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“Tell me."

"If you tell me what all that was about." She waved vaguely, meaning, I assumed, my little tantrum.

I sighed. "Cliff's notes version is that I'm not always very good at, um, understanding…" I growled, struggling for how to put it without getting into the weeds of why. "Women, I guess," I ended, knowing all too well how lame I sounded.

Tea just stared at me expectantly. "You're gonna have to do a fuckuva lot better than that, bub, because that lame-ass bullshit excuse is paper thin."

I sighed—although the sound was as much growl as anything. "I've never had a serious, significant relationship, okay? There was someone I…" I shot to my feet, my heart hammering at the very thought of going there, of putting all of that into words for someone who wasn’t much more than a near-perfect stranger, still. "There was a person in my life who I—who I had feelings for. Those feelings were never returned, and the person was, is, and always will be in my life."

“Is it a secret?" she asked. “Like, your family doesn't know?"

"Far as I know, everyone knew. Or knows, or I don't know. Whatever." I scrubbed my face. "Kind of an open secret. Me and my dumb crush."

"It was more than a crush, though." She wasn't asking.

I shook my head slowly, facing away from her. "I don't know, okay? What's a crush and what’s… what defines the difference between a kiddie crush and real feelings? I cared about her and was attracted to her and thought about her literally every day for fucking years—for an embarrassingly long time…for as long as I can fucking remember, knowing she didn't return them. She made that clear. I was just…unable to stop myself. I must've asked her out ten thousand times, asked her to just give me a chance. Like a loser. Like a fucking loser ass goddamn dork." Emotions were raging and surging through me, and to my shame, they felt more like anger than anything.

Anger at Sunni, anger at myself. Mostly myself. She can’t help not feeling that way about me. I've always gotten that. Just…tell that to my heart, you know?

When Tea didn't respond, I turned and looked at her. She was gazing at me evenly, but I couldn't read what she was thinking.

"I can't tell what you're thinking," I said. "You have a hell of a poker face, y'know that?"

She scoffed. "Funny you should say that. I've always felt the opposite about myself. I've always thought my emotions were all too easy to see."

I scoffed. "Talk about a disconnect, Jesus. No, Tea. You absolutely do not wear your heart on your sleeve."

"Really?"

"Really."

She looked away, frowning. "Weird." She let out a slow, thin breath between tight-pressed lips, like a slow leak in a tire. "That girl you mentioned. Emerson? Is that who you have the feelings for?"

"Had."

"Oh? You're over her?"

I shrugged. "I mean, I guess? I know nothing will ever happen. She's married to a seriously great guy who I like, a lot. She's happy. I guess the whole unrequited love thing has just left me kinda fucked up. Or maybe a lot fucked up."

"What does that have to do with me?"

"I just…I can't tell if you even like me as a person, sometimes." Cop-out. Such a sissy fucking cop-out.

I don't yet know if what I’m feeling for Tea is just attraction or something else—it's too new, and she's too difficult to read, to understand. It's hard to even get mental purchase on the notion of having feelings for her at all.

But my god, her insane competence is such a turn-on. Isn't there a term for when you're sexually attracted to intelligence and competence? If not, there should be. I mean, look, yes, I'm sexually attracted to her body, but it’s hard to let myself even acknowledge that, because so far, I’ve seen zero evidence that she thinks about me that way. Sure, when she walked in on me back in Ketchikan, she definitely looked at my junk. Her gaze may even have lingered. But that could have been nothing more than curiosity.

I mean, shit. As a straight male, if I see unexpected penis, I can't not look at least once, because hello—unexpected penis. Doesn’t mean I'm, like, aroused. You just can't look at a penis when it’s right there in front of you, staring at you, so to speak.

I realized I'd been meandering for who-knew-how-long, and Tea had yet to respond.

"I like you," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "I do."

I stood a good dozen paces away, at the edge of the firelight's glow. I heard her soft tread in the dirt, the thud of her heavy boot soles muffled by the carpet of pine needles.

She stopped behind me. "I'm not good with emotions, Jax. I never have been. I wasn't…allowed to be. I told you already—my father is cold, hard, and unaffectionate. He tolerates no weakness. Same with my grandfather, who helped raise me as much as Dad did. Even when she was alive, Mom just sort of let Dad set the rules, the…the tenor of things in the home, I guess you could say. He’s not a bad man and wasn’t a bad father; he just has never had time for feelings. He doesn’t…do…feelings. Sort of a Tiernan tradition, maybe? One that my sister seems to have broken free from, fortunately for her. I don't seem to have the same ability, as I’m realizing more and more the older I get how much like my father I am.” A pause. “Which I’m not sure I like all that much, to be honest.”

"So you had to be perfect, and you weren't allowed to show weakness, i.e., normal feelings."