He flashed me a soft smile. “Too late for that.”

“Why?”

“We’re friends, right? Isn’t that what friends do? Worry about each other. Talk to each other. Vent?”

I smirked. “You want to be like Hannah?”

Another low growl. “I am so much better looking than Hannah.”

“She’s pretty gorgeous.”

He tipped his chin. “Is Natalie Portman yours, too?” He waggled his eyebrows, the look successfully launching me into giggles I couldn’t control.

“And if it was?”

“Add it to the list of other things we have in common.”

“You have a list?” I teased.

“I’ll never admit it.” The smile on his lips was tempting, warm, and completely at ease. These little moments he’d continued to give me, they made me feel…normal.

The realization only made me understand just how long it’d been since I’d felt normal—months—and my shoulders sank. I hated that I’d let Brandon rob me of that ease.

I grinned at him, my sides aching from the way he made me laugh.

“What is it?” he asked.

“I’m just really glad we’re friends.”

He raised his brows. “Am I in your circle now?”

“Wouldn’t go that far,” I said. “It took Hannah two years to get in. Jake twice as long.”

“Well, you know how much I love a challenge.”

Heat rippled through me. I siphoned it, curled around it in an attempt to hold on to that feeling a little longer.

“Never thought your celebrity crush would be such a hard thing to pin,” he said, backing away from the counter. “I’ll think on it and let you get back to…whoever it is you were staring at.”

I chuckled, taking his empty mug and placing it in the sink. If you only knew what I’d been looking at before you walked in.

I wondered what he would think. I hadn’t given him a chance to voice an opinion at the taco shop—it was too fresh in my mind. Too new.

Would he forfeit, knowing it was a win? Or would he tell me to burn it before it burned me? Or would he be offended? Would he think I was insane for believing I could possibly help people when I had no real clue what I was doing?

If he brought it up again, I’d let him talk.

Turning back around, I watched him walk to the door, the muscles in his back rippling underneath his black T-shirt.

Damn, I have the hottest…“friend.”

That was okay, wasn’t it? I knew Hannah was gorgeous. I could think he was hot without crossing a line that would inevitably lead to heartbreak.

Totally.

“Locker,” I called as he reached the door.

He glanced over his shoulder. “Yeah?”

“Portman and mine have a scene together. One where she tries to break his grasp.”