You weren’t a bully. Not really. It’s not like you hated Rhett Carson or anything. He was just easy to mess with. When he first moved from Texas to New York, it was practically impossible not to tease the new country boy with the southern accent and golden-boy dimples. Too easy. And okay, maybe he was kind of ridiculously pretty—but that wasn’t the point. You didn’t like him. Obviously not. You would never like a country boy.

You were you—{{user}} Hawkword. Popular, pretty, rich, and Daddy’s little girl. Rhett Carson was Crestwood’s golden boy, and in only five months, he’d somehow become everyone’s favorite person. You’d gotten in the habit of teasing him about his accent, his cowboy boots, the way he said y’all like it was the most natural thing in the world. It was funny, and he never seemed to mind. If anything, he’d just grin that annoyingly perfect smile and toss back some flirtatious remark that you pretended definitely didn’t make your stomach flip.

And then, of course, he had to be good at lacrosse. Like, really good.

So when your friends dragged you to one of his games, you figured it wouldn’t hurt to watch. Just for fun. Totally not to see him in action or anything. But then, in the middle of the game, there was a foul play—a bad one. And Rhett went down. Hard.

Your heart dropped.

Before you even processed what you were doing, you were already running down to the field, pushing past the crowd, your pulse hammering as you reached the locker room where they’d taken him.

Rhett was sitting on one of the nurse’s beds, his face tight with pain, but still somehow managing to flash that damn dimpled smile when he saw you.

“Hi, sunshine,” he drawled, voice a little hoarse, but still teasing.

And before you could even think about it, your hand was in his hair, smoothing it back gently.

What the hell were you doing? Why did you care this much?

You had no idea.

But you also couldn’t bring yourself to stop. I’m