“Danika mentioned that to me,” I said as I pulled my eyes away from the cookies and pretended like I had the ability to be patient.

  “I miss her so much,” she admitted before appearing at my side, reaching for the plate and disappearing with it.

  SHE TOOK THE COOKIES!

  “I miss them too,” I confessed. “It’s stupid, I know, but I really miss having Chance here. It’s not the same without him.”

  “It’s not stupid to miss your best friend,” she said.

  I heard the sound of the microwave turn on, and I had no idea what was going on in that kitchen.

  The microwave beeped, and before I knew it, Sunny was placing a warmed-up chocolate chip cookie and napkin in front of me before taking a seat across from me with her own cookie. “Careful. It’s hot. So, why would it be stupid?”

  “Huh? Oh, to miss Chance? ’Cause I’m a guy. I don’t know. We’re supposed to be tough and all nonemotional and shit. Right?”

  “I think we both know that’s not true.” Her blue eyes ghosted straight through me, and I felt a sense of calm again as she broke off a piece of her cookie and plopped it into her mouth. “And you want to know something?”

  “Of course.” I took a giant bite of mine, crumbs falling everywhere. I was pretty sure I’d moaned, but I was too caught up in the combination of chocolate and salt to care.

  Sunny giggled. “Good?”

  “Delicious. I don’t know what it is about your cookies.”

  “I told you before, it’s the sea salt flakes.” She shrugged. “It changes everything. Makes it better for whatever reason. But as I was saying”—she inhaled—“I think it’s incredibly sexy when a guy is in touch with his emotions. And can talk about them.”

  I knew she was referring to the phone call. Everything seemed to circle back to that damn call. Sunny was giving me the green light to keep opening up to her, basically letting me know she not only wanted it, but she also liked it.

  “It’s just weird how quickly it all changes. How fast college has flown by, you know? Chance was just here, and now, he’s a professional baseball player, and I’ll barely get to see him anymore.”

  “Maybe you’ll get drafted for the Mets too,” she offered, her silver hair catching the light.

  I knew she was only trying to be positive, but it felt like she’d dropped a boulder into the pit of my stomach. I couldn’t breathe around it.

  “Hey, are you okay?” She reached across the table and put her hand on mine. “Mac, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  I pulled my hand away. “I know you didn’t.”

  I was going to be sick. Reaching for my stomach, I placed my hand there, willing it to calm the fuck down. The last thing I wanted was to throw up the cookie I’d just eaten all over her table.

  “Talk to me,” she pleaded, but I didn’t know what to say.

  If I said the thoughts that were currently spinning around in my head, it might make them real.

  What if saying them out loud makes them come true?

  I looked into her eyes, and I could literally feel her concern for me. Sunny genuinely cared, but this was all too much, too fast. I suddenly felt overwhelmed with my feelings for her and my fear for the future, all swirling together in one giant pot of messed up shit.

  I’d never done this before, not even with my ex. Hayley never wanted to talk. At least, not in any real capacity. The one time I’d admitted to her that I was scared I wasn’t good enough to get drafted, she’d told me to stop being a pussy and that she never wanted to hear me admitting weakness again.

  I would have been way more shell-shocked if I hadn’t grown up in the same kind of environment my whole life—being talked down to and disappointing those closest to me with every decision. So, after Hayley’s declaration, I shut my fucking mouth and never brought it up again. She’d dumped me anyway, throwing my fears back in my face as her reason for doing it, so that hadn’t worked out well in the end.

  Pushing up from the table, I swallowed the bile threatening to come up. “I need to go.”

  “What? Mac, no. Don’t leave. You just got here.”

  “I’m sorry, Sunny. I just ... can’t do this right now,” I said as I started for the front door with no idea or plan, just the fact that I needed to get the hell out of there before I passed out. I felt like I couldn’t breathe.

  “I’m scared too, you know.” Her voice stopped me dead in my tracks. I wasn’t sure what she meant.

  “Of what?” I managed to get out between labored breaths.

  Am I having a panic attack?

  “Everything. You. Us. This. The future mostly.”

  I wanted to tell her that she wasn’t the only one. That, for some of us, the future wasn’t some beautiful, open book filled with options and variables and choices and free will.

  I should have reassured her or comforted her somehow, like I knew she would do if the roles were reversed and it was me admitting those things.

  But I didn’t. I couldn’t. Instead, I pulled her front door open, walked through it, and closed it behind me, desperate to get away and leaving Sunny to do the one thing she hated ... be alone.

  What the Hell Just Happened?

  Sunny

  I fought the urge to run after Mac and drag him back into my apartment, kicking and screaming if I had to. I’d clearly struck a nerve or triggered him somehow, and I hated that I was letting him walk away without at least trying to work through it. I knew that he was sensitive about getting drafted, but I hadn’t understood just how much it affected him until he looked like he was about to throw up.

  It hurt, watching him walk out my door, but Mac Davies was a runner. I’d already figured that out last year. So, I let him go. And then I kicked myself for it because even though Mac liked to run away, there was a part of him that needed to be chased. I sensed it even if he didn’t.

  Grabbing my keys from the counter, I tore open my door and slammed it hard behind me without meaning to as I looked left and right, not knowing which way he had gone.

  “Oh my God, can you stop with the slamming doors already?” A head popped out from next door; jet-black hair with bright green stripes, pulled into a ponytail, accompanied a frowning female face.

  The girl with the hair lives right next door to me? I was too preoccupied to be excited.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to,” I apologized. “I’m Sunny. I live right here,” I overexplained as I pointed toward my front door.

  “Gathered that much,” she said, her tone sarcastic as she took a step inside the hallway and stopped the door from closing with her foot. Her clothes reminded me of something Billie Eilish might wear, all edgy and punk-like. I looked at her with appreciation, knowing that I could never pull off an outfit like that. “Are you looking for the disgruntled baseball player?”

  “How’d you know?”

  She didn’t look like the kind of girl who cared about athletes, let alone even knew who they were. But then again, this was the Fullton State baseball team, and Mac was ... well, he had a reputation whether he wanted one or not.

  “Everyone knows who Mac Davies is.”

  “Did you see which way he went?” I needed to get to him before he called for a ride and I missed my chance.

  “Lovers’ quarrel?” She picked at her nails, pretending not to be interested. She was though.

  “What? No. We’re just friends,” I stumbled over my words, making them sound like a lie.

  “Even I know that Mac doesn’t have friends who are girls, and I couldn’t care less about the guy. Unless you’re doing his homework or writing his papers for him, which can’t be right because Mac’s smart and gets all As,” she waxed on.

  I wondered how she knew that Mac got all As in his classes. Even I hadn’t known that. I couldn’t get distracted with her though because I was running out of time.

  “Just tell me which way he went. Please.”

  Her thumb jerked to the right, and I took off running.

  “Thank you!”

  “The name’s Rocky, by the way!” she yelled toward me, and I shouted back, “It fits you.” She looked like a Rocky, and I was going to make her my friend—but not until after I found Mac.

  I hit the exit door with my arms extended, and it flew open, smacking with a loud crash into the wall of the building. I was like a tiny bull in a china shop. Or maybe more like a top spinning out of control.

  “Mac!” I yelled his name into the night air, hoping that wherever he was, he might hear me and stop leaving.

  The parking lot had plenty of streetlights that illuminated the space, but outside of it was pitch-black. Mac could be anywhere, and I’d never even see him. With my luck, he was probably in a car, halfway back to the baseball house by now.

  I stopped running and blew out a long breath before shouting one last time, “MAC!” realizing that I was probably waking up the whole apartment complex.

  “Sunny?” I heard him say my name like a question from somewhere in the distance.

  I headed the direction I thought it had come from, my eyes focused straight ahead in front of me. A hand reached out and grabbed my calf, and I almost screamed with the contact. Mac was sitting on the ground, between two cars. My heart pounded against my chest.

  “Mac,” I breathed out and immediately sat down. I thought I might fall to the ground anyway; he’d scared me so bad.

  “You were looking for me?” He sounded so wounded, so caught up in whatever was going on in his head that he couldn’t comprehend the idea.

  “I thought about letting you leave. That maybe you needed space to work out whatever was going on in there.” I leaned forward and gently tapped his forehead with my finger. “But I couldn’t stand it.”

  His eyes pulled together. “Couldn’t stand what?”

  “Leaving you alone.” There were other things I couldn’t handle as well, like the thought of him feeling depressed or thinking that he was alone. “I didn’t want you to think that I didn’t care.”

  “I know you care, Sunny. You care too much,” he said.

  I interrupted him before he could say anything else, “There’s no such thing.”

  He let out a gruff laugh. “Yeah, there actually is.”

  “Oh, really? Give me an example then,” I pushed.

  For as much as Mac liked to run away when things got too heavy, he also had a tendency to open up as well.

  His body shifted as he pushed himself to sit up straighter. “You.”

  “Me? I’m your example?”

  “Yeah. You give way too much of yourself without getting anything in return.”

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing.” I felt myself getting a little defensive. “Being selfless isn’t a negative quality.”

  “It can be. If you let people walk all over you or take advantage of your kindness.”

  Shaking my head, I disagreed. Maybe Mac saw me that way, but I didn’t. “But I don’t.”

  “But you would.” He reached out and put his hand on my bent knee. “You would give everything to me even if I never opened up and gave you any more than I did last summer. You’d still turn the world upside down in order to help me.”

  I started feeling more than a little uncomfortable. Mac was seeing me in ways I wasn’t sure I’d ever even seen myself before. But in this particular scenario, he wasn’t wrong.

  “You’re right. I would. But it’s not like I’d do that for just anyone. I don’t walk around, lighting myself on fire to keep everyone else warm.”

  “Exactly,” he said, sounding satisfied as he pulled his hand away, and I was confused until he continued, “You care too much for me, and I haven’t done a damn thing to deserve it.”

  Clearing my throat, I fought back, “Well, that’s your perspective, and you don’t get to decide.”

  “Decide what?”

  “Who I care for and how.” I was being stubborn. Arguing just for the sake of doing it.

  “No, I guess not,” he agreed, and it surprised me. “I’m just saying, be careful who you go to bat for. Make sure they’re not only worth it, but that they’d also do the same thing for you.”

  “You’re so frustrating,” I groaned before pushing myself up from the dirty street and brushing myself off. Pacing in small steps, I ground my teeth together as I searched for just the right words. Halting to a stop, I turned to face him. “Get up,” I demanded.

  His mouth turned into a sexy little grin, and I snarled in return as he did what I’d asked, his body suddenly towering over mine. “I’m up.”

  Poking a finger against his chest, I started in on him, “You care about me too. Whether you want to admit it or not, you do. You wouldn’t be here tonight if you didn’t.” I poked at him again. “And another thing”—poke—“you’re not the only person on this planet with issues, okay?” Poke. “I get it, Mac. For whatever reason, you don’t think you’re good enough. For me”—poke—“or for baseball.” Poke.

  His body adjusted quickly away from my stabby finger. “Stop poking me. Damn, that shit hurts.”

  “Come back inside. Don’t leave. Not like this. It’s stupid.” I expected him to disagree immediately, so when he didn’t, I kept explaining, “We don’t have to talk anymore. But we can if you want. We can watch Christmas movies. Or you can give me a hand massage,” I suggested while shaking out my fingers.

  “Christmas movies? Now?”

  “It’s scientifically proven that all things Christmas bring joy, no matter the time of year. The lights and magic give people hope, and they’re sixty-five percent happier than they were before they started watching.”

  He laughed again. “Scientifically proven, eh?”

  “Fine. No. But who doesn’t love watching Elf? ‘Have you seen the toilets?’ ” I started quoting the now-classic Will Ferrell movie.

  “ ‘They’re ginormous!’ ” Mac said back with a gorgeous smile.

  God, he really was something else, and I was a total goner.

  “See? You’re already happier.”

  I watched as he took a step toward me, but I held my ground, refusing to back away. His hands cupped my face as he leaned down and kissed my mouth. I opened, allowing him to take me, the feel of his tongue sending me into sensation overload.

  “You’re too good for me,” he whispered before kissing me again.

  “Stop saying that.”

  “I’m fucked up, Sunny.” He sounded so convinced of what he was saying. As if him believing it would make me believe it as well.

  “We’re all fucked up.”

  “You’re not.” He wrapped his arms around me and held me tight as I laughed, my body shaking against his. He was so large, so much bigger than I was, and I felt cocooned by him. I wanted to wrap myself up in his body and wear him like a coat.

  “You mean, aside from being too nice to you?” I asked with a grin.

  “I’m sorry,” he apologized. “One of my go-to defense mechanisms is to push people away.”

  “Oh, believe me, I’ve noticed.”

  “Let’s go back inside,” he suggested, and I reached for his hand and held it tight.

  No matter how hard Mac tried to push me away, I wouldn’t leave him.

  More Confessions

  Mac

  “I see you found him.” A voice echoed in the hall, and I swiveled my head to see a punk rock–looking chick with crazy hair glaring at me. Glaring.

  Do I know her?

  “I did. Thanks for the help,” Sunny said with a smile before introducing us. “Mac, this is my neighbor Rocky.”

  “Rocky? Interesting name.”

  “My parents were big fans of the movies. And they wanted a boy. Lucky for them, I liked it too,” Rocky explained.

  “The movies or the name?” I asked with a chuckle.

  “The movies are trash. But I love my name.”

  Honestly, the name fit her. She looked tough enough to kick my ass.

  “Well, it’s nice to meet you. You’ll look out for my girl when I’m not around, yeah?” I said without thinking twice, and Rocky’s frown turned up noticeably. “She doesn’t like being alone,” I added.

  “Hey.” Sunny stomped her foot and forced a frown.

  “Your girl, huh?” Rocky looked directly at Sunny. “Thought you two were just friends?” she mimicked.

  “Don’t listen to him,” Sunny said with a grimace. “He hit his head. Doesn’t know what he’s saying.”

  “No, I didn’t,” I argued playfully and watched as Sunny brought her hand up and smacked me upside the head with it. “Ow!”

  “See? Brain malfunction or something. Gets information wrong.”

  “You two are weird.” Rocky shook her head. “I’m going back inside now. I’ll talk to you later, Sunny.”

  “What about me?” I pretended to pout as Rocky closed the door without playing along. “She hates me. Your new best friend hates me,” I said as I followed Sunny down the hall toward her place.

  “She’s not my new best friend,” she bit back before adding with a laugh, “but she definitely hates you.”

  “How can anyone hate me?” I whined.

  Sunny patted my head as I walked through her front door. She closed and locked it behind us. “Poor baby. I’m not sure how you’ll survive this rejection.”

  “You joke, but I’m not kidding. I’m seriously crushed right now,” I said, putting a hand over my heart.

  Sunny waltzed into her kitchen, and before I knew it, a cookie was sailing in the air toward me. “Here. Eat your feelings.”

  I scrambled but caught it without mutilating it into a million tiny cookie pieces. “You could have killed it! You can’t just toss your cookies at me without any warning.”

  She started giggling, her cheeks turning red as I realized what I’d said.

  “You have a dirty mind. Who knew?”

  She shrugged and took a bite of a cookie herself. I watched as she chewed, her eyes closing as she savored every bite. Her mouth worked so slowly that it looked like she was making love to the damn thing. My dick got hard instantly.