Page 7 of The One With The Secret Crushes

My name?What in the ever-loving cheeseburgers was happening? "You remember me?"

"Did I hit you harder than I realized?" He cocked his cute head to the side. Besides the brown flannel shirt that was oh so soft against my skin, he wore a Lost Creek High School Bigfoot t-shirt underneath, worn jeans, and equally worn brown boots. He had his ball cap on backwards with his light brown hair curling along the edges.

In high school he was adorably cute, and kind, but also kind of a badass. He didn't fall in with the cool clique. He played sports but wasn't a jock. He got good grades but wasn't a nerd. He was just...Scott.

My Scott.

As I looked at him—really looked at him—for the first time in years, I realized he wasn't just cute anymore. He had a rough masculinity that wasn't there before. He was like one of these mountains: strong and immovable. And that shot his level of attractiveness from a ten, to ten thousand.

Lord have mercy on me. I could not—couldnot—exist in this small town with this level of hotness unavailable to me. It would be like the river turning to fondue chocolate, but no one was allowed to dip their strawberries and bananas in it. Cruel.

"I'm just surprised you recognized me," I blurted with the finesse of a teenager.

I really needed to stop thinking about high school.

He jerked back a little. "Seriously?" His eyes swept over me in a way that made my toes curl and my heart beat a lot faster.

"Uh, yeah?"

His eyes narrowed. "Isthatwhy you've been avoiding me?"

"Me? No." I sputtered and flailed. "Okay yes. Maybe."

Everything about him softened from his broad shoulders to his brown eyes. "Oh thank goodness. I thought you hated me."

Wait...what? "Why would I hate you?" And why did I have to keep blushing from head to toe? I had to be beet red by this point. Plus my boots were entirely too small for this amount of toe curling.

"I don't know," he said with a bewildered shrug. "But you've been home since October and we haven't spoken once. You duck into doors or hide your face. I've been convinced I accidentally did something in high school and that you've hated me for all these years. Plus Joanne comes into the bar all the time. You and Joanne are joined at the hip and yet you're not there. Therefore, you clearly hate me."

"No! I, okay, let's back this up." I flung my hand at the store across the street. "I saw you in there and you didn't recognize me." That's what happened, right?Right??I was sad and in a hurry and completely flustered after driving for hours in the rain...was it possible I read his reaction all wrong? That my insane hope I'd walk into town and Scott would see me as a woman—finally—and sweep me off my feet, had blinded me to reality?

If this was just a misunderstanding I was going to die of embarrassment.

"When?" his voice jumped two octaves.

"Literally the day I got back into town."

He frowned. "I...don't have any idea what you're talking about."

This was so bad. So. Bad. "You were looking at soap and I was buying crackers. There were a bunch of rowdy tourists buying beer."

"Oh shit." He went white. "Now I know what you're talking about. Shit. Shit!" He yanked off his hat and ran his big man-hand through his hair, spinning in a small circle before he plopped the hat back where it was and pressed his hands together like he was about to say grace. "Those assholes had made my life hell the night before at the saloon. I saw you when you walked in. I planned to come over and say hi but those jerks." He shook his head and sighed. "Look, I left out the back door because I was afraid I'd lose my shit on them. I didn't want to make a scene. I didn't want to start a fight with five guys. And I definitely didn't want to get arrested. So I left. It had nothing to do with you."

Well...that was a version of events I hadn't even considered. But it made sense. All the sense. That group was unusually obnoxious. Even poor Christine looked like she wanted to disappear behind the cash register. "So youdidrecognize me?" Something fluttered inside my chest. Something old and new at the same time. Something that feltgood.

Scott remembered me.

"Of course. When you started avoiding me I thought I'd done something wrong. That's why I didn't say anything at your dad's funeral. I didn't want to upset you on that day of all days."

That was sweet. And kind. I pressed my hand to my forehead. "I'm so, so sorry. This is all just a mix-up." A stupid, embarrassing, boneheaded mix-up.

He let out a chuckle. "No, it's okay. I'm just relieved I don't have some deep, dark, completely forgotten transgression from a decade ago to make up for." Even his voice did things to me. It was smooth but soft. Warm and inviting.

"Nothing of the sort." I frowned. "You and I must have very different memories of high school if that's where your mind went." Scott was incredibly kind to me. I always felt safe with him. There was nothing better than listening to music over shared earbuds while resting my head on his shoulder. When my world flipped upside down, he was the calm steady center that kept me from spinning off into space. I could not imagine any scenario where he could ever have done something heinous enough for me to hate him.

He shrugged. "The first time you looked the other way I figured you were having a tough time and I should leave you alone. But then you kept doing it. The day you jumped into a pack of tourists to avoid me I figured it was bad."

And now I was ten times more embarrassed than when I thought Scott forgot me. "Nothing bad. Just me being me." It would be great if the earth swallowing would commence already.

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