AllFreeNovel
Share Us
As Zach loaded the last box into the passenger seat of my car, Anders and Rookford climbed the stairs, waving as we thanked them.
Rounding my car, Zach leaned against the driver door with crossed arms and stared at us with a smile.
“Ooh,” Ali teased.
“Shut up,” I hissed before crossing the patchy grass to my car.
“See you at home!” Ali hollered from her car as I neared Zach.
“Thank you,” I managed to say after what felt like seven straight minutes of silence. “You guys really didn’t need to help.”
I really wished they hadn’t. It would have been easier for me to form an opinion about them if they had just lazed around while Ali and I carried all our belongings out oftheirapartment.
“Why do I get the feeling you’re unwilling to accept help? Like this is all very uncomfortable for you?”
Maybe…because it is?
I shifted my weight back and forth from one foot to the next, wondering just how much anxious energy was rolling off me. Clearly enough for Zach to notice.
“It is,” I admitted.
Zach chuckled and tilted his head back. I watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down and wished he had a dumb laugh. But of course, he didn’t. His laugh was perfect. The kind of laugh that made you want to join in, and I almost did.
He was smiling when he met my gaze. “We were happy to help. Rook…not so much, but Anders and I would have carried couches, beds, and even larger furniture to help.”
“Even larger furniture?” I questioned, choosing to hang onto that sticking point. “What’s bigger than a bed?”
Zach shrugged, and bit away a cheeky smile. “I’ll have you know that there are a lot of things bigger than a bed, Jessa.”
“Like your ego?”
Zach unleashed a single boom of laughter, and this time I smiled, just a little.
“You should give me your number,” Zach began, then quickly added, “just in case you forgot something.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah.” He lifted a shoulder. “Wouldn’t want you to go without your favorite spoon or anything.”
At that, I finally laughed. Zach’s smile couldn’t have possibly shone brighter, yet as I accepted his phone from him and programmed my number into his contacts list, that smile became the only thing I could focus on.
Zach pushed away from the side of my car and opened the door for me. “Drive safe.”
CHAPTER3
ZACH
I had staredat her contact card in my phone for at least five minutes before I found the courage to type out a message.
But the message sucked. I erased it and wrote another… that also sucked. Every single text I was going to sendsucked.
So, I didn’t send anything to Jessa.
“Hey!” Rook yelled and jostled my helmet with his hockey gloved hand. “Quit thinking about her.”
He skated away before I could lie and say that I wasn’t thinking about her, but I knew I couldn’t convince him. Rook had watched me type out messages, huff, and then erase them. He had even tallied how many times I had huffed, totalling eleven huffs, plus a final swift exhale when he then announced that I was smitten.
I wasn’t smitten. There was no possible way that a girl who used to live in our apartment, one I had only spoken with for approximately twenty minutes, was the only thing on my mind lately.
