Yes. We were friends.

No. We weren’t friends.

Mind your own business wasn’t exactly the angle I wanted to take. It was rude, and I wasn’t going to be outright rude. That didn’t change the fact it was none of his business.

I looked him right in those asshole eyes and said, “Yes.”

I wasn’t going to ask why. I wasn’t going to introduce or give a segue into making this conversation longer. If there was something he wanted to ask, he could do it.

He wasn’t surprised by my answer. “Good friends?” he had the nerve to ask.

All right, in this case, there were three different ways to handle this.

A smart person would say, “Yes, sir.” Then wonder how they could use it to their advantage.

A decent person would answer “Yes” and leave it at that.

A person who wanted to just give enough of an answer to not get in trouble would reply with “No.”

An idiot would say… well, they would answer the way I answered. “I’m not sure how my answer has anything to do with my job.”

Because it wasn’t any of his business. I knew that. He damn well knew that too.

I was pretty positive that legally he couldn’t ask me that. Just like he couldn’t question if I was pregnant or if I had children or was planning on having any.

But at the end of the day, what was he going to do? Fire me for telling him nunya? It wasn’t like he could get me for anything else. I was never late, never called in, never left early. When the new assistant manager asked me if I could stay, I usually did. The only time I said no was when he made the request. There was proof to all of it.

And I wasn’t going to use Zac, not for anything, but especially not for this person.

Not when he was so busy with his new opportunity. His new chance. His future.

Since the weekend of Lola’s quince, I had only seen him twice. He’d come over to my apartment the day after his first practice with the White Oaks and eaten leftovers on the couch beside me, telling me all about what the team did differently than what he’d done in Oklahoma. He’d been calm, centered, and pretty matter of fact. He’d kissed me on the head when he’d left that night and called me right after I’d closed the door to ask, “Did you lock the door?” And I’d laughed and told him, “Yes.”

Then I’d seen him again the day after his first game with the team—he hadn’t played—and he’d invited me over. Trevor had been there, and so had CJ, and we’d hung out. Zac had made his “world famous” spaghetti and had made me play them the two versions of the videos we’d made together for my Lazy Baker channel.

Well, he and CJ had both made me replay their videos three times each to boost the views. It had been pretty cute how excited they’d been with how they’d come out. The uploads were doing amazing, like I knew they would. People ate up having these big guys standing in my kitchen with bright aprons on that barely fit.

Since then, Zac had texted me almost every day, usually at night to check in or tell me he’d watched one of my videos. Sometimes I messaged him during the day but not that often since I knew how much he had going on. He was busy either at practice or getting a massage or squeezing in film or napping or physical therapy or doing one of the other million things that he needed to. I understood, and I was so happy for him. I wanted him to kill this opportunity he’d been given.

So I could keep my head up high for that, for him and for his life and privacy. I would. No matter what.

So I didn’t look away as Gunner’s gaze narrowed, and I’d swear even his ears moved a little. Yeah, he was pissed. That was obvious as hell.

His little pouty faces weren’t going to sway me either.

There were plenty of people I would throw under the bus, but Zac wasn’t and would never be one of them.

And I hoped my face said that.

Gunner seemed to think about something, and I watched him wrinkle his nose. We kept on staring at each other for another moment or two before he said, “It doesn’t have anything to do with your job.”

I looked at him.

He looked at me.

And if he thought he was going to win this standoff glaring at me, well he had another thing coming.

His lips twisted, and I clear as day heard him, even Deepa had to hear him, say, “I’ll be posting the October schedule pretty soon. I’m not sure anymore if I’ll be able to get that request of yours in after all, by the way. Considering we’re short staffed.”

I had never, ever wanted to hurt someone more than I did him right then.

Not my cheating ex.

Not Zac’s old girlfriend.

Nobody.

He was threatening my vacation. Why? Because I wouldn’t let him use my friendship?

It was nothing less than a miracle that his cell started ringing from his pocket or wherever the hell he kept it. Between his butt cheeks, tucked under his balls, wherever. But he still focused on me with those hateful eyes as he put the cell up to his face and took the call with a “Gunner speaking.”

My second thing to be grateful for was that he was a paranoid asshole because he walked away too, heading back toward the side door so that we couldn’t hear him.

The second that door slammed shut, I fisted my fucking hands at that same moment Deepa said, “Oh hell, Bianca.”

Because she knew exactly what he had threatened me with, what he was taking away. My fucking Disney World vacation that I had been looking forward to.

This fucking fuck asshole.

I kept planning the rest of my shift and the entire drive home.

I didn’t regret what I’d done, but I couldn’t help but be pretty pissed off at Gunner for being such a jerk. He couldn’t fire me over that. I was pretty sure. He was just going to do whatever he could to piss me off. Maybe he didn’t actually think he’d be able to push me away—that I’d be so desperate I would eat all the shit he tried to feed me—or maybe that was exactly what he wanted. Me to quit.

But he didn’t know me. I wasn’t going to do anything unless it was on my terms, especially when it concerned him. He wasn’t going to get to bully me.

Now I was going to stick around on principle, or at least until Deepa got out of there, like my original plan.

But what his little threat made me do was think about what was to come after. My lease was about to end, and I hadn’t renewed it yet. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do or where I wanted to go. The more I thought about it, the more uncertain I got.

I had gotten an email that afternoon from the photographer and food stylist I was hiring to shoot my cookbook. She had an opening in November and wanted to know if I wanted to move up my booking.

I had a lot more work left to do, and I wasn’t sure how I could make it happen but knew it was a good idea to let her move me up in the queue. I had a gut feeling about what I’d have to do to get everything done in time… but I wasn’t ready yet to make that decision and break my own heart. Even if it kind of seemed like fate.

Oh well, I thought as I headed up to my apartment hours later.

It wasn’t like Zac had showed up to Maio House with the intention to see me and get me into this predicament. But I wondered again how the hell Gunner could have found out in the first place. Part of me had expected someone to post a picture or a video of Zac at Lola’s quince, but I hadn’t seen a thing pop up, fortunately, and if it had, I hadn’t been tagged in it, and neither had he. Gunner didn’t have social media accounts anyway, so I doubted he’d seen Zac on my channel.