Dear Aaron

by Mariana Zapata

  My face flushed at the compliment, and I wasn’t sure whether to nod like I agreed, because I really didn’t, or shrug and play it off. So I didn’t do either. I just sat there like a lump of coal.

  Luckily Aaron grinned. “All right. I’ll drop it. You want to watch a movie or a show?”

  Chapter 18

  Mom: Did you become fish bait?

  Me: No, I’m still alive.

  Mom: OK have fun

  Mom: Not too much fun.

  Mom: Don’t show up on those girls gone crazy videos and embarrass us all

  Me: LOVE YOU

  Mom: I’m serious, Squirt. They show those girls on commercials. Jonathan would have a heart attack

  Me: I would never do that and you know it. I’ll text you later.

  Mom: I never thought you would go on vacation without my permission

  Me: Mom, I’m 24.

  Mom: You’re still my baby

  Me: Jasmine is your baby.

  Mom: Jasmine came out an old woman.

  Mom: Need to get up. Ben says hi.

  Me: Okay, text you later. I really am okay. Everyone is being nice to me. Love you.

  Mom: Love you 2

  “Good morning.”

  Setting my phone on the floor beside the leg of the deck chair, I turned my upper body to face Aaron at the sliding doors and smiled at him sleepily. We’d only gone to bed four hours ago, after we’d both started dozing off watching infomercial after infomercial, running commentary on them the entire time. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d laughed so much, and that was saying something because I almost always had a good time around my friends and family.

  “Morning,” I said to him in a low voice. “You couldn’t sleep either?”

  He shook his head as he closed the door behind him, balancing a tray in his one free hand as he came toward me. His face held all the signs of how tired he was, and I was positive I looked the exact same. “Yeah, I couldn’t go back to sleep,” he replied, setting the tray down on the small table and taking the same seat he’d used the morning before.

  A girl could get used to this, I thought, as I took it from him with a “thank you” that hopefully didn’t sound like I love you or you’re amazing. “You really don’t have to do this,” I let him know, giving him a smile at the same time.

  He had his back to me as he picked up his own bowl from the tray. “I know,” was all he said as he faced me again with his breakfast held against his chest. “Texting your mom?” he asked with a raise of an eyebrow.

  “Yeah,” I told him with a smirk. “She’s making sure I’m alive, basically telling me not to flash my boobs at a camera and trying to convince me to text her every hour.”

  “Every hour?”

  “Yes.”

  He laughed.

  “I know. She’s lucky if any of my other siblings call or text her once while they’re on vacation. She’s nuts.”

  “You can give her my number if you want,” he offered.

  Give my mom his number. Why? Why? Why did he have to be so damn near perfect? It wasn’t fair. It really wasn’t. What also wasn’t fair was that I now needed to tell him the truth about what I’d done. “I did give her your cell phone number last night in case of an emergency. I hope that’s okay,” I said to him.

  He blinked. “Yeah, it’s fine.” Aaron stirred his spoon into the oatmeal, giving me a side look I couldn’t miss. “Did you give her my social too?”

  My face flamed up for what must have been the thousandth time since I’d met him two days ago. I wanted to lie, I really did. But I had promised him I wouldn’t, and I didn’t want to go back on my word. So I told him the truth, even though I pretended my oatmeal was the most interesting thing on the planet. “I wrote it down on a piece of paper and stuck it under my bed.”

  There was a pause. Then, “How would anyone know to look there for it?”

  I gave him another side look and pretended I cleared my throat because there was something there and not because I was ashamed I’d done what any other sensible woman would have done. “I left a note with my stepdad with instructions, just in case something happened,” I practically whispered. “He’s the most trustworthy one in the whole house.”

  Aaron didn’t say anything.

  He didn’t say anything for so long I slid a look at him.

  But when I did, his pinched eyes and equally pinched mouth were the first things that I focused on. Followed by that was the fact that his shoulders and upper body were shaking just a little, just a little, little, little, so little that I hadn’t been able to sense it sitting next to him. After a moment, his right hand reached up toward his face and he slapped the palm of his hand over his eyes as he said very, very slowly, “What did the instructions say?”

  Blushing for the fifty-first time, I admitted it. “That if I go missing to try and contact you first. I put your name and number on there, and your dad’s PO box. I also wrote where they can find your social and Max’s address,” I muttered, feeling so ashamed with myself but also proud that I expected the worst and that’s what a smart girl would do. “Then I wrote that no one better take my things until I’ve been missing at least two years, after that they’re allowed to give up hope finding me.”

  He said nothing. Not a single thing, and it only made me want to go searching for my black hole again.

  “I’m sorry. It wasn’t like I was expecting you to be a serial killer or a sex trafficker or anything, but you can’t be too careful, you know what I mean? Imagine—” I had to clear my throat again before I could get the words out “—imagine if I was your sister. You’d tell me to do the same thing, wouldn’t you?”

  One deep brown eye opened and looked at me, his beautiful, handsome face slightly pink. Aaron nodded, just a little, just enough to notice. But it was his dimple that caught my eye. “I’m not giving you shit over it. That’s good you did that,” he managed to get out with that cute dent still out and about.

  “Okay,” I mumbled back at him, still embarrassed that I’d practically admitted that I didn’t trust him enough, like those wives who thought their husbands were going to kill them and left letters behind pointing fingers at them. “I do trust you though. I think if someone tried to take me, you’d at least fight them for me a little…” I watched his face for a moment before narrowing my eyes. “Wouldn’t you?”

  That had his other eye popping open, his cheeks still slightly pink, but everything else about him completely alert. “You know I would.”

  Why that pleased me so much, I wasn’t going to overanalyze.

  “If someone tried to take you, I know aikido, some jiu-jitsu, and kickboxing,” I offered him up. “But my dentist says I have really strong teeth, so I’d be better off trying to bite someone’s finger or ear off instead.”

  Aaron’s eyebrows climbed up his forehead almost comically. “Like a little Chihuahua,” he suggested, the spoon going into his mouth with a sly grin.

  I winked at him, immediately regretting it. I didn’t want it to come across like I was flirting. “I was thinking more of a piranha. I’ve only had one filling in my entire life,” I told him, wishing each word coming out of my mouth wasn’t coming out of it.

  If he thought I was being awkward or a flirt, he didn’t make it known. “Or a raptor.”

  “A lion.”

  “A tiger.”

  “Did you know a jaguar has twice the strength in its bite than a tiger does?”

  Aaron frowned as he took another bite of his oatmeal. “No shit?”

  “No. Two thousand pounds per square inch. They’re the only big cat that kills their prey by biting its head, through bone and everything. A tiger bites the neck of whatever animal they’re eating to cut their air and blood flow off. Crazy, huh?”

  He looked impressed. “I had no idea.”

  I nodded. “Not a lot of people do.”

  “Is there anything that bites harder than they do?”

  “Crocodiles. The really big ones. I’m pret
ty sure they have about 4000 or 5000 psi bites.” For the fifty-second time, I shrugged. “I like watching the Animal Channel and Discovery,” I said, making it sound like an apology.

  Aaron gave me that soft smile that made me feel like my insides were on fire. Then he winked. “I don’t know much about crocodiles, but I know all about alligators,” he offered. “Did you know there are only two species left in the world?”

  “There are?”

  “American alligator and the Asian alligator. More than a fifth of all of them live in Florida.”

  “We have some gators in Texas. There’s a state park by Houston where you can go and you can usually see a bunch. I went camping there one time.”

  One corner of his mouth tilted up as he chewed. “Look at you, Rebel Without a Cause.”

  With anyone else, I’d probably think they were picking on me, but I could see the affection on Aaron’s face. I could feel the kindness that just came off him in waves, so I winked back at him. “I live life on the edge. I should start teaching a class on how to be bad.”

  “Right? Quitting your job, coming to Florida even though you were worried….” He trailed off with a grin and a look out of the corner of his eye.

  “I pretty much have my masters and license to practice. I’ll teach people everything I know.”

  I didn’t miss the other quick look he shot my way. “As long as they don’t ask about boyfriends.”

  I shoved at his shoulder before I realized what I was doing and laughed, loud, so much louder than I had so far. “I’m just waiting for the right one. I thought you were on board with me waiting now?”

  Those deep brown eyes met mine, and he flashed those white teeth at me. “I am. What are you rushing for?”

  That was pretty much the complete opposite of what he’d been drilling into my head since he’d found out about my lack of relationships, but he was right. What was the rush? It wasn’t like any other guy I’d meet any time soon—or ever—would or could compare to this one. I could feel it. Clearing my throat, I looked down at my bowl of oatmeal again as I said, “The good thing is, now I can quit going to church trying to pick up all the divorced and widowed dads.”

  His snicker had me glancing at him out of the corner of my eye. “You’re never going to let that go, are you?”

  “Nope.” I smirked, taking in that handsome face that had me sighing on the inside. “Is that okay?”

  The spoon was on the way to his mouth when he said, “I wouldn’t expect anything else from you.” Then he winked again. “Eat your food so we can go,” he ordered right before taking another bite, his eyes on me, his cheeks showing he was smiling even as he chewed.

  Why? What had I done in another lifetime to deserve this?

  I did what he said and managed to get about three bites in before his words really clicked. “Where are we going?” I asked him the second I’d swallowed my food.

  “Fishing,” he said casually.

  I said the words slowly to make sure I’d heard him correctly. “Did you say fishing or swimming?”

  That time he did slide me a sneaky look. “Fishing,” he enunciated.

  “Swimming?”

  Aaron finally turned to look at me with a smile on his beautifully sculpted face. “F-i-s-h-i-n-g.”

  I hummed in my throat and ate two bites before I said, just low enough for him to barely hear me, “I don’t really want to.”

  He had the nerve to wink at me again. “I figured. That’s why we should go.”

  “I don’t have a rod.”

  “There are some here you can borrow.”

  Setting the plate on my lap, I started to reach for my left wrist with my right hand, “My wrist is a little sore….”

  He snorted, seeing straight through my crap.

  I’d asked for this, hadn’t I? It didn’t mean I had to be graceful about it the entire time. With a groan, I pretty much made a crying face and slowly nodded. Basically whining out a “Fine” that had him grinning in triumph. “I’m not touching it while it’s still alive though.”

  Aaron had a big grin on his face when he agreed, “Deal.”

  “How have you never been fishing before?”

  He hadn’t been lying when he said there were extra fishing rods at the house. Part of me had been hoping that he’d change his mind… or that it would rain, but neither thing had happened. After we’d gone to get four fishing licenses—one for him, one for me, another for Des and Brittany, who had overheard us arguing about going fishing and decided they should get one too—I’d started to accept that it was going to happen regardless of whether I wanted it to or not.

  I could have done without it.

  Standing beside the truck, with both poles in my hands, I shrugged as he pulled out the minnows he’d bought at the same store we’d gotten our licenses at. Fresh minnows that I wasn’t going to touch. Nope.

  “My dad took my brothers a few times from what I remember, just off the pier at the beach closest to us,” I explained, watching him. “After he moved back to California, there was never enough time when he’d come down to visit to just… take us fishing, you know?” I eyed the bucket he had the minnows in and grimaced. “Not that it’s ever really interested me to begin with.”

  Aaron snickered with his back to me. “It’s pretty relaxing if you give it a chance.”

  I highly doubted that.

  “It won’t be that bad. If you hate it, you don’t ever have to do it again,” he told me, making it seem like that would be the case for the rest of my life. Just like that. I’d never have to do it again.

  While I appreciated what he was implying, I accepted that I needed to quit being a chicken and just… do things. Even if it meant touching a minnow to put it on the hook or whatever it was called. Even if I screamed while I did it and maybe cried during and after. “Did your dad take you fishing when you were younger?”

  His head bobbed in a nod. “Almost every Sunday. He worked a lot, but Sundays were our days, after church, to go do things as a family. When we’d go on summer vacation, we’d always go somewhere where we could fish.”

  “That sounds nice.”

  “Yeah. I still remember it. That’s the whole point about doing family things together. I remember most of them, especially after our mom left.” He’d been speaking so easily before he dropped the “M” word that I almost missed the way his entire body tensed up in reaction.

  He’d rarely mentioned his mom before to me. I’d wondered what the deal with her was, but now that I knew, and now that I’d seen his reaction… I wished I hadn’t. It didn’t take a genius to know it was a sensitive spot for him.

  And it also made a ton of sense how he’d react to my mom being overprotective and his views on marriage. My dad had left too, but he’d still been an active member of my life even afterward. I would never call my dad my “biological father” or anything like that. He was my dad, my father figure through thick and thin. I’d never doubted he loved me.

  As much as I wanted to contemplate what he’d just said, I knew I only had a matter of time to change the subject and act like his mention was no big deal. He didn’t want to talk about it, and I understood. So I changed the subject. “Our family bonding time in my family was on Sunday with everyone cleaning the house. My mom would make us all chip in making dinner. Then we’d all sit around and watch a movie. Every Sunday. My brothers wouldn’t even bother asking to go out with their friends on that day because it didn’t matter if they were seventeen, that was family day for whoever was still living with her.”

  He chuckled and it only sounded partially forced. “Does she still do that?”

  I snorted and watched as he rolled his shoulders back, as if willing them to relax. “No. She stopped after she married husband number three. By that point, I was already a sophomore in high school, Jasmine had her ice-skating going on, and my brothers and Tali were older. But now, everyone still comes over at least once every other week for dinner at the same time or breakfast or wh
atever. I don’t actually know how they schedule that to make it work. I guess I never thought about it. They just show up.”

  “Have you talked to any of them beside your mom since you got here?”

  “No. I don’t bother them when they go somewhere without me. None of them have messaged me except my little sister. I’m a little worried Jasmine hasn’t sent me any more texts, but I’m hoping it’s just because she’s mad and my mom has been relaying my messages to her,” I explained. “Either that or she’s taken all my stuff and she’s being sneaky.” I smiled. “Have you talked to your dad?”

  “No.” He slammed the tailgate closed and faced me. “He knows I’m here. I told you, we’re not all that close.”

  That just sounded sad as hell to my ears. “Because of you going into the military?”

  Aaron shrugged, and in this case, it didn’t seem to be an upset one. “We’ve always been like that. He’d… give and would do anything I needed financially, you know? The basics. More than the basics, I guess. He was there as much as he let himself. My dad doesn’t show a whole bunch of emotion. That’s just the way he is. He didn’t coddle or tuck us into bed every night or anything like that. He spent time with us. But after I told him I was going to enlist, things got strained between us.” I must have been making a face because Aaron winked. “It’s not that bad, Ruby. He loves me in his own way. He just wanted more from me.”

  “I’m not trying to criticize him. Nobody’s parents are perfect. But it just makes me a little sad that you aren’t closer to him, is all. But… I don’t know. Everyone deserves hugs and to know that someone in the world still worries about them, no matter what they’re doing, or even if they’re mad at one another. I’d never do that to anyone.” I made sure to meet his gaze when I said, “You’re great the way you are, military or not. I’d be proud of you regardless of what you did with your life.”

  The smile had gradually crept off Aaron’s face the longer I talked, and I started to worry I’d said something wrong. I’d overstepped my boundaries, hadn’t I?