Love: So, you’re saying you’re not nervous about me finding out who you are? Like at all?
Zac: Not really, no.
Love: Even with all the personal things you’ve told me?
Zac: Nope. If it’s meant to happen, it will. Nothing I can do about it.
He says if I’m meant to find out, I will.
But the nagging voice in my head screams…
What if I already have?
The line begins to pick up, and I estimate that I should be at the front in less than five minutes.
Zac: I mean, I could always stop texting you. If that’s what you want.
Do you want him to stop texting you?
Be honest, Vee.
Do you?
No.
No, I don’t.
Love: I’m just saying we shouldn’t tell each other where we are from now on. I think last night was WAY too close.
Zac: Ditto.
Love: And no more sharing specific stuff like tattoos. It makes it too easy to find out who we’re talking to and we made a pact for a reason.
Zac: Yes, ma’am.
“Miss?” The cashier calls for my attention, and I jerk, realizing that I’m up next. I squeeze my phone inside my jeans pocket without answering and dump the water bottles on the checkout counter.
* * *
Dia’s lime-green car has never been what one would call “subtle.” I could always spot it from a distance, day or night, no matter the weather, but I still come to doubt my own eyes when I drive down the cul-de-sac leading to my house and make out her Beetle in my driveway.
I blink one time.
Two times.
She’s really here.
At my house.
At 10:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning.
I fill the last available parking space in the lot before stretching my arm out to grab the reusable grocery bags in the back seat. Try as I may, I can’t seem to come up with a feasible explanation to justify her presence here. Could it be that she forgot something at my house the last time we hung out?
Her loyalty, perhaps?
I proceed to the front door, my attempts at containing my nerves falling flat, and cross the threshold. At first sight, the kitchen is empty, but I flip my head to find Dia sitting on our velvet entryway bench.
A basket of mini muffins rests on her laps.