I tucked some hair behind my ear. “I used to work here a long time ago, and he and I—”

Reese bounced the ball between his legs, once, catching it right away. “There was a thing?”

I was totally cool here.

“Yeah.” I winced at myself. “I mean, no. We were best friends. That’s it.”

He dropped the ball again, starting to bounce it in front of him. “So there wasn’t a thing?”

“Friends.”

“So who did you have a thing with?” He was still bouncing, his head cocked to the side.

“What?” Why is he asking about this?

“Come on.” He looked me up and down. “You’re hot. You’re trying to tell me you’re single?”

I couldn’t say I wasn’t.

He kept on, “And you’re working here as what? A gym court attendant?”

“Um.” Shit. He wanted the deets on why this train wreck was still working at a camp.

All the Damian trauma, Grandpa Newt, and getting fired exploded in my chest in one big ball.

I let out a sigh.

“That’s...stupidly tragic.” What else could I say?

He caught the ball and stopped, staring hard at me. “Stupidly tragic?”

I clipped my head in a nod. “Would you like more water? I can get that for you.”

Pretending like he’d asked for more water, I started walking away. I called over my shoulder, “I’ll get you more water.”

He stared at me the whole way as I went back out the door. I couldn’t see him, but I felt him. And then I remembered: we had just filled the table with water an hour ago.

• • •

Reese kept his distance from me the rest of the day. I worked like a normal employee, with only minimal fangirling still going on inside of me, but not as much. The whole ‘stupidly tragic’ thing put a damper on my inner fangirl.

But he watched me, and I couldn’t ignore the flutter going on in my stomach. And those weren’t there because of my fanatical fan-ways. They were there and growing because of a different reason, one that was more like me woman and he man, that sort of way.

And that was bad.

I could do nuts. Crazy was a nice firm wall that I kept around myself, shielding people from getting too close, or from me connecting as a real human being kinda way. It was a good firm wall locked around me, and the more he was watching me, the more that wall was getting dents in it, and that was the bad part.

Really bad. Like seriously, I’m stupid—sign me up for another stint of therapy kind of bad.

I did not need to deal with anyone on a real basis. Lucas was the most I’d tried in a year, and we all know how that ended.

Reese Forster made Grandpa Newt not even a blip.