Page 79 of Faking It
“I’ve always been terrified of heights.”
“All you had to do was say something to me. Anything to let me know so I could help you.”
Is that why he brought me up here? To apologize with a pretty view and a poignant apology?
“It’s not that easy.”
“It’s not like I would have made fun of you.”
He chuckles softly. “Do you have any idea how hard it was to be the guy and want to protect you if anything goes wrong? To be the strong one who’ll reach out and grab you if you slip off the rope and fall only to know I’d never be able to do that because I’m petrified of falling myself?”
“You’d have reacted.”
“How can you say that?”
“Because I just know. You take chances and risks and you’d do it without thinking.”
He glances over at me, holds my eyes for a beat, a pool of emotions swimming through his emerald eyes I can’t decipher. “Thank you for helping me across . . . and distracting me.” A shy smile graces those lips, making my stomach flip before he turns back to the balloons.
We spend the next few moments pointing to the designs. Picking a favorite one. Pretending there is a race between them all and both of us choosing the one we think would win. Our laughter echoes around us, and at some point, I shift to study him. The lines of his profile. The scruff dusting his jawline. The baseball cap pulled down low on his forehead.
“What are you staring at?” Zane asks, his lips spreading into a smile, but he doesn’t glance my way.
“I’m just trying to figure you out is all.”
“Many people have tried. Few have succeeded.”
“I doubt few have lived with you for almost a month either.”
“True.” He nods his head slowly and brings his cup of coffee up to his lips. “No one has.”
“No?”
“No.”
“Thanks for elaborating,” I say through a laugh.
He shrugs. “What do you want me to say? I could give you the canned response that people expect. The, I haven’t found the right woman yet. The, I work too much and that’s not fair to the other person . . . but neither are true.”
“Okay.” I chew on the word, not completely understanding what he means.
“Maybe I don’t know what I want. Maybe I do work too much and living with someone means I’m giving them false hope about the man I might be able to be some day when I’m not quite there just yet. Maybe I’m not meant for marriage—God knows I had a crappy example of what one was growing up—and so I don’t want to give anyone false hope.”
“And maybe you just enjoy women,” I say with a lift of my eyebrows as I try to process all of this honesty from him.
“That, I do. Yes.” He looks at me, head angled to the side, soft smile on his lips. “Is it so bad that I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up?”
His question gives me pause for a moment to make sure he’s being truthful. There’s a sincerity in his eyes that startles me. “No. Not at all. But it surprises me you’d say that. You’re obviously successful. It seems like you have a million irons in the fire.”
“What about you? Why don’t you have a boyfriend or husband? What do you want to be when you grow-up?” He reaches out and tucks a stray stand of hair that fell out of my ponytail behind my ear. For the briefest of moments, his thumb rests on the side of my cheek when he does so.
I fight the urge to turn my cheek into his hand—silly girl—and instead make myself concentrate on answering his question.
“When I grew up, I wanted to be a veterinarian. Or rather I think my line of succession as a kid was a princess—pink frilly gown and a diamond tiara were required—”
“Aren’t they always?”
“And then an astronaut only because I thought aliens would have purple skin and I loved the color purple.”
