Page 5 of The One With The Secret Crushes

His grin widened. "She's doing okay, considering the shitty reason she moved home. The business is thriving and aside from the fact she lives like a hermit, she seems happy."

My chest ached. Mackenzie shouldn't be hiding away at work and home. She should be with all of us, the people who cared about her. Again, it gnawed at me that this was somehow my fault. I'd done something that made it hard for her to come to town.

Travis sat up. "Okay, what is that face? This news should have made you feel better, not worse."

I scratched my neck. I wasn't sure why this was hard. Travis knew pretty much everything about me from all the shit we pulled as kids to my crush on Mackenzie to the mess that was cleaning up the bar and saving the family legacy.

"I think she hates me."

Travis stared at me for several beats. He stared so long I wondered if he’d turned to stone. Then he burst out laughing so hard he slapped his thigh. "Oh my god," he wiped away tears, "this has to be the funniest shit I've heard in a long, long time."

I waited while he laughed at my expense, crossing my arms and debating revenge. Tuna fish in his favorite boots sounded like an appropriate amount of payback.

He took a breath and let it out. "My good dude, she's crazy about you."

That...wasn't true.

He rolled his eyes. "She was crazy about you in high school. You just couldn't believe it. All your honor and code of conduct shit. She's always been into you. Joanne has been losing it trying to get her to talk to you. They even concocted a scheme to get her to book club today just to put you two in the same room."

The TBCIMAs. My murderous little book nerds. When Willow kicked them out of the bookstore, I took them in. It was a combination of curiosity—because how do you get kicked out of abookstore—and compassion for Sharon. That woman had a huge heart and an even bigger mouth.

And she was Mackenzie's aunt. The only family she had left. I couldn't reach Mackenzie, I couldn't change the shit hand she got dealt, but I could give her wacky aunt and her book club a place to meet. For months I'd been hoping she'd walk through the door on the second Tuesday of the month, ready to talk about murder.

Today, apparently, was that day.

My world jumbled as everything I thought I knew shifted and rearranged itself.

"But...why is she avoiding me if she doesn't hate me?"

Travis stood up and clapped his big paw of a hand on my shoulder. "That's a question for Mack. Even Joanne can't figure it out. But I do know for a fact she doesn't hate you."

"Did Joanne come right out and ask, 'Do you hate Scottie?'Because unless she did, I'm sticking to my theory." I did something or she overheard something. Hopefully it was a misunderstanding. Something we could laugh about and put behind us.

Travis shook his head. "Women know when their friends hate a man. It's like ESP or something. You didn't do anything nefarious."

Once upon a time—it felt like another life—we were friends. We liked the same music, had the same juvenile sense of humor. We'd share earbuds and listen to new songs and she'd fall asleep on my shoulder at basketball games because they were boring.

Mackenzie took a lot of naps those days. She had trouble sleeping and took all the hardest classes, so she had tons of homework, but she never wanted to miss anything. She didn't like basketball, but we had to go to the games. She didn't care for awkward school dances, but she bought the ticket and put on the dress, and even though I never took the chance and asked her to be my date, I was always there to keep her company and make sure she got on the dance floor at least once.

I didn't go to culinary school right after high school. I worked at ODX with Travis and Red, the owner, when I wasn't helping my Uncle Jerry at the saloon. So I was always available to pick Mackenzie up from school and take her home and to whatever school events she insisted on attending even after I graduated. She fell asleep in my car more times than I could count, and I would just sit there listening to music while she napped in her own driveway, curled up in the front seat like it was the most comfortable bed in the world.

For four yearsshewas my world.

And then she was gone.

In the six and a half months she'd been back, she avoided me, and I let her because whatever she needed I would give it to her, even if it was space from me. But now I saw the error of my ways. Something was wrong and instead of addressing it head on and clearing it away, it festered.

No more. Today she was coming to murder book club at my saloon. It didn't matter to me if it was by force or not, it put us in the same room, and I would take it from there. I wasn't letting another day go by where Mackenzie thought I was a villain. I wanted my friend back, even if she didn't want me as anything more. "Then it seems I need to have a long overdue conversation with Mackenzie."

"That's the spirit." Travis clicked the computer mouse and got back to work. "What goes on at these book club meetings anyway?"

"Shenanigans." Anything that involved Sharon and Maeve ended in shenanigans. "They talk about murder. So much murder. I don't blame Willow for kicking them out of her shop." I shuddered at the memory of them trying to reenact a murder scene last month. It was hilarious and macabre. "They gossip about everyone. And then I feed them to get them to stop talking." They were my test group. Whatever new menu idea I came up with, they ate it first and gave me surprisingly helpful feedback. Especially if it involved cheese.

Travis grunted. "Sounds...awful."

It was and it wasn't. There was something about it I enjoyed. Maybe it was the change of pace. My days had gotten pretty fucking boring. Aside from meeting up with my friends, all I did was work. I had my regulars who more often than not came in to unload their shitty days. Then I had my Friday and Saturday night crowds which were busy as all hell, but there was music and dancing and my special menu of food. I lived for those nights. To be honest it was probably the only thing that kept me from being bored out of my mind.

Except the second Tuesday of every month the strangest group of book nerds invaded my bar to talk about murder. They laughed and gave each other a hard time while I watched from just outside their circle.

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