As crushes go, Rhys has it pretty bad. With lots of humor, self deprecation, and the typical "coolness" of a teenager of nineteen, Rhys approaches the sudden crush he develops on the elder brother of one of his obnoxious band mates. Rhys has all these concerns about his image, and needs to be super-cool as a future rock star, so anything that detracts from his greatness is not welcome. Unfortunately, he feels like a moron around Damien, the object of his affections, and that leaves him with a bit of an issue. He is too shy to talk to Damien, so he decides to text.

However, Rhys doesn’t want to be recognized, since that would sort of defeat the purpose of maintaining his coolness, so he sets up this elaborate stalker-scheme with an anonymous phone. I laughed out loud several times when he described the whole setup. What he finds out once he and Damien start texting isn't at all what he expected, but it leads to the two of them getting to know each other in anonymity. As it turns out, that is just what both of them need. With lots of emotion, very little of it admitted out loud, of course, since that would not be cool, they get to know each other a lot better – and in person. Finally!

If you like stories with a lot of humor that will make you laugh, and if you're looking for a short read that is as hot as it is sweet and funny, you will probably enjoy this short story. It's a great one to cheer you up when you need a bit of a lighter touch. I'm still grinning!
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Rhys has a Crush by Melanie Tushmore is a cute and funny short story that captures a pitch-perfect sense of what it means to be a nineteen-year-old boy of the twenty-first century – innocent yet jaded, bored, horny, insecure, aimless, childlike, and a master of the wonders of cell phone technology. Our first-person narrator Rhys is appealing and authentic, and his efforts to snare his man provide good escapism.

The story opens with Rhys’s less-than-urgent desire to form a rock band with his friends. They like to hang around, goofing off together, which gives them something to do in their boring little town. Rhys is openly gay and his friends are fine with it. However, he would love to find a boyfriend and his options are few. But then his friend’s gorgeous older brother Damien falls upon hard times and has to move back home. And Damien is gay! Rhys is thrilled but scared by the possibility of rejection, so he must concoct an elaborate system to stay anonymous while making his attraction known.

~ Val from AReCafe ( )

2.5 stars. ( )