Page 71 of Sunset Catchers

“Babe, this is a good thing. Having a crush is fun.” Of course she would say that, she has a new crush every other week. She is an expert at it.

“No, having sex is fun.” Junie lets out an exasperated laugh.

My best friend and I are on the opposite sides of a coin when it comes to this. We both collected encounters with guys, in very different ways and with completely different goals in mind.

Junie was a serial dater, while I’ve never even been on a proper date before. She was searching for her Happily Ever After, and I was on the hunt for the shortest term there was. She wanted a house filled with kids and a white picket fence while I wasn’t too picky on the places my hook-ups took me; give me a bed. A wall even.

Junie’s parents were high school sweethearts, and she desperately wanted to find her own perfect match, for her own epic love story. Which means she was almost always out on a date with a new guy, on whom she would develop an instant crush for a few weeks, until they’d be discarded to never be thought about ever again. Junie was so desperate to find her perfect match that the smallest detail could deter her from giving a guy a second date. I mean she had a legit list of criteria that could instantly disqualify a potential partner.

Me? I was the opposite. Never the one to be too choosy when it came to selecting my pick of the evening.

I didn’t do crushes. I did one-time sexual encounters.

Junie’s pupils were heart-shaped, but my eyeballs were focused on a very different outcome. I wanted pupils dilated with lust, not with love.

But now, with Levi, I can’t deny that it feels different. He makes me smile and is not afraid to tell me off. He always walks me to my cottage after we watch the sunset together, even if he can literally see me from his own porch. He remembers all of my favorites, and he smells really good.

When I’m done reminiscing, I realize I am smiling foolishly, alone in my cottage.

Oh my fucking god. Junie is right! This is, indeed, my first, non-exclusively sexually induced crush.

My heart applauds in my chest.

Hey, I tell it. I want to see the permission slip that allowed you to develop a crush!

My pulse speeds up, a raucous that echoes through my whole body. And maybe even to the outside world. I wonder if it will be accounted for on the Ritcher scale by a bunch of scientists mystified over the weird earthquake in Ontario they didn’t see coming.

I need a paper bag; I’m hyperventilating.

“Babe, stay calm, it will be alright,” Junie says, trying to reassure me.

“Alright?!”. My voice is so high, I bet it can only be heard by dogs right now. “My insides are, are… swarming. Tell me there’s a remedy.”

“First, those are called butterflies.”

“Butterflies? What am I, a stupid petunia?”

I don’t want butterflies and crushes; I want tremors induced from orgasms.

“Second, you don’t need to be cured. This is fine.”

“It’s not fine!” I drop my head into my hands. “I’ve been bewitched. I must be under some kind of spell. Someone…someone voodoo dolled me.”

Junie’s peal of laughter lasts for a long minute. I scowl at my phone, considering turning this conversation into a video-call just so she can see how unamused I am right now. After she’s done with her little outburst, she takes a steadying breath.

“Let it be a part of your reclaiming your girlhood. You went from scowling at every boy to letting guys into your pants. There’s a middle between the two. You’ve never experienced the whole crushing thing. Now’s your chance.”

I ponder that. I mean, Levi is already patient zero in this whole friendship thing, so that’s just uplevelling him, I guess.

I’m giving him a promotion to his status in my life. Without telling him so he can’t cash up on his raise. That’s very CEO of me. I push out my breasts with a new sense of duty.

“Okay, okay. Say I am to allow this crush to happen,” as if I have any control over it. “What does that even mean?”

“Are you really asking me if there’s a proper way to crush on someone?”

“…”

She sighs.