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“Zane?” His name left my lips like a sigh.
“Hi, Lexi.” I could practically see him holding back a smile on the other end of the line. “How’s it going?”
Sliding off the bed, I paced the carpet, feeling the thick fibers beneath my bare toes. My mind whirled at a confusing rate. He’d called me, so that probably meant he didn’t hate me. That made me feel better, at least. “It’s good. How’d you get my number? And more importantly, are you permanently blind now? I’m so so sorry for that, by the way. If I have to surgically remove my eyes and transplant them to you, I’m willing. Just give me the date. Anything to make up for what I did.”
He laughed and my skin prickled with exhilaration. He really did have a great laugh. “I’m fine. It only stung for a few seconds. Seriously, don’t worry about it. And I got your number from your friend Hunter. I bumped into him at the town diner tonight. He was there with his mom.”
“Hunter...?”
I’d forgotten Zane had met Hunter at the work party my dad had taken us to. I swore under my breath and then glanced at my phone screen. If Hunter had been a girl, I would’ve strangled him. A girlfriend would’ve known to give a friend a heads-up if the guy she was desperately trying not to fall for was going to be calling. Sure enough, my inbox was clear. No text message from the oblivious guy friend.
Major fail.
“Is this okay?” Doubt sounded in Zane’s voice. “I’m sorry, I should’ve asked first—”
“No, it’s perfect.” I stopped pacing to stare out my window at the streetlights that had just flickered on in the fading dusk. “I’m glad we can talk without anyone suspecting anything. Today was exhausting. I didn’t realize how hard this was going to be.”
“Right.” He paused for a long moment, before giving off a heavy sigh. “I’m not sure I’m very good at pretending not to like you, Lexi.”
The sound of blood rushing through my ears took over my senses for a moment. I scrunched my face up into a silent squeal, before containing it.
“I’m not sure I’m very good, either,” I said slowly.
“What are we going to do about it?”
Say screw your contract and my future career prospects and just go out anyway? I wanted to scream it. It wasn’t fair. Life had landed a hot, caring, and real guy into my lap and I couldn’t touch him. What kind of horribly awful thing had I done to deserve that?
“Maybe, we should focus on other things to distract us.” Twirling my wet hair around my finger, I spun in place on the carpet. “Like, what’s your favorite color?”
“That’s easy: green. What’s yours?”
“Amaranth.”
He snorted. “Is that supposed to be a color? I’ve never heard of it.”
“It’s somewhere between champagne pink and flamingo.”
“So...pink? Why don’t you just say pink?”
I laughed. “That’s such a boy thing to say.”
“I can’t help it that us guys are simple. No shades of green. Just green. Now that we settled that, what’s our next topic?”
I chewed on tip of my thumbnail and thought about it for a second. There was so much about Zane I wanted to know but was too scared to ask. Did he date other Hollywood stars? Had he ever been in love before? But those were all too big. I settled for something easier.
“So, I know your dad is a big and scary Hollywood agent. What’s your mom like?”
Parents were a safe topic. Everyone had them. Everyone was annoyed by them. Maybe, if Zane and I talked about something boring and safe like that, we’d lose some of that crazy initial attraction. It was just an idea—one that I was willing to try.
“My mom...she was amazing and kind. The best mom you could ask for. She died two years ago from cancer.”
Zane’s voice broke a bit on that last line and the sound of it went straight to my gut like a sucker punch. Dragging in a shallow breath, I closed my eyes tight and swore.
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t know that.” Curse my refusal to google Zane and his history. That was twice now that I’d been punished for it. “Forget I asked. We can talk about something else.”
“No, wait.” Zane’s voice grew louder. “I like that you didn’t know. It’s kind of nice to talk to someone who doesn’t already know everything about me, including my horoscope. You have no idea how many girls message me about their signs and how we’re meant to be together because the stars aligned, or some bull crap like that.”
I giggled. Okay, maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing that I hadn’t stalked Zane online after all. “You get a lot of messages like that?”
