“Say what?” he asked as he plucked the slice out of my hand and put the rest of it in his mouth.

All right, so we were back to this point in our friendship. Sharing food. That was fine with me too. “You know what,” I tried to hedge, still chewing on my bite. “I know how babies are born.”

Zac blinked.

“They come out of buttholes.”

He burst out laughing, choking on the roast beef in his mouth. His face went red and everything. That’s what he got for stealing my deli meat. “I can’t believe he tried to pull that on you,” he gasped.

Once, after he’d tried to tell me about babies occurring just from kissing, Boogie, my dear, beloved Boogie, had tried to tell me that babies came out of buttholes. Word for word. If my memory served me correctly, Zac had been rolling on the ground laughing afterward.

But Connie had already told me the truth, so I’d just rolled my eyes and walked off.

“He’s so dumb.” I laughed. “If we see him together again, remind me to ask him if he got Lauren pregnant doing butt stuff.”

Zac howled, leaning forward and setting his forehead on my shoulder as I stood there.

I took a sniff.

He smelled nice, like expensive cologne.

Actually, knowing his cheap-ass, it was probably something his mom bought him for Christmas or his birthday every year.

“Who the hell have you been hangin’ around the last ten years?” he asked against my shoulder, his head a nice, comforting weight on me.

“People into butt stuff, obviously.”

His warm puffing laugh hit my neck for a second, and I had to hold very, very still as he cracked up some more.

After a second, I ducked out from under him and went back to finish his sandwiches, adding meat, some mayo, a little horseradish, and a slice of cheddar cheese to both of them. Damn, they looked good. My stomach grumbled in appreciation. Then I carefully set the plate on the counter and shoved it close to the man who was still cracking up.

But not cracking up enough to not notice he had food in front of him. He took a huge bite. “Mmm, this is good.” Those blue eyes hit me as he took another bite. “What’d you do today?” he asked, sounding casual.

I grabbed his other sandwich and took a little bite of the corner and put it back, waiting until I swallowed it before answering. “I filmed today.”

I was pretty sure it wasn’t my imagination when one of his eyebrows arched up a little. “A cookin’ one?”

“Yeah. That’s why CJ and Amari were here. They were my guest stars.”

He dragged his plate closer to him, taking another huge bite, like that would stop me from taking another bite. It was good. “CJ didn’t say a peep about it yesterday. I didn’t know.”

“I asked him pretty last minute. My nephew got sick on the drive down to visit for the weekend, and they had to bail on me, so I asked him.”

“I didn’t know you had his number.” He was halfway done with the first sandwich.

“I don’t. I messaged him on Picturegram,” I admitted. “It was a shot in the dark, and he asked Amari. They were here up until a little while ago. Trevor came with them to make sure I wasn’t trying to get them to do porn. His words, not mine.”

“Trev?”

I nodded.

He took another bite.

I reached over to his other sandwich and took one too before replacing it again. “What?” I asked him.

Zac didn’t hesitate. “You could’ve asked me.”

“I didn’t want to bother you for his number. I didn’t expect him to actually say yes.”

That head tilted to the side, giving me a view of the sharp line of his jaw. “You’re not botherin’ me.” He blinked. “What I meant was that you could’ve asked me. I would’ve done it with you.”

Oh.

But apparently he wasn’t done. “I can do the other one with you,” he said as he swallowed. “If you want. You said you were thinkin’ about doin’ another one, didn’t you?”

“I know you would,” I told him. “But I don’t want to take advantage of you. I asked CJ because he had kind of made it seem like he might be interested in doing it, and he’s a fan.” A fan. That was literally the weirdest shit I could ever think or say. Me. Fans. It was a trip.

“I’m a fan too.”

I blinked.

Zac finally took the sandwich I’d taken a bite out of and ate over the part I had before saying, “I’m a fan of yours. Big one. Your biggest one in Houston.” One cheek went up as he ate. “I am. Are you gonna squeeze another one in today or no?”

“I had thought about it,” I told him truthfully. “But you’re over here. And my assistant left, so it’s more time consuming to do things without her. And things always go wrong when I don’t have someone constantly making sure the audio doesn’t just suddenly cut off or a battery in the camera doesn’t die out of nowhere. It can wait until my next day off.”

Zac made a thoughtful face as he swallowed what he’d eaten. “Do one while I’m here. I know how to be quiet. If you show me, I can help.”

I made a face.

He made a face right back. “I do!” he claimed with a little laugh. “I can sit in the livin’ room like a good boy and watch.”

“Pssh.”

He grinned. “All right, but I can be, promise.” His smile melted into a soft one. “I wanna see too.”

I watched him for a second before asking, “Are you sure? It’ll probably take three hours. I’m not sure how long it’ll take the bread to bake.”

His eyes lit up. “You’re makin’ bread?”

“Pound cake.”

This fool licked his lips like I did when someone in the family made tres leches. I laughed.

“Are you sure you don’t mind?”

“I’m sure.”

I slid him a look. “All right… if you insist.”

He ate a little more and nodded. “Whatcha gotta do?”

“Change, check the LAVs—eh, the microphone—check the lighting, and fix my hair.”

“I’ll eat while you change, and I’ll help. Yeah?”

I could do it all by myself easier, but I nodded. “All right. Let me get dressed then.”

Those blue eyes moved from my face down and back again in a second. “Why? You can’t wear the same thing?”

“Nope. I did it once and people noticed.” I shrugged. “Give me ten. I’ll be right back.”

Fortunately, it didn’t even take me ten minutes to pull my shirt off and put another blouse on. Bottoms didn’t matter because no one could see them on the other side of the island. All I did was blot my face, reapply some eyeliner and lipstick, and I figured I was good to go. My face hadn’t gotten too oily since Amari had pulled the cheesecake bites out of the oven.

Zac was standing in the kitchen with his plate held against his chest, his index finger pressing against the surface to catch crumbs. He looked at me and gave me a funny smile.

“What?” I asked him, trying not to be self-conscious.

“Aww, darlin’, you look sweet as sugar.”

I batted my eyes at him sarcastically. Sweet was nice. It was what a friend would say. “Thank you.”