I saw Tasha before she saw me. She pushed the door to the café open and looked around for a few seconds before spotting me. My dad was right, she'd gained a little weight - but it only made her look better. More womanly. I had to look away as she made her way over to the table where I was sitting because I knew if I kept my eyes on her the look on my face would give me away instantly. How was it possible for one human being to have such a hold on another, even after so much time apart and so much water under the bridge?

We hugged a little stiffly before she sat down. She looked nervous. She actually looked very nervous.

"Is something wrong?" I asked, worried that I was the reason for her expression.

"Oh," she said breezily, "no, nothing's wrong. I'm just, uh, I just don't have too much time is all."

"What a surprise," I replied sarcastically before immediately regretting it.

Tasha's eyes darted up to mine. "What do you mean?"

I sighed. "Sorry - I didn't come here to act like a jerk right off the bat but damn, girl, you sure know how to make a guy feel welcome. Listen, Tasha, I know you're busy. If there's one thing I know about you, it's that. But we haven't seen each other for a long time and I - I meant something to you once, didn't I? It would just be nice if we could talk without me having to worry about you itching to get away from me."

She looked down at the floor for a few seconds and when she replied, her voice was so quiet I could barely hear it. "I'm sorry, Kaden. I didn't - I didn't mean it like that."

The waitress came to take our order and I let Tasha go first, still telling myself that the whole baby story was ridiculous. She didn't look like she had a baby. But then, how did women who had babies look? Was that something you could tell simply from a glance? It wasn't, I knew that.

We made small talk for a little while, asking about each other's moms, our work etc.

"You're super famous now, huh?" She asked, finally cracking a smile after we'd had a little time to relax.

I laughed. "Yeah, I guess I am."

"Everyone here talks about you all the time. Little Falls just loooves the fact that Kaden Barlow grew up here."

"Huh," I said. "Do they?"

"Yeah, they do. Are you surprised?"

There was something odd in Tasha's tone, something weirdly defensive or even aggressive. I didn't like it.

"Uh, no, I guess not," I replied. "Is something wrong?"

Tasha did that thing, then. That thing she does when something is wrong but she's going to pretend it isn't until you goddamn well drag it out of her. She looked off to the side and gave the slightest shrug. "Nope, nothing's wrong Kaden. I guess I'm just wondering why you ordered me to meet you here, is all. It's been a long time since we saw each other."

"Ordered you?" I asked, baffled. "I'm not stupid enough to think I can order Natasha Greeley to do a single goddamn thing she doesn't want to do. I asked you."

The comment was meant to be a joke but it didn't come out that way. And she didn't take it that way. We both fell silent for a little while, stirring our drinks and waiting for the other person to speak again. I gave in first.

"Why are you being so mean?" I asked quietly.

"I'm sorry, Kaden, I don't know what you're talking-"

I leaned forward across the table. "Yes you do, Tasha. Don't treat me like an idiot. I mean, if you don't want to hang out with me that's fine, just tell me. But I'm not stupid. I can tell when someone is brushing me off."

"No," she said, reaching out and grabbing my hand before immediately snatching it back when she realized what she'd done. "Kaden, no, it's not - it's not that. I'm just stressed out lately. I'm stressed out today."

"I don't understand you, Tasha," I said, shaking my head.

"What does that mean?"

"It just means you've always been like this. Hot and cold. I either feel like you really-" I had to stop myself from saying the word 'love' there - "like you really enjoy being with me or you just think of me as an annoyance."

She laughed. "An annoyance? Kaden, everyone in this country loves you."

"I'm not talking about them," I told her. I'm talking about you. And you're dodging the issue, again. Why do you even ask me what I mean if you're not interested in the answer?"

I watched as Tasha opened her mouth to reply, reconsidered and then took a slow breath. "Do you really want to know the answer to that?" She asked. There was a strange, defeated tone in her voice.

"Yes! Yes, I do."

Her eyes were steady on mine. "Because I'm scared of being around you."

In hindsight, I should have guessed what Tasha meant when she said that but I was in defensive mode, too, at the time. "Scared of me?" I spluttered, raising my voice and then lowering it again because we were in public. "Scared?! Jesus, what does that even mean? Do you know how hard it's been, dealing with you? You're the most difficult person I ever knew, you know. And you didn't notice any of it, did you? If you did, you wouldn't be sitting here telling me you're scared of me."

"I don't mean it like-" she started, before suddenly shutting up and getting to her feet. I watched as she pulled a ten dollar bill out of her wallet and left it on the table. She was leaving.

"Perfect," I said. "Yes, just leave. That's the solution."

She ignored me and as she turned away to walk towards the door I caught her face dissolving into tears. They made me a little angry - why was she crying? She was the one leaving! But they also made my heart lurch helplessly towards her. God help me I will never be able to see Tasha in distress and not want to do everything to make it better. I got up and followed her out into the parking lot, waiting until I was outside the café, where people had been trying - badly - to hide the fact that they were taking photos of me.

"Why are you doing this?" I yelled after her as she practically broke into a run on her way to the car. "Tasha! Why?"

I caught up to her and she suddenly whirled around, tears streaming down her face.

"You say you want me to talk, Kaden, but you're not so great at listening sometimes, you know that? You think I said I was scared of you because I thought you were going to hit me or something? It's not anything like that and if you just slowed down for a single second and actually thought about what I was saying, you might understand."

I couldn't bear seeing her like that, so upset she was trembling. She jerked her arm away from me when I went to touch her and started opening the door. I remembered what my friends had said. Tell her. Just tell her. Then if she tells you to fuck off, at least you know.

"I love you," I whispered to her back. She didn't say anything, she didn't turn around, she just froze on the spot, keys dangling from her hand.

I said it again, louder. "I love you."

She turned around that time, wiping her eyes. "Don't, Kaden. Please, please d-"

"I love you," I repeated. "And even if that's the worst thing you've ever heard and you're trying not to puke all over the place right now, I have to say this. I have to say this to you. I have to know you know, because if I don't, I'm never going to get over you. I'm going to spend my whole goddamned life pining for you and that doesn't do either of us any good now, does it? Just let me finish talking and I'll leave you alone for good, OK?"

Tasha was too emotional to respond so I just kept going, realizing that it was too late to stop, even if I wanted to. "I've loved you the whole time, Tasha. I didn't date anyone at Brooks. I don't date in Dallas. My teammates think I'm some kind of crazy monk. I can't forget about you and believe me, I've tried. So if you're angry with me right now I want you to know that I'm not saying any of this to pressure you or scare you or anything like-"

"That isn't why I'm scared."

"What?" I asked, my roll interrupted. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that isn't what I'm scared of, Kaden."

"What are you scared of, then?" I asked quietly.

Tasha fixed me with those beautiful, almond-shaped brown eyes, her lashes wet and stuck together with tears. "You really don't know, do you?"

"No. I really don't know," I replied. "The last thing I ever wanted to do was scare you. Or hurt you. Or make you feel bad. It's the opposite, actually. If you told me to rip off all my clothes and run around this parking lot barking like a dog - if you told me that would make you smile, I would do it."

She gave me a wan smile. "Be careful, Kaden. I just might call your bluff on that."

"So tell me," I said. "Tell me what you're so scared of."

"I don't know if I can," she said hesitantly.

"Try."

We stood there looking at each other, me willing her to speak up, Tasha seemingly unable to. Finally, she managed it. She lowered her eyes to the ground and her voice dropped to a whisper, but she did it.

"I'm not scared of you." She said, pausing and taking a few deep breaths before continuing. "I'm scared of myself, Kaden. I'm scared of the way I feel when I'm around you. I always have been."

I waited for her to go further - to explain what she was saying - but she didn't. Was she saying what I thought she was saying?

"You - you're scared of how you feel around me? How do you mean?" I asked.

She still wouldn't look up. "I like you too much," she mumbled. At least I thought that's what she was saying, because of the mumbling.

"What?"

Tasha lifted her head up and looked me right in the eyes. The expression on her face was one of defeat. "Because I like you too much." She said again, louder and clearer that time.

So she was saying what I thought she was saying. I stood there for a few seconds, not sure whether to laugh or cry or bang my head against the roof of the car.

"What?" Tasha asked, noting my reaction.

"What?" I repeated back to her. "What?! Are you seriously asking me that? Listen, Tasha, I'm just going to assume you're telling the truth right now because - well, because you seem to be and vulnerability has never been your strong point, to say the least. But, Jesus, really? Because you like me too much? You want to hear something funny?"

She hesitated for a second before answering. "Sure..."

"This is great, Tasha, you're going to love this. For a long time it's seemed like you could barely stand me. Well, maybe not that but it was like your feelings for me were fleeting or fickle. Remember high school? Remember how perfect that was? I mean, before that prom night disaster and you, even though you said you believed me, acting like even talking to me was repulsive?"

I was working up to full rant mode and would have continued if she hadn't cut me off there.

"That's not what happened, Kaden."

"Isn't it? What happened, then?"

"What happened was I realized how much you mattered to me! How much it hurt to lose you - even to think I'd lost you! You said a few minutes ago that you know vulnerability isn't my thing but I'm not sure you do know that. I'm not sure you ever understood that!"

She was yelling by that point and I could hear the emotion in her voice. We stayed where we were, listening to each other's breathing and I couldn't stop myself. It wasn't even funny, but laughter started to bubble out of me - just a little at first but a torrent soon enough, until I was clutching my stomach and wiping my eyes. Tasha didn't even look angry, she just looked bemused.

"What are you laughing about?" She asked when I paused to take a breath and I tried to answer, between bouts of more laughter.

"Tasha... we're so... stupid! All this time I... I thought you hated me!" I stopped for a second, trying and failing to get a grip on myself. "I thought you hated me! I thought I was just your dumb jock plaything. But now it turns out you... you loved me this whole time? We loved each... other... this whole time?! Ha ha ha, we're so fucking stupid!"

It took a long time to stop laughing. An embarrassing amount. Every time I thought it was finished I'd start again. But Tasha waited. She leaned against her car and waited and I couldn't tell from her expression what she was feeling. More than five minutes later, when my laughing fit seemed to have ended, she asked me a question.

"You love me? You loved me this whole time?"

It was my turn to mumble and look away. But I told her the truth. "Yeah, idiot. Of course I do. Didn't you know? I even told you, Tasha."

"Back in high school, maybe."

"And since then, every time I saw you, you acted like I was an annoyance. You talk about your own vulnerability but what about mine? What about the fact that most human beings probably aren't going to be making declarations of love to people who don't even seem to like them very much? Honestly, Tasha, I don't feel like it was ever a secret, not on my side. If you've really had strong feelings for me this whole time, damn, why didn't you ever give me some sign? A hint? Why? I don't understand you at all."

"Because what would it have mattered?" She asked plaintively. "You were leaving, Kaden. Even in high school, everyone knew you were leaving. And not leaving like other people do, moving to Carbonville twenty miles away but leaving in a bigger way, a more profound way. Not just a different place but a different life. I've been on guard with you from the very beginning because of that, because I knew that no matter what, no matter how I felt or you felt, you were going away."

I waited while Tasha's words sank in and as a feeling of regret began to creep over me. I'd known it, hadn't I? That she was troubled by the fact of my eventual NFL career? But I obviously wasn't aware of just how much it bothered her.

I leaned back against the car parked beside hers and put my head in my hands. "Jesus, I really am an idiot, Tasha. It's so weird, I understand what you're saying but it's like it never really sank in for me. I never really understood how much it affected you. Even after you told me everything about your dad! I'm so sorry. Really, I'm so-"

"Don't," she said, holding up her hand. "I don't need you to berate yourself, Kaden. I'm stupid, too, we both are - you were right about that. We were young. Hell, we're still young. Even now as we're standing here, talking, it's like I can feel the memories rearranging themselves in my head, applying the new narrative."

"New narrative?"

"Yeah," she replied, suddenly bashful. "The new narrative. The one where it wasn't just me who loved you the whole time but you who, um, who-"

I reached out and cupped Tasha's face in my hands, looking into her eyes, holding her gaze so she couldn't turn away. "Who loved you the whole time," I finished her sentence. "Because, and look at me when I say this, because I have never meant anything in my life more than I mean this - I did love you the whole time. And I still love you now, here."

I watched Tasha's eyes brighten, a smile start at one corner of her mouth and then immediately melt away.

"What?"

"But, Kaden...what about the girls? What about that redhead?"

Ah, she'd seen the photos. It was something I'd wondered about. "You mean Jess?" I asked, grinning. "She's a friend from Brooks - a friend, Tasha. She has a boyfriend. This is - this is actually kind of funny. My manager was so paranoid about sponsors thinking I was gay because I didn't go full man-slut mode in Dallas. He literally told me to show up at that event with a girl. He's kind of an-"

"But the way you were looking at her, it just-"

"Tasha, stop. Jess is a close friend but that is all we've ever been. I'll introduce you to her if you like, to her boyfriend as well. We were having fun that night, she knew she was there to make me look like a big man, we were playing it up. I should actually get my friends from Brooks to talk to you, too. They thought the same thing. That something was wrong with me because I didn't do the usual football player thing of fucking every girl I saw. They'd laugh their asses off if they knew you were asking about it right now."

Tasha closed her eyes and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "I don't even have the right to be asking you any of this," she said. "It's not like we were together. I had no claim on you."

"Yeah," I agreed. "You're technically right, you had no official claim - neither of us did. But unofficial? It's always been you for me, Natasha Greeley. Always. I think even before high school, maybe back to that day I found you all indignant outside the grocery store covered in spaghetti sauce. It's always been you. I didn't choose it - in fact, it's been a huge pain in the ass - but I can't get away from it."

"Neither can I," Tasha said quietly, looking up into my eyes.

We stayed like that for a few seconds, just looking at each other, watching, reveling in it. And then, doing her usual thing of behaving the exact opposite of the way I expect, she started to cry. Really cry. Her eyes welled up and spilled over and she slid down the side of the car until she was on the ground, face in her hands, sobbing hard.

"Tasha?" I said, kneeling down in front of her. "Tasha! What's going on? What is this about?"

I had some idea of what it might be about but that - it was something I couldn't believe, something I couldn't even imagine how I would react to. But Tasha's distress was obvious and I had to say something - anything.

"You know," I whispered, leaning in close and wrapped my arms around her as my heart thumped so hard in my chest I felt sure she could hear it. "My manager called me a few days ago and said he heard a rumor."

Tasha looked up at me. "A rumor?" She asked, her voice halting and shaky with tears.

"Yeah, a rumor. He said a tabloid-"

"You have a son."

She was talking loud enough, it wasn't that I didn't hear her. For some reason, it didn't sink in, didn't click in my brain. I plowed ahead. "Yeah, he said there was a story that, um, that a girl-"

"Kaden," Tasha took my face in her hands. "You have a son. I know I should have told you - I meant to, I was going to, and I know you're going to hate me for not telling you, but it's true and I don't know how else to say it now it's gotten so late."

"I have a... what?" I asked. "A son?"

English is the only language I speak, but somehow that word - 'son' - sounded nonsensical.

"Yes," Tasha hung her head again. "A son. His name is Henry. He looks just like you, Kaden."

It felt like someone had suddenly sucked all the oxygen out of the air. A roaring sound in my ears was the only thing I could hear. Was I dreaming? I sat down on the ground, shaking my head.

"Tasha," I started. "What are you saying - a son? A baby? You - have a baby?"

"Yes. I'm so sorry you're finding out like this, Kaden. You don't deserve it. I was so scared, so worried you would be angry or upset or that you would be with someone else, it's my fault. I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

I didn't have a single clue what to say. What came out of my mouth was: "Where is he?" Because it still seemed unreal, impossible.

She cracked a tiny, fleeting little smile at that comment. "He's at home with my family. I didn't want to just - show up with a baby, you know? Without telling you first?"

So it was real. Tasha wasn't the type to play practical jokes and even if she had been it would have been the cruelest practical joke of all time. The only possible explanation was that she was telling me the truth, that she had a baby. That she had my baby. I still couldn't get my mind around it. 'My' baby.

"I want to see him." The words came out unprompted.

"Yes, of course you can see him."

"Right now. I want to see him right now."

"But he's not here, he's back at-"

"Then we'll go there," I said.

Tasha was watching me closely, unsure of where this new, strange tone of voice had come from. I myself didn't even know.

"Are you angry? Are you-"

"I don't know," I told her. "You know, Tasha, I have literally no idea how I feel right now. Mostly I feel like I'm going to wake up in my bed back in Dallas and this is all going to have been a dream."

"I understand," she replied. "But Kaden, I'm not asking you because of myself - I get that you have every right to be angry. I'm asking because I think it might not be a good idea to meet your son if you're upset."

That made sense. I looked up and told her as much. Then I put my head in my hands and tried, really tried, to figure out what I was feeling. It wasn't anger. Part of me knew I should be angry, but somehow I wasn't. It was more like terror. Terror that this was a trick, a dream, not real. I looked up at Tasha.

"Right now, mostly what I feel is scared," I said. "Not scared that this is real, scared that it's not real. This - this isn't a joke, is it? This isn't one of those celebrity prank shows or-"

"No, it's not a joke, Kaden."

"Then I - I want this to be real, Tasha. I don't even understand what I'm feeling right now but even when my manager told me the rumor it was like I couldn't even let myself imagine it might be true, because what if it wasn't? You had my baby? Why didn't you tell me, Tasha? I would never have been upset with you, never!"

"I know," she whispered. "I mean, now I know. I didn't know, then. I saw those photos of you with that girl and I just got so paranoid that you would be annoyed or you'd think I was trying to trick you into giving me money or-"

"You didn't need a baby to do that," I replied. "If there had ever been a cost, an amount of money I could have paid to get you to be with me, I would have paid it. And you know that. It actually would have been a lot easier if you had been a gold-digger, you know?"

She laughed at that. "Yeah, maybe it would have."

"So what I'm saying is, I want to meet him. I'm not angry. I can't make any promises about how I'll feel tomorrow or in a week but if there's one thing I know to be absolutely true, Tasha, it's that I have an inability to think bad things about you. Even now, do you want to know what I feel right now?"

She nodded, her expression wary.

"I feel like I'm about to explode with happiness. I feel love. For you. For this baby I haven't even met yet. And all I want to do is see him, now. That's all."