“Are you kidding me?” If it weren’t for the hurt in his eyes, she’d think him furious. “Just like that you’d walk away?”

“It’s what I was going to talk to you about tonight.”

“Well then, talk.”

“Right here?”

“Yes, right here, right now, because you just scared the crap outta me.”

She shook her head, reaching out for his hand, and he took it. “I didn’t mean to.”

He touched her hair, his expression softening a bit, and stared deep in her eyes. “Okay, but you did. So tell me.”

She wasn’t sure where to start, and she sure as heck hadn’t planned on having this conversation with him here in the middle of the school parking lot, but he seemed adamant. “It’s long, Hector. It goes back to when I was a little girl.”

He startled her by putting his arms around her suddenly and hugging her. The hug was a tight one, and she loved being in the warmth of his big arms. She gave into it completely, leaning her face against his chest. “I’m sorry I made you cry and think whatever it is you were thinking, okay?” She nodded without pulling away from his chest. “You forgive me?” She nodded again. “Are you in a hurry to be anywhere right now?”

She shook her head, smiling at how quick she’d gone from feeling mortified and hurt to utterly in love again.

“Good,” he loosened his hold on her and pulled away. “Because that’s twice that you’ve lost it on me and like that.” He snapped his fingers. “And I need to know what the hell I’m doing wrong so that doesn’t happen again, so start talking, and we’ll go grab something to eat, but the whole time you talk. I have all the time in the world tonight, so I don’t care how long it is.”

She nodded in agreement. This was it. He’d either think her a pathetic freak or this would prove once in for all he really as wonderful as she suspected and she could finally trust that this wasn’t too good to be true.

They started back to his truck. “I’m listening,” he said.

Oh boy. It was now or never, so she may as well get it over with.

Chapter 28

“I’ve always been very awkward,” Charlee began, “very shy, so bad that I had to be homeschooled because my socializing skills were non-existent.”

They stopped just outside his truck, and she glanced up at him for a reaction, but at the moment, he reminded her of his brother because his expression gave nothing away.

“My mom coaxed me into trying to go to public school a few times, but each time it was disastrous.”

“Why?”

“I haven’t always looked this way. My hair isn’t really straight either, it’s super curly.” He smiled. “But not like Roni’s, okay? We’re talking nappy curly. Add that to it being bright red with a face full of freckles and me being so incredibly shy that I’d turn bright red the moment any teachers called on me in class. I hated having all eyes on me, and I hated having to speak up, because every time I did, I’d flub my words. Once the kids caught on to how easily they could make me turn beet red, I was an easy target. I became their entertainment.” He wasn’t smiling anymore. Now she saw his jaw working. “None of the girls wanted to be friends with Charlee the Freak, and even though I had Drew, who had been my friend since we were babies, she couldn’t always be there, so I begged my mom to take me out again and just let me be homeschooled.”

Hector opened the door for her and she got in. As soon as he was in his side, he kissed her but then asked her to continue as he slipped the key in the ignition.

“Anyway, we tried it again in middle school, and, God, that was even worse. I didn’t even last a week.” Taking a very deep breath, she braced herself before getting the next part out. “There was a boy who lived up the street from me named Danny. I used to watch him from my window as he and his friends walked to school. He was one of the only popular kids who was actually nice to me, and by nice, I mean he didn’t throw food at me or taunt me. He hung out with some of the kids that did, but he never joined them. And he even smiled at me a few times.”

Sitting this close to Hector, she noticed his body go stiff, and he gripped the steering wheel a little tighter. “But he never stopped them from taunting you?”

She shook her head. “No, but silly me, just because he smiled at me, didn’t actually do the taunting, and, of course, because he was popular and cute, I made him out to be some kind of prince. For years as I watched him go by my house to school, I daydreamed of him and harbored this massive crush on him.”

He squeezed her leg, and she decided to spare him the details of all the doodling she did writing her and Danny’s name all over her notebooks and journals. “By the time I was old enough to go to high school, I tried again freshman year, and that was another disaster. Looking back, I realize it was me being too weak to fight back or stand up for myself. But I was so shy it was paralyzing.” She cleared her voice, realizing this is where the explanation about her behavior last night began. “As shy as I was, I was still your typical teenager with raging hormones. But as awkward as I was, I knew, or at least I believed very strongly, that I would probably never even be kissed much less experience anything more than just kissing. But as a young girl, I still daydreamed about it—a lot, especially every time I’d watch Danny walk by my house.”

Again he squeezed her leg, and she straightened up a little, feeling her face warm by what she was about to say next. “Like any normal teenage girl,” she turned to him, making sure he got this part, “because I’d been called a freak so often, I read up on it and looked it up on the internet. It was totally normal,” she waited until he nodded. “I started doing things—touching myself.”