“Excuse me,” I said nervously, hoping he couldn’t hear the tremor in my voice.

“Oh, sorry,” he apologized and took a step back.

Quickly, I grabbed the carton of creamy goodness I needed and closed the freezer door.

“Thanks.” Taking a deep breath, I thought back to the lessons I’d had with Owen and garnered a bit of the confidence he’d been trying to teach me. We might’ve decided what we had between us was real, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t use the new skills just to be friendly.

“Do you need any help?” I asked Tryston, who was still analyzing the nutritional information on the cartons.

He chuckled and admitted that he did. “I’m just trying to see if either of these contain Red Dye 40. I’m allergic.” He held out both containers, and I noticed they were plain vanilla. Which was a little boring, though no less delicious.

Leaning forward, I glanced over the ingredients, not finding the offensive additive. While subtly leaning closer, I tried to hide the fact that I was sniffing him, just because I’d always wondered what he smelled like. His cologne was light, almost like the ocean. Nothing nearly as intoxicating as what Owen wore. I wanted to bathe in that scent.

“I think you’re safe with either. Though, I particularly like the one made with vanilla bean.”

Tryston met my smile and moved toward the freezer. It was when he turned back around that I saw he placed my recommendation back. He didn’t seem to notice my disappointment.

“Alice, right?”

“Actually, it’s Aspen. I get that a lot though,” I lied as I continued to try to hold a conversation with someone I hadn’t known my whole life. My frustration was growing by the second at Tryston’s disinterest in anything I said.

This was why I kept to myself. Small talk was hard.

“Fun things planned tonight?” he asked, gesturing toward my basket.

“Yeah. Girls’ night with my friend Jenna.”

“Well, have fun,” he said as he smiled and strolled away toward the registers, leaving me standing in the freezer section with mixed feelings.

Back in my car, still confused over the interaction with the guy I had crushed on for a year, I tilted my head back against the headrest. I always imagined my first real interaction with Tryston would leave me breathless, flustered. I’d been building it up like a mountain of attraction that ended up being more like an ant hill. While collecting my thoughts, I received a text from Owen asking if I wanted some company that night. He’d been at the high school gym all day, working with Kelsey. I was sure he was sore and exhausted, but I found myself tempted to cancel with Jenna.

But I needed her opinion.

Declining his invitation, I thought back to Owen’s arrival in Ashfield. He’d been here for almost a month now, and I felt like I’d been exposed to all new sides of him. A caring side. A dominant side. An affectionate side. He may have had them all when he grew up here, but I’d never witnessed them. I needed to talk all this through with my best friend, since he and I were truly giving this a go instead of it being all pretend.

Starting up my car, she shuddered a couple of times before the ignition caught, and I headed toward Jenna’s.

My friend didn’t live far from Rory’s house, where Owen was staying. By the time I arrived, I had another message from him saying he was going to hang with his high-school friend, Chris.

Chris Mathewson was the only one of his friends who had always been nice to me, never once joining in on the teasing or antics that Owen’s clique partook in. His wife had been the leader of our debate team, and the two of them now had the most adorable little girl. I was glad Owen was taking some time to see his friend. As far as I knew, if he wasn’t with me, Owen had mostly kept to himself since being home, besides hanging with his old coach and the neighbor’s kid, Roman.

I let myself into Jenna’s, carrying my bags over and setting them on her kitchen counter. We were going to order pizza from Angelo’s for dinner, but that didn’t stop me from pulling out a large spoon from a drawer and helping myself to a dollop of ice cream before I set the carton in the freezer.

“I saw that,” Jenna claimed as she stepped from the hall with a mask of pink goop covering her face.

“Just my appetizer,” I explained as the doorbell rang. Jenna yipped as she darted back down the hall, leaving me to answer her door.

Thankfully, she already paid for the pizza, and I carried it into her living room, placing it on the coffee table. By the time she joined me with a freshly cleansed face, I poured us each a glass of wine and had our favorite reality show paused on the television.

I rarely had time to watch shows, but she got me hooked on the series now on its tenth season. The show Hidden in Plain Sight followed an A or B-List celebrity as they worked like us common people undercover. Most of the time, the normal people on the show had no idea until the end, but every once in a while, someone would catch on.

This season had been my favorite so far. The celebrity was Chase Duran, one of the most famous action stars in the world and the lead of my favorite movie franchise. He was falling hard for his younger female associate at the library where they worked. She seemed to be clueless. And I was waiting for the episode where he confessed his feelings.

“Oh good, you have the show ready. It’s been killing me not to watch the last episode,” Jenna told me as she settled on the couch with a slice of pizza.

“I seriously hope he confesses this week. I’m dying to know if she likes him too.”

“She has to. What’s not to like?”

“True, but I have a feeling Zoey isn’t going to care for being lied to, or that he’s a celebrity. I mean, Chase has one of the most recognizable faces in the world.”

“You’re right. Speaking of dating a celebrity. How are things with you and Owen?”

“Good,” I replied hesitantly. I’d been trying to come up with a way to ask Jenna for advice about Owen and my non-conversation with Tryston without giving away the fact that Owen and I weren’t actually together—except now we were. But we still hadn’t talked about what would happen when he left, so maybe we were only together for right now.

Whatever we were confused the hell out of me.

“I like you two together. And so does a lot of the U.S. population,” she added as she turned toward her end table. Swiftly, she opened a drawer and pulled out a stack of magazines. As I plucked off the first one, I found my face staring back at me. Grabbing the rest from Jenna, I saw pictures of me ran across all the covers. All with Owen, all with me, but some with Vanessa included as well. It was… a lot.

“What’s going on? I mean, I knew we’d probably be pictured in a magazine or two, but I didn’t expect them to pit me against Vanessa. She’s his ex. It’s not like we dated him at the same time.”

“Of course they did. Plus, she’s pretty famous on her own. But from a poll I took on CelebrityBuzz.com, you are winning.”

“Winning what?” I asked as I tried to calm my breathing. It was all too much, too overwhelming. I wasn’t anyone important, just someone helping a friend keep his ex off his back, but now it seemed the entire world—not just Vanessa—knew we were together.

“The survey of who is best for Owen. Vanessa’s affair has been all over the news, so I’m not surprised. Plus, the tale of you being from his childhood hometown makes your love sort of like a fairy tale.”

“Love?”

“Oh yeah. You’re totally in love with him. Anytime you speak about him, your eyes light up. And, honestly, this past month is the happiest I’ve ever seen you.”

Am I in love with him?

I couldn’t go a minute in my day without thinking about him. And even when I tried to ignore him because I was feeling too much, he was still on my mind. Every time he walked into the room or grazed a finger over my skin, the butterflies in my stomach fluttered like they were caught in a strong breeze.

“Shit,” I mumbled as the realization washed over me. I couldn’t be in love with him. What would happen when he left?

“What’s the matter? I thought this was a good thing.”

“He’s leaving, Jenna. He has no intention of staying.”

“So what? You can break up amicably or try long distance. People do it all the time.”

She was right. They did, but I wasn’t sure I was built that way. There was a bit of a fairy-tale-loving romantic behind the workhorse image I portrayed.

“Oh!” Jenna perked up and grabbed her glass of wine as she focused her attention back on the screen. “Look, he’s in the confessional and is asking the producers to remove the disguise.”

The part of the show I’d been waiting for was right in front of me, but my mind was still stuck on the fact that I was in love with Owen Ramsey. The kid who made my school years a nightmare and was determined to beat me at every contest we ever entered together. All those county and science fair ribbons that should have been mine, stolen, all because he knew how to sweet-talk the judges.