That had Boogie grinning.

And it was me who felt a little uneasy. Was this sounding like a breakup, or was I imagining it? I had to be imagining it. I’d seen marriages less supportive than these two’s friendship.

“I love you, all right?” Zac repeated.

My cousin sighed.

What the hell was he sighing for?

Oh God, I had a bad feeling in my stomach. “Why are you two acting like you’re splitting up? Nothing happened, Boogie, I swear.”

“Who says we’re splittin’ up, darlin’?” Zac asked, dropping a hand from my cousin’s shoulder to reach over and take my forearm gently, his rough thumb grazing along the inside of it.

“We’re not breaking up,” my cousin confirmed before focusing back on his best friend with a deep breath and then a long, drawn-out sigh that came straight out of his soul. I was pretty positive even his shoulders slumped for a second, but he set them back into place, and it just made me feel again like they were breaking up. “Say what you have to say so I can move on with my life,” Boogie told him, tipping his chin up and everything. “Is this why you’ve been calling me every day to talk about nothing?”

He was calling him every day?

Zac didn’t hesitate. “Yeah. I should’ve told you when I realized it. I didn’t expect it to happen, but it did,” he told him steadily. “I fought it, I swear, but I didn’t have a goddamn chance, Boog. It was like fightin’ the inevitable. Tryin’ to fight a brick wall. I swear on Paw-Paw’s life, I had zero chance. She came up behind me when I wasn’t expectin’ it and gave me the beatin’ of a lifetime.”

“Somebody beat you up?” I asked in confusion, looking him over but finding no bruises on any of his exposed skin.

Boogie said nothing.

I literally had no clue what the fuck they were talking about and wanted some more context clues so I could figure it out.

Zac, though, didn’t let anything stop him. He licked his lips and set his own shoulders firmly down, preparing for… something. “I don’t wanna keep tryin’ to fight it anymore. I can’t. I know you’d want the best for me, and this is it, and I think you know that.” He took a breath and said very carefully a sentence that sent my heart into overdrive. “My whole life, I’ve felt like I was missin’ somethin’, tryin’ to find somethin’. I don’t know how to explain it, and now, it feels like I found it, Boog. It was right in front of my damn face all along.”

My cousin stared at him, and his thinking face was on. It took him a moment, his breathing long and deep, before tilting his head toward the ceiling and eventually saying, “I want to say you could’ve told me all this over the phone, but I’d be lying. I could tell for a while now there was something you wanted to tell me, but I was caught up with Lauren and the baby and let it go.” He lowered his gaze and sighed again. “And I know you never had a chance. You never did. But we need ground rules.”

“Okay.”

Boogie’s face went serious. “There’s only one. You never talk about shit I don’t want to hear. That’s all I want; everything else I might worry about, I know I don’t need to. We wouldn’t be having this conversation unless you were totally sure you knew what you were doing.”

Zac nodded solemnly.

My cousin looked at me, and then he smiled.

I frowned. “I don’t know what you two dorks are talking about. At first, I thought it was me, and now I have no idea.”

His smile just got that much bigger.

“No, I’m serious. What are you talking about?”

Boogie laughed then, erasing every trace of the pressure that had been on his cheekbones a second ago. “We’re clearing things up.”

Clearing what up? I elbowed Zac, who was still holding my forearm. “I’m not trying to mess anything up. I promise. I love you two, and each of you knows that, and I don’t want this bromance to need therapy because I was being dumb.”

My tall friend gave me a lopsided smile. “How were you bein’ dumb?”

I eyed Zac since he’d asked the question. Then I looked at my cousin because he knew since I’d just explained it to him. Did I want to remind him how I felt about him? Absolutely not. But it didn’t seem like I had a choice anymore, damn it. “For having feelings and making things weird, but I promise I already talked to Boogie, and I was going to tell you that there’s nothing to worry about because I’ll get over it in no time.”

“Get over it?”

Why was Zac sounding choked?

My cousin smirked, then snorted and turned, saying over his shoulder, “Bianca was saying earlier that she’s going to get some dogs or cats and be a cougar someday. You’re on your own with that. Thanks for dropping by for a whole minute to see me. You’re a real friend.”

That had Zac snorting all over again. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Whatever you say.” My cousin laughed once more, going straight for the lane again, shaking his head.

“What was that about?” I muttered to the one still holding my forearm, confused. “Who beat the shit out of you?” Had he… started dating someone? Had he started seeing someone in the last two weeks?

It was Zac’s turn to laugh as he tugged on my arm, taking a step back. The dark circles under his eyes were more apparent as he tipped his head down to look at me, another big smile on his face. “I was talkin’ about you, kiddo.”

For a moment, it felt like I fell through time and space before I croaked, “Me?”

He nodded, tugging on my arm to follow, and I did… mostly because I could barely feel my legs and I was beginning to question whether this was real or not. “Yeah, you. Who else?”

He was leading me toward the exit, which I guessed wasn’t weird or unheard of. He just wanted some privacy? To talk to me about…

Hold on.

I repeated some of the word choices they’d used during their conversation and thought about them some more as Zac pushed through the doors, holding one open for me before letting it shut behind us. I’d been so worried about them being upset with each other that I’d been mostly focused on each word they used rather than the whole message.

But now….

“Zac?” I asked as he led me toward his car.

“Yeah?”

He beeped the locks and opened the passenger side door too. I stopped beside the car, tipping my head up to meet those blue-blue eyes that seemed to sparkle even under the streetlights. He was smiling down, slowly and lazily. He didn’t look nervous or even that tired anymore. Zac looked… well, he looked alive and bright and… determined and relieved.

“What was the inevitable you were talking about?” was the first thing I managed to ask.

His expression—that one that made me feel like there was nothing in the world that could ever be that bad if he was near—went nowhere as his hand took mine once more. Possessive and protective and steady, he took the whole thing. He tilted his head to the side, that very Zac smile making me rise up to the balls of my feet in anticipation. “You, kiddo, what else?”

I almost fainted.

And he noticed my almost faint because he laughed all rich and perfect. “Come on. Get in the car. We gotta have a chat.”