Always,

Your secret admirer

She blinked at the words, ones so familiar, ones she’d read over and over when she was a teenager and in the years since. She had a copy of this very letter tucked in that box she’d hidden in the closet. A whole stack of them. But…

Hers were typed.

She stared down at the page, the handwritten words swimming in her head, nothing making sense.

“What is it?” Taryn asked, coming to sit next to her. She leaned over, reading the letter. “Whoa. That’s…”

“It’s a letter from Graham,” Kincaid said softly.

“From Graham?” Taryn asked, picking up another of the ragged-edged pages. “Why would Ash have them?”

Kincaid stared down at the letter, at the neat, slanted handwriting. Something about it was making her heart beat faster. The way the g’s looped was so unique and familiar. The handwriting was…the same handwriting that was currently on the shelf-talkers at the bookstore. The blood drained out of her fingertips. “Oh my God.”

A wave of nausea filled her, her stomach flipping inside out and a loud buzzing filling her ears.

“What?” Taryn asked, looking from her to the letter. “What’s wrong?”

“Not from Graham,” Kincaid whispered more to herself than Taryn. “Oh God. Oh God.” Her throat stung with acid. “Ash wrote these.”

“Ash?”

Kincaid put her hand to her mouth and leaned back on the couch, afraid she may vomit on the nice pregnant lady. The romantic words were burned into her brain. She’d always wondered how Graham could be so effusive and poetic on the page but rarely said such things in person. She’d cherished these letters. They were imprinted onto her heart. But God, she’d been so stupid. How had she not seen it? Graham wasn’t the writer. Ash was. The books they’d been hidden in were favorites only Ash would’ve known. “The letters I got from Graham were typed. Either Ash wrote these and Graham took credit for them. Or Ash wrote them for Graham.”

Taryn’s eyes widened, and she looked at the page in her hand. “So all these romantic declarations?”

Kincaid closed her eyes. “Ash.”

“Girl,” Taryn said softly. “Wow. This guy…has loved you for a long time.”

Frustration rushed through Kincaid, chasing away the sick feeling, and she stared up at the ceiling. “Why didn’t he just tell me how he felt? Why help Graham? Why not take credit for these letters? He knew I loved them. I talked about them all the time. They made me fall for Graham.”

Taryn reached out and grabbed her hand in sympathy. “He says right here why. ‘I wish I could tell you all the things I think and feel about you to your face, but I’m not sure I’m the guy you’d want to hear them from,’” she read aloud. “For some reason, he didn’t believe you were capable of feeling that way about him.”

“He’s an idiot,” Kincaid declared.

Taryn laughed without humor. “Most teenage boys are. But,” she asked gently, “would you have returned these feelings back then? Would you have wanted him to be the guy?”