Zane goes completely still, his face unreadable, and somehow, that makes my embarrassment grow. I push on, placing another card down to give my hands something to do.

“My mom freaked out the second she saw him in my hands and told me to take him back outside immediately. What she doesn’t know,” I add, lowering my voice dramatically, “is that when she wasn’t looking, I snuck the little guy into my room and took care of him until he was big enough to release.”

I dare a peek at Zane, who’s clearly trying to hold in a laugh, and I reach out to shove him against his shoulder.

“Go on, laugh it up.”

A burst of laughter echoes throughout the basement. “I’m not laughing because it’s funny. I’m laughing because it’s cute,” he claims, earning a huge eyeroll from me.

I groan. “Shut up.”

“You kidnapped an opossum.”

“He needed me.”

“What was his name?”

“Peanut.”

“Peanut?”

“He loved peanut butter. It was fitting,” I defend.

Zane shakes his head, still grinning. “That might be the cutest confession I’ve ever heard.”

I attempt to hide my blush by looking down at my hand and placing down a wild card. “Blue and Uno.”

He counters with a blue card, and I slam my last one down, springing to my feet before I can stop myself.

“I win! I win!” I sing, doing a small, wildly uncoordinated victory dance before self-awareness crashes into me, and I drop back onto the couch, mortified.

Zane’s smile stretches as he watches me. “I take that back. You’re the cutest.”

He keeps his eyes on mine, and I wonder if he can feel the heat radiating off me, if he notices the way my breath catches or the electricity that skitters up my spine under the weight of his attention. I tuck a loose strand of damp hair behind my ear, my smile turning shy right as lightning cracks overhead, rattling the house. Zane stiffens at the sound.

“You don’t like storms.”

He’s looking around the room before his eyes return to mine. “No. Not at all.”

“And yet, you ran through one for me.”

“Of course I did.” His voice doesn’t hold its usual gruffness. It’s soft as silk, and I feel it down to the tips of my toes. “I’m starting to discover that I’d do just about anything for you.”