Chapter 32

CHAPTER

THIRTY-TWO

Ella sighed as she finished putting away the last items that had finished drying from her final class with the campers. Both Ashley and Marshall had stayed to help, but she'd sent them on their way a few minutes ago.

She was going to miss these kids. Heck, she was going to miss the whole experience. She needed to sit down with Bear and find a way that they could make this happen more often. Sure, it wouldn't be this same group of campers, but this entire event had been nothing but worthwhile for everyone involved.

She might have stuck around and hung out with the kids a little longer if it weren't for the fact that she was meeting Colton for dinner. She couldn't wait to see him, had loved how excited he'd been at his breakthrough last night. He kept crediting her with figuring it out, but she had no doubt that he would've gotten there himself very quickly.

Regardless, she wouldn't be ungrateful for how he'd spent most of the night thanking her. She definitely hadn't gotten much sleep. And was sore in places she didn't even know someone could be sore.

A smile lit up her face; she couldn't help it. She was so in love with Colton Harrison. That was nothing new. What was new was the fact that, for the first time, she thought this might actually work out.

She wanted to head home, take a shower, and get herself as dolled up as she could for her dinner date with him. Maybe she was never going to look like some of the models that he'd dated in the past, but Colton hadn't done anything but make her feel beautiful from the moment he'd set foot back in Oak Creek.

It didn't matter what the public thought about them. It only mattered what they thought about each other.

She was folding the last hand towel and getting ready to leave when Lilah stormed in the door.

"Are you okay?" Lilah rushed over to Ella's side and grabbed her hand. "It's going to be okay."

Ella's heart froze. The last time she saw Lilah look like this had been the day of the avalanche.

"What?" she whispered. "What happened?"

Lilah made a strange face. "Nothing. Never mind."

Now, Ella grabbed her hand. "I know it's not nothing. Is someone hurt? Is it Colton?"

"No." But her friend flinched.

"Lilah. Tell me what's going on. You're freaking me out."

The other woman let out a sigh. "You and Colton were at that new big sporting goods place in Reddington City yesterday."

"Yes. It was a madhouse. Colton got swamped by fans, but he handled it beautifully. Why does that have you so upset?"

"There was some… stuff about it on social media."

Ella still didn't understand why Lilah was so upset. "I'm not surprised. Like I said, it sort of grew into a frenzy."

"Do you still follow the chats about Colton?"

Ella felt her face heat at the fact that Lilah knew she did that. "No, it just hasn't felt right since he and I got together at the wedding."

"Good." Lilah nodded enthusiastically. "I think that's very healthy."

This was the exact opposite of how she'd looked when she'd first come in a few minutes ago. It didn't take a genius to put together what was going on.

"What did the social media sites say?"

Lilah shook her head. "Nothing. Never mind. I shouldn't even have brought them up. Ignore me."

It had to be pretty bad if her friend had come storming in here to see if Ella was okay. Ella grabbed her phone so she could open the social media networks herself.

"Elly-Belly, don't. It's not worth it."

"I know I'll eventually look anyway, so I might as well rip the Band-Aid off right here."

Ella wasn't sure what exactly she'd been expecting, but this was much more brutal.

Sure, there were plenty of pictures and captions about people meeting Colton, but there was a particular section, complete with hashtags, that was only about Ella.

She only skimmed through it, but the attack was thorough and savage.

"The Wyoming mountain air may be doing great things for Colton Harrison's health, but evidently not for his eyesight." That was attached to a picture of Ella that had been taken while she was mid-sentence with Tony, but Tony had been cropped out of the picture, so it just looked like Ella was making a weird face.

The comments got uglier from there.

"I didn't know his standards were so low."

"I didn't know they made an outfit in that size. Oh, maybe she's wearing a tent."

It went on and on.

Plain. Chunky. Ugly.

"Elly-Belly…"

Ella jerked back from the friend she'd known most of her life. "I've always hated that nickname."

Lilah blinked, then nodded slowly. "I didn't know."

"Yeah, because how could you know that a nickname highlighting my fat stomach would bother me? "

"You don't have a fat stomach. But regardless, I'll never use it again."

Ella felt tears fill her eyes, and she wiped them angrily from her cheeks as they fell. She was yelling at one of her best friends, who had done nothing but come here in an attempt to protect and comfort her.

"I'm so?—"

Lilah cut her off. "If you finish that apology, we might have to fight. You have every right to ask us not to call you that. I'm just sorry that we never understood how much it hurt you."

"It doesn't hurt me as much as?—"

Lilah reached over and grabbed both of Ella's upper arms. "It does hurt you, and I should have known that. I'm the one who's sorry."

"They said really mean things about me, Li." Her voice quavered, and tears rolled down her cheeks. "I've always tried to be nice to people. Those are strangers who don't even know me, and they said such horrible things."

Lilah yanked Ella into her arms. "Some people are just mean and bitter and have too much time on their hands. That's a reflection of their ugliness, not your beauty."

Ella stayed in the comfort of her friend's embrace for a long minute. "This is why I can't be with Colton."

"You can't let some random strangers who take pleasure in saying malicious things from the comfort of anonymity keep you away from the man you love."

She pulled back so she could look at Lilah. "It's not just this. Last week when we were trying to catch the stalker, I was in the bathroom and Samantha from the grocery store came in with another woman. They were basically saying the same things, just not quite as mean or creatively. Everyone who looks at Colton and me is always going to feel like he's slumming it."

"That is utter bullshit." Lilah cracked her knuckles then leaned forward and gripped one of the prep tables. "I know for a fact that man is over the moon about you. What did he say when you told him about the bathroom incident?"

"I didn't tell him. I didn't want to make a big deal about it, and honestly, I guess I was hoping maybe it was a one-time thing. But obviously, it's not."

"Then you need to tell him about that incident and these posts. Colton wants to know, believe me. He does not want you trying to handle this on your own. There are things you guys can do to be proactive about this sort of stuff."

"I'm just afraid it's going to make me feel pathetic." Mortified was more like it. "The thought of him reading these posts makes me feel sick."

Lilah stroked her hair gently. "Because you think it's going to make him think of you in a different way? You know it's not. And hell, if it did, then you'd want to be rid of him as quickly as possible anyway."

"I'm embarrassed, Lilah. Having people say publicly the worst things you've ever thought about yourself? It's horrible."

"The only people who should be embarrassed are those bitches who wrote that. They are petty and jealous and a waste of space." Lilah cracked her knuckles once again, violence in her brown eyes. "You say the word, and Lincoln will figure out who they are and where they live, and I will pay them a visit and show them what ugly really looks like."

She would do it, too. And Lincoln would make sure she never got caught.

"You're a good friend, Lilah. Thank you. But let's be the bigger people."

Lilah rolled her eyes. "I don't have much interest in being the bigger person, but I will because you have always been the bigger person. You've always been kind and patient and beautiful to everyone around you. But promise me that you're going to talk to Colton about this. These petty biddies are trying to break you up—don't you dare give them the satisfaction."

Her friend was right. "I'll talk to him. I promise. "

" Today ."

Ella really didn't want to ruin their dinner and was about to make the argument that the discussion could wait until tomorrow when a text came through from Colton.

Do you mind meeting me at your office? I need to talk to you.

Good. That would work better all the way around. She could explain how much she was struggling with this, they could come up with a plan, and it wouldn't have to ruin their first actual official date.

The first of many.

Fancy Pants had closed for the day by the time Ella got there thirty minutes later. She waved to the closing staff and walked straight back to her office. She found Colton sitting on the small couch.

She wanted nothing more than to walk over and hurl herself into his arms, but he didn't stand up.

As a matter of fact, his face was pinched and his hair looked like he'd run his hand through it multiple times—exactly how he tended to look when a panic attack had happened.

"Are you okay?" She meant what she'd said when she told him that progress wasn't linear. Just because he had another panic attack today didn't mean that the breakthrough he'd had yesterday was invalid.

He let out a sigh. "I need to talk to you about yesterday's events at the sporting goods store."

That wasn't what she was expecting him to say, but she was glad they were on the same page. "I agree. I'm glad you want to talk about it too."

Colton wasn't one to read social media about himself, so she was a little surprised he'd already heard what had happened. Maybe somebody from his team had told him. The important thing was, they could get it out in the open.

Still, she wished he would stand up so she could press herself up against him as they talked about this. She needed to be close to him but wasn't exactly sure how to ask for it, especially when he already looked so stressed.

She let out a shaky laugh instead. "Okay, so this is definitely a huge elephant in the room. How do we talk about it?"

He still made no move to come anywhere near her. "Why did you do it?"

That caught her off guard. "Why did I do what?"

"Yesterday, Ella. Why? I mean, it ended up being fine, but it could've gotten out of hand."

Ella rubbed her eyes. She couldn't figure out what he was talking about. "I don't know what you mean."

He slid forward to the edge of the couch and looked up at her. "Look, I've given it a lot of thought, and I'm not mad. But you can't do stuff like that."

"Like what?" Now, she was getting frustrated. "What are you talking about?"

"We've never been dishonest with each other, Ella. Don't start now. Caroline showed us your digital scrapbook. So, I know just how much of a fan you are."

Oh shit. That damn scrapbook that everyone had contributed to for years. Ella rarely thought about it, but taken as a whole and out of context, it would have to seem a little overwhelming to Colton.

She could feel her face burning. This was beyond patheticity . And it was going to make talking about the social media comments so much harder.

"That thing is a little hard to explain. It's embarrassing. It's sort of a joke that all our friends constantly play on me." She'd stopped adding to it a while ago, but the gang still contributed to the group file all the time. She should've deleted it.

"Are you saying that's not your digital scrapbook? It had your name on it. "

Oh hell. "I mean, yeah, technically, it is mine. I started it years ago, and then it just grew into a sort of community project from there. People in town like to keep your clippings. You're a celebrity. It's exciting."

She wasn't explaining this well. Couldn't quite come up with the words that would explain how Lilah and Becky and Bear and even Lincoln had gone out of their way to collect information on Colton for her digital book.

Partially because they knew how much she cared about him, partially their way of gently teasing her about it.

She let out a laugh that she meant to be light but instead came out tinged with hysteria. "I'm not your stalker, I promise."

He didn't laugh. And that's when it occurred to her that he'd already had that thought.

"Jesus, Colton. Is that what you think?"

He ran a hand through his hair again. "No, of course not. I…"

Now, he stood up, but the desire to hug him was long gone. Instead, she wrapped her arms around her own middle.

"I'm just trying to fathom this situation, Ella. Do you want attention? Is that what this is about?"

She shook her head. "No. The opposite, actually. As a matter of fact, I came here to talk to you about what we could do to help mitigate the stuff happening on social media."

"If you want to mitigate it, then announcing where we're going to be in order to draw a crowd is not the way to do that."

"Of course it's not. What are you talking about?"

He pulled out his phone and showed her a social media post that had been made yesterday announcing he was at the sporting goods store. "Why did you do this?"

"Do what ?"

"Make this post, Ella!"

She felt like the entire universe was slowing around her. "You think I posted that?"

"We found a note next to your computer that had this account's name on it. I might not have thought anything about that until your employee came in and showed us the four-million-page scrapbook you had of me."

And the slowing universe stopped completely.

Lead filled her gut as she realized he truly believed she had announced where they would be on social media. Not only that, but he thought she'd done it because she wanted attention for herself.

The irony that she'd come here wanting help dealing with people's online cruelty, only to be accused of wanting online attention for herself, was not lost on her.

There was no way she could talk to him about that at all now even if she wanted to. But she didn't want to because all this proved was that Colton didn't know her at all.

She stood there and shook her head. She couldn't even formulate words. She had never expected to have to defend herself from something like this.

"Look," he continued. "You said it yourself. Lincoln spilled the beans at the wedding when he told me you had a crush on me. I didn't really think much of it at the time. I mean, we've known each other forever. I didn't think you thought of me that way. That you were such a… fan ."

Ella was afraid she might vomit right here in her office. What could she say to any of this?

"Don't look at me like that, please, Butterscotch."

The endearment just made it all so much worse.

"I do want us to find a way to work this out. You grew up with a famous father, so I sort of expected you to understand more how it all works. The need for privacy. Not drawing unnecessary attention."

He reached for her, but she slid back and closed her eyes. If he touched her now, she might shatter into a million pieces.

"I just want to understand why you did it and make you understand that you can't do stuff like this, okay? It's not good for either of us."

She opened her eyes and found him looking at her with such sincerity that it made the situation unbearable. He truly did just want to understand.

Ella understood something, too, but not what he thought.

She understood that this could never work.

"How about if we just agree to this, Colton: You don't ever have to worry about me doing something like that ever again. Lock the door behind you when you leave."

Without another word, she turned and left.