My face fell before I could stop it.
“We can help you!” Wren said immediately. “I’m not sure how to work with a fear of touching, but we can figure it out.”
“Oh yeah. Are you in therapy? Do you have it for everyone or just men?” Jade asked.
“Let’s not overwhelm her,” Grace said. “And like Mollie said, you can tell us we’re asking too much at any time.”
“It’s still fine. But the reason I can’t be touched isn’t a happy one. And I am in therapy, but my fear is always fighting back. It has for years. There’s only one person in my life I can touch right now.”
“An old friend?” Jade asked.
“Family member?” Mollie added.
“Um. No. This is a recent development.”
Jade leaned in, eyes wide. Grace sighed and elbowed her. “Oh, right.” Jade was shaken out of her trance. “You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to.”
“Definitely not.” Mollie shook her head.
“But we’d love to know,” Wren added.
I considered it. “You guys can keep a secret, right?”
Every woman nodded.
“Of course,” Wren said. “Whatever is said here stays between us. We’d never betray your trust.”
“I’m not the main one who wants to keep it quiet.” I bit mylip as I considered it. “I don’t mind if people know ... but this person does. You guys know half of it anyway.”
“We do?” Jade frowned and her eyes went distant as she went through all she knew about me.
“It’s Theo,” I said.
“Theo?” Grace asked. “You mean the coffee shop owner Theo?”
“Yes.”
“The one who’s had a crush on you since you got here?”
“Yeah—wait, what?” Her words didn’t hit me until too late. “How do you know Theo has a crush on me?”
“He looked at you.”
“For a long time apparently,” Jade added.
“And as far as I’ve heard, he doesn’t do that with anyone.” Wren crossed her arms. “We’ve been talking about it for a bit. How did you go from him staring at you to touching?”
“Leave out no detail, please!” Mollie said. “If you want to, I mean.”
I was still stuck on what they just told me. “Hang on, he really doesn’t even look? I heard he doesn’t date, but I didn’t know it went that far.”
“He keeps everyone at arm’s length,” Grace said. “And he’s done it since he arrived. That includes pretty much ... everything. Town events. Talking to people. Staring at them for sure.”
I hadn’t realized anything with me was different—at least not publicly. Sure, he acted differently when it was just the two of us, but no one else was supposed to notice.
It made sense, based on what I knew about him.
“You don’t seem shocked by that.” Grace’s eyes were narrowed. “Why aren’t you? Usually people hate it when someone isn’t an open book.”
