11. Zak
The first thing Zak did when she got home from work was deposit the wad of cash she’d earned into the empty pasta sauce jar in her underwear drawer. The second thing she did was open the refrigerator, crossing her fingers that there was pizza left for her. Which there was—an entire pie—and it smelled like sausage and jalape?o, her favorite.
And when she opened the box, the peppers were arranged into a smiley face beneath a note in Sharpie across the cardboard lid.
Happy 4th, Chase’s handwriting read in between doodles of fireworks.
How deep could fake-kindness run before it became real? Zak needed a conclusive, research-backed answer.
Such a blatant act of bootlicking shouldn’t make her question her intuition. She must be overtired. That would explain the rosy haze fogging up her thoughts, the ache in her heart. But as she picked up a piece and ate it cold, she kept rereading those two little words, which really said, I was thinking about you.