Total pages in book: 191
Estimated words: 182070 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 910(@200wpm)___ 728(@250wpm)___ 607(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 182070 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 910(@200wpm)___ 728(@250wpm)___ 607(@300wpm)
“If teams think they don’t want to even consider you in the first place because you’re in your thirties now, don’t give them a choice but to notice you. Post your workouts on social media. Take advantage of your Picturegram platform. Show everyone you still got it, and even if nothing happens, at least you’ll know you tried. Seventeen-year-old Zac would be snapping his fingers at you to get to it, and you know it,” I told him with a smile.
He didn’t laugh or even smile at my comment like I’d hoped.
Maybe I’d pushed too far based on the expression he had started giving me before slowly turning his head toward the blank television screen. He didn’t say anything for so long, I got just a little bit worried he was going to be mad now.
I mean, we weren’t really friends. Not anymore. We had been.
And I wasn’t the same person who used to be able to joke around and talk shit to him because I’d been so secure in our friendship, or at least in the affection he’d felt toward me because of what I’d done for him.
But I told him the truth, and I wouldn’t take it back. If I never saw him again after tonight, at least he’d have the memory of me calling him out in the future if he started to feel sorry for himself. Mamá Lupe had thought he’d walked on water, and in Paw-Paw’s eyes, Zac could do no wrong.
I thought he was pretty great too, but that didn’t mean I was going to sit back and blow smoke up his butt so he could float around longer or make him think that quitting was okay. And if you wanted something, you didn’t quit when you came up to a hurdle, not if it really meant something to you. You pushed it over and jumped over it. I didn’t care what anybody said. I didn’t have the biggest audience on WatchTube, and that didn’t mean that I didn’t try as hard or didn’t try my best with every video I posted. I wasn’t less than someone else because they had more than me, and I wasn’t any better because I had more than other people. I hungered for myself. For my future.
And just as he opened his mouth to tell me to mind my own business, or who the hell knows what, his cell phone rang.
My old friend, who had come by to catch up with me, cast me a quick look I didn’t know what to think of before he pulled it out of the pocket he’d stashed it in and grimaced at the screen.
Is it a girl? my brain asked, knowing I had no business wondering that, fully aware I didn’t need that question answered.
“It’s my agent again,” Zac blurted in the time it took for his ringtone to start up all over again, even though he didn’t have to explain anything. “Hope this ain’t embarassin’,” he muttered, sounding distracted.
“Remember that time you threw up funnel cake all over yourself because you got on a roller coaster right after eating it? That was embarrassing. Not getting chewed out.”
His gaze flicked to mine, and that mouth of his tilted up on one side. “You remember that?”
I nodded. How could I forget? Boogie and I had cracked up about it a couple years back when we’d gone to a carnival with Connie and the kids and seen a funnel cake stand. We hadn’t even needed to say anything to each other. We’d both just burst out laughing out of nowhere.
“Forget it happened,” he said with a sneaky little smile that made me feel better about his reaction to my shitty pep talk before tapping on the screen and bringing the phone up to his ear. “Yes, sir?”
Facing my blank TV to give him a little bit of privacy, I took a couple more bites while he said nothing. Scoop, chew, repeat. This soup was good.
I’d shared the recipe a couple years ago on one of my vlogs. The beans, sausage, and greens were a recipe from Grandma Brannen that I’d adapted and tweaked a while back from memory. I’d never met Grandma Brannen, my dad’s mom, but he’d given me her recipe cards for my birthday when I was sixteen. I had a lot of my own too that I screwed around with when I didn’t have all the ingredients to other recipes I liked. I had a ton of Mamá Lupe’s as well, but most of those always felt too personal to share.
Maybe I could mess with a couple of the ingredients a little and post an updated recipe for it? Like a variation if you had different things in your fridge?
“You don’t say,” Zac replied in a way that had me glancing toward him. He was staring at my television screen. Correction: through my television screen. His stubble-covered chin was locked and resembled something on a statue. “Is that right?”