Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 55760 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 279(@200wpm)___ 223(@250wpm)___ 186(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55760 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 279(@200wpm)___ 223(@250wpm)___ 186(@300wpm)
Okay, that was me.
I wanted to know.
And holy shit…there he was, standing outside Rise and Grind right this very second, looking hotter than ever in worn jeans and a navy V-neck sweater with the sleeves rolled up to show off some impressive ink work. His dark-blond hair was longish, and the light beard on his square jaw gave him a sexy lumberjack vibe.
My hands shook as I fiddled with the steam control on the industrial coffee machine. I couldn’t help it. The guy had always done something for me. What could I say? He was my first crush.
Confession: I’d always been and always would be an incurable hopeless romantic with a long string of crushes dating back to preschool. And yes, my epic case of infatuation with Court Henderson had definitely lasted the longest—kindergarten through tenth grade, to be exact. Eleven impressionable years. No regrets and no one could fault my taste. Court had always been hot.
Seriously. He’d been anyone’s version of a good ol’ American boy with blue eyes and dimples in elementary school, but in junior high, he grew five inches over summer and shit got real. Suddenly, there was a man in our pimply, awkward midst with real muscles, facial hair, and a sexy deep voice.
Court was the first kid in our grade to do everything—get his driver’s license, shave, get drunk. That last one was pure hyperbole. I hadn’t exactly hung with the cool kids in high school. Not that I was un-cool. In fact, I was extremely cool in an artsy-fartsy, goth wannabe sort of way.
Okay, fine, maybe I wasn’t cool.
The point was…we’d never socialized for the usual age-old reasons jocks and queer geeks didn’t mix. We were just too different. But I’d always been aware of him. Always.
Court was the first-grader who’d regularly traded half of his peanut butter and jelly sandwich with Lucas Matthew in exchange for Cheetos, then shared the Cheetos too. And the third-grader who’d dared everyone to race him so he could show off his newfound speed—yet inexplicably lost to Sheena Abrams.
He was also the sixth grader who’d sat in the seat closest to the window in math class, pencil in hand, drawing pucks and hockey figures while Mr. Brown had droned on about fractions. And the seventh grader who’d showed me the ropes at Bingo Night when Stacy’s mom had asked us to help out.
I remembered being fixated on weird things, like his forearms and the way his hair curled at his nape. Mmm, and that voice…pure honey. Add teenage hormones to the mix, and my mild case of admiration had exploded into a full-blown crush gone wild.
Day by day, I’d lost the ability to act normal around Court and by our sophomore year of high school, I couldn’t speak in full sentences in his presence. My palms would go clammy, and my heart would either skitter or stop altogether. If anyone was going to drop dead because he’d crushed too damn hard, it would have been me and frankly, that was not the headline I’d wanted to make.
But Court had been so cool…and nice.
He’d said he liked my hair the time I’d dyed it blue, then purple, then pink. He’d complimented my Doc Martens, my nose ring, and taken the Pride sticker I gave him after Bingo one night and told me he’d stick one on his history notebook.
Of course, I had no idea what he did with that sticker. What mattered was that he’d acknowledged and supported a queer teen in a small town and made me feel…less alone. That was the kind of guy Court was.
But the day I’d spied him holding Jenna Adams’s hand in the parking lot after school was the day I’d known it was time to go cold turkey on him.
Something in the way he’d smiled at her as she leaned against his arm had made me queasy. I felt as though I’d been sucker-punched. I had no claim to him whatsoever, but I’d actually cried myself to sleep that night.
I know. That was a lot.
I’d been known to bring the drama hard, but that had been too extreme a reaction even by my standards. I’d had a serious chat with my puffy-eyed self the following morning and established a new nonnegotiable rule. No crushing on Court Henderson. It had needed to end—full stop, immediately.
From that day on, I’d turned when I saw Court coming, switched classes or begged to sit in the front of classes I couldn’t get out of so I wouldn’t be tempted to stare at him, and…I quit Bingo. That last one was the toughest tie to break ’cause it was the one time we were alone, and I’d liked it far too much.
I couldn’t repay his kindness with an unrequited crush. Putting a bit of distance between us was the right thing to do at the time. I doubt he’d noticed, but it had been hell on me.