Page 108 of How (Not) to Conjure a Boyfriend
“Well, lucky for you my family adores you,” he tells me, which I’m having a hard time understanding still. “Plus, you only had me convinced for like a week there at the end.”
“Really?” I ask.
“Yeah, I know my brother…mostly,” he tells me. “And why else do you think I kissed you?”
“Oh!” I yelp, and then we’re both laughing. “I’m still sorry though.”
I’ve forgotten other people exist, let alone those in the shop with us. Suddenly I feel so small and embarrassed as Mr. Franz and his family, Kaitlynn, and Dawn all appear in my periphery.
“Weknow, andweforgive you,” Zach says.
“We?” I ask, glancing at Kaitlynn, who’s wide-eyed and stunned staring between the two of us. She doesn’t have a poker face, so at least I know she wasn’t in on this.
“Yeah,we.Allof us,” he says. “Hayden actually said to thank you. Apparently, he was talking to one of the guys on the basketball team but was afraid to come out, so they’d broken it off. You helped him come out, so they’re back together.”
“Really? He’s not—”
“He’s oddly glad,” Zach says. “It helped him.”
“I…uh…well, that’s good, I guess.” I grin, but I’m still having a hard time looking at him or making sense of how anything good could have come from all this.
“It is. I promise,” he says.
“But you? You don’t hate me?” I twitch when I ask.
“No! I don’t think I could. Well, I mean I did for like a day when we first met, and maybe a little when I realized I liked you but you were fake dating my brother.” Zach laughs. I try not totake it as a punch and laugh quietly too. “Oh! Can I come behind the counter a second, Mackenzie? Just a second?”
“Sure,” I say before thinking about it. Technically the rule is employees only, but I spoke before that flashed in my head. Sorry, Dawn. “But stop calling me Mackenzie. It sounds weird from you.”
He smiles and practically bounces around the corner and walks up to me. Without a word, he scoops up each of my hands and holds them between us.
“Well then,Mack!I know I already said it, but I need you to hear it and believe it,” Zachary says, and if I weren’t already nervous, I am now. “I love you. I think you already know that, but I have to be sure.”
He stops and looks at me expectantly. My heart is screaming and beaming red through my cheeks. I want to jump him and kiss him and tell him he’s everything, but I keep calm and think about my words before I say them this time. Guess that’s the new me—thinking a little more before I speak.
“I do. I know, and I lo…I like you. I like you a whole lot,” I tell him. It feels pathetic not to match hisI love you, but I don’t want to lie again. I do like him. Gods, do I like him. Everything about him. But it’s time to start being very honest, and that means maybe I have to hold back a little. “I hope that’s enough for right now. I’m having to reevaluate what it means to love someone at the moment, you know.”
I want to kiss him so bad, but I don’t. I’m going to let him lead for the moment, even if it’s killing me.
Zachary grins at me. “Of course it’s enough. Honesty is always enough, Mack. Oh! I have one more thing.”
“One more thing?” I ask, and look back to Kaitlynn. She shakes her head and throws her hands up.
Zach steps forward. If he were wearing a hat, the brim would be dangerously close to my head. Well, over the top of my head. He pulls my hands up higher and squeezes my fingers gently.
“Mackenzie Nicholas Jackson,” he says, then stops.
“Whoa, the middle name is coming out, huh?” I joke. “How do you even—”
He lets go of my left hand and presses a finger to my lips. “Shh.”
My eyes blossom at his touch.
“Did you just shush me?” I say once he removes his finger.
“Yes, now let me get back to what I was saying.”
“Oh, sorry.” I give him an amused grin. My bad again.
