Dear Aaron

by Mariana Zapata

  He was killing me. Maybe he already had and this was some alternate dimension. Or heaven. I could see this being heaven if Aaron was saying what he was saying and all the arrows pointed at me. Maybe I was naïve. Maybe I’d been incredibly stupid in my life in the past.

  But I wasn’t going to be now.

  So I got up and went to stand in front of him while my heart beat, beat, beat, frantic, frantic, frantic.

  And Aaron smiled at me as he scooted to sit straight in his chair, his hands going to my waist, and he pulled me into him. My butt going to one of his thighs, my hip going next to his, my shoulder making friends with the one he called his own.

  For the first time in my freaking life, I was sitting on a man’s lap. I’d thought about this moment a dozen times in my past, but each time had been with someone who didn’t look anything like the one next to me. I’d thought, back then, that nothing would have made me happier than sitting on this other man’s lap and being the object of his affection.

  That’s what I’d thought.

  And I would’ve been a moron. An idiot.

  It was like… this moment was what I’d been waiting for my entire life. Like anything else, if there would have been anything else, would have been a pale, pathetic imitation. It would’ve been a drop in a bucket that I would never remember.

  But this, this was not that.

  Sitting on Aaron’s lap on the deck of his beach house, with a handful of stars out, and the sounds of people on the beach… it was just one of a dozen other memories I’d already made with Aaron that I would never forget.

  I’d hung out hundreds of times with other people doing things that had been fun in the moment, but I couldn’t recall anything but a vague, hazy summary of the event. And maybe that’s how I knew this was something else. How everything with Aaron was different. It was special. In my gut, as we lived in the moment, I knew I could never or would never forget the way he smiled at me as I sat on his lap. How his hand felt on the side of my thigh. How his eyes looked at me the way I’d always wanted to be looked at, like my heart was surrounded by bees and my skin covered in butterflies.

  I could never, ever forget it.

  “What are you thinking?”

  Pressing my lips together, I chewed on the inside of my cheek for a second as I swept my eyes all over his face and said, “About you.”

  “Yeah?” he asked, amused.

  “Yeah, Mr. Modest. Don’t sound so excited.” I snickered. “This is the first time I’ve sat on someone’s lap.”

  Those brown eyes roamed over my face and the hand on my thigh gave it a squeeze.

  With shaky fingers, I touched one of those beautiful, sharp bones just below his eye, unsure if this was something I could do. But he didn’t say anything. Instead, he leaned into my fingers a little more. “Do you ever look at yourself in the mirror and think, man, I got lucky?”

  There was a sharp noise that had me glancing at the face Aaron was making before he laughed and shook his head. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “You. Do you ever thank your birth mom or your dad for giving you the best bone structure in the world?” I asked, tracing my finger over the bridge of his nose.

  “No,” he chuckled. “I’ve never heard that before.”

  I stopped my fingers and glanced at his eyes. “You haven’t?”

  Aaron scrunched up his nose and shook his head. “No.”

  I made a thoughtful noise. “I bet you’ve heard all about how handsome you are plenty of times.”

  The hand on my hip gave it a squeeze. “Sometimes people only see what’s on the outside and don’t always care about everything else, Ruby. Looks can be deceiving.”

  With my fingers over the opposing cheekbone, I glanced at his face again, wondering what the hell had happened to him in the past to say that. Then I remembered, and I kept on moving my fingers along his cheekbone as I said in a low, steady voice, “Well, luckily for me, the best part of you is on the inside, huh?” Then I stopped my fingers and cupped his face with both hands all of a sudden, cupping his cheeks together, not looking him in the eye on purpose. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to get used to looking at this face. It’s like… you shouldn’t be real. Like I shouldn’t be real. Like I shouldn’t be sitting on your lap right here because—”

  Aaron reached around me and wrapped his long fingers around both wrists, his chin dipping down. “Get used to seeing it,” he said.

  And then he came for me.

  Aaron leaned forward, his fingers still around my wrist, and slowly, so slowly I could have moved at any point or stopped him, the tip of that perfect nose touched mine. I could almost see every fleck of color in his eye from how close we were, and if he had any pores on that immaculate skin, I would have been able to see them as he rubbed the tip of his nose against mine, making me grin and feel like the world could have been on fire in that second and I would have died with a smile on my face.

  “I could get used to Eskimo kisses,” I said in a whisper.

  And in a move I never would have ever given myself credit for, I tilted my face just enough to press my mouth to his. It was a peck. Dry lips on dry lips. It lasted all of a second of contact before I pulled back just an inch or two.

  Then it was Aaron who pressed his mouth to mine. Two seconds before he pulled back.

  And then we took turns. Me for three seconds. Him for four. Me for five. Him for six. Seven. Eight. Nine.

  By the tenth peck, I moved my mouth up to kiss that full upper lip. And then I pulled it into my mouth with a playful nip, like I really knew what the heck I was doing. My subconscious must have been totally aware that Aaron wouldn’t be the one to take it too far this time, so I did. It was my mouth that tilted to the side, that brushed my tongue across the seam of his lips. It was my hand that went to the nape of his neck to hold him in place. My fingers that brushed against the soft, short hairs right there.

  But it was Aaron who opened his mouth and brushed the tip of his tongue against mine.

  I hadn’t kissed a whole bunch of men, but I’d kissed enough, especially over the last few months. And even though I’d enjoyed most of those kisses, it was nothing compared to this one. No one had made the hairs on my arms stand up. No one had stolen the breath from my lungs or made me squirm closer for more. No one else had made me feel like this was exactly where I was supposed to be.

  Aaron kissed me and kissed me and kissed me with his hand around my hip, the tips of his fingers just under the hem of where my shirt had ridden up. He held me to him, and I’d swear I could feel something hard and thick right along my hip. And we kept on kissing. My face tilted one way, his tilted the other as his tongue stroked mine slowly and tenderly. I’d suck one of his lips between mine gently and he’d do the same to me. Our breathing grew harder. My hands moved deeper into his hair. My nipples went hard, and I wasn’t sure if I shivered because of the breeze or because of Aaron.

  What I did know was that it was him who pulled away, his nose touching mine as he let out a ragged breath against my cheek with a dry laugh that didn’t sound all that entertained. “Jesus, Ruby.”

  I couldn’t help but smile, feeling pretty damn pleased with myself. “Is that a flashlight in your pocket or did you think that kiss was as good as I did?”

  He laughed straight out, his chest bubbling. “Pretty sure we’re on the same page about that kiss,” he muttered, sounding slightly out of breath.

  It was my turn to laugh. “Can we do it again?”

  Chapter 23

  I woke up with a stomachache the next morning.

  It was our last full day in San Blas and… the idea of it sucked. It really did. I’d always been relieved to go back home after a vacation, missing my bed, missing my stuff, missing my life, but while I missed some parts of it, I didn’t exactly miss the rest of it. Not really. Not enough to calm the ache of knowing this was my last day with Aaron.

  I’d turned into one of those girls apparently.

&nb
sp; And honestly, I didn’t care. Not even a little bit.

  I didn’t need to look at the clock on my phone to know it was right around six in the morning based on the shade of purple coming through my curtain. Aaron and I had stayed up until almost two, going back into the house to watch a movie when people started shooting fireworks off on the beach. Aaron had tensed every time the pew, pew sound from outside became particularly loud, but I didn’t make it known that I noticed. I wasn’t even sure he did, like it was more instinctual than anything. The rest of the group had shown up only about an hour into the movie after watching the fireworks, crashing on the couch to watch Stargate.

  When we’d finally gone down the stairs and headed toward our bedrooms, I’d thought about asking Aaron if he wanted to sleep in the room with me, but I’d chickened out and just kissed that mouth like it was the greatest chore I would gladly do every morning for the rest of my life and the next if anyone gave me the choice.

  But it was the hand of his that cupped the back of my head as he tipped his mouth deeper into mine that had got me going to my tiptoes. Just as quickly as he’d leaned in, he pulled back, kissing one of my cheeks quickly.

  I was a sucker. A real, real sucker.

  With my head full of crap, I did my usual shower and shaving and headed upstairs, knowing that was about as far as my morning routine would go. Instead of going out on the deck like I had almost every other morning, I opened the fridge and started pulling out ingredients. I’d just finished sliding the first omelet onto a plate when the stairs squeaked with weight. Sure enough, it was Aaron, freshly showered and looking not as tired as he usually did.

  But there was something there in his eyes I hadn’t seen before.

  “Morning.”

  “Morning, RC,” he replied in that quiet, rough voice, slowly walking toward me. “What are you making?”

  “Omelets,” I said. “I already made you one. I figured you’d want two at least, right?”

  His gaze flicked to the pan I had in my hand before he nodded. “Need any help?”

  “No.” I looked toward the stove again. “It’s my turn this morning.”

  I wasn’t going to be sad. Today was going to be a good day. A great one. One that didn’t end with me blubbering into my pillow because tomorrow I’d be flying back home.

  No. Today was going to be a good day if I had anything to say about it.

  “You mad at the eggs or what?” came Aaron’s amused voice.

  I stopped with the whisk in my hand and looked down at the overly whipped concoction in the bowl.

  He must have already been standing right by me because his hip checked mine, almost scaring the crap out of me. “Scoot over. I’ll help so you can get done faster and you can sit with me.”

  So I could sit with him.

  Tears prickled in the backs of my eyes and I stopped freaking blinking so they wouldn’t get any ideas about what they were going to do next. The next few minutes went by quickly, but the most memorable thing about it was avidly avoiding Aaron’s eyes as we moved around each other, making two more omelets in half the time it had taken me to make the first one.

  “Who taught you how to cook?” I pretty much croaked out, knowing full well he had to have heard the hitch in my voice.

  “My stepmom, ex-stepmom,” he answered. “She’d only make breakfast and dinner. If we were hungry the rest of the time, we were on our own for food. She wasn’t going to be anyone’s maid, she used to say.”

  That made me smile. “My mom would say the same thing.”

  I could see him try to make eye contact with me, but I couldn’t get myself to meet him halfway. I couldn’t. I knew I’d cry. I just needed… another second. Or five.

  “I’ve found a few recipes on my own too, if you can believe that,” he said sarcastically.

  I wasn’t in the mood for sarcasm yet, not when it felt like there was this giant chasm in my chest getting bigger by the second. “It’s hard to believe,” I replied weakly.

  There was a pause. A silence. And then a sigh seconds before two arms came around me from behind, a mouth speaking against my ear, “There’s nothing to be sad about, okay? This isn’t our last day.”

  I sucked in a breath and didn’t make a single sound before I whispered, “It bothers me how well you know me.”

  “Tough shit.”

  That had me laughing, even if it did sound watery and almost heartbroken.

  “See? Everything is going to be all right. Let’s go eat our breakfast on the deck, yeah?”

  And that’s exactly what we did.

  “Do you think you bought enough firewood?”

  Aaron snickered as he dropped the last two bundles of wood on the blanket I’d laid out when he first asked me to help him set everything up. “This is all they had,” he explained. “I’m surprised they even had this much left after the Fourth of July yesterday. Pass me four pieces, would you, stalker?”

  It was my turn to snicker as I handed him what he asked for. We’d come out to the beach right after dinner, finding the spot we’d found earlier that others before us had used as a fire pit. Large heavy rocks had already been lined up in a large circle. I’d noticed that morning when we’d come out to the beach, with me in the ridiculous, large hat, that there were only about half the amount of people who had been sunbathing and swimming the day before. It’d been another painful reminder that this whole trip was coming to a close.

  But I tried not to let it show on my face. I smiled at Aaron every time he’d been watching, and every time he hadn’t. I was going to eat up every moment we had left together and store it all up for when we weren’t. And then, then, I’d think about all the things he had said and all the things he had hinted at and all the things he had promised me. I just wanted to swallow up everything else in the meantime.

  “Do you need help?” I asked him as he walked in a circle around the pit, looking at the center of it with a furrow between his brows.

  Aaron snickered. “I know what I’m doing.”

  “I didn’t say you didn’t.”

  He walked directly in front of me, grazing his fingers across my cheek before stooping. “I was an Eagle Scout.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah,” he answered.

  “It’s hard to get your badge for that, isn’t it?”

  One of those brown eyes peeked at me over his shoulder. “Yeah.”

  “I always wanted to be a Brownie.”

  I could see him pause where he was, his hands loose in front of him as he arranged the wood into a teepee-shape. “You couldn’t?”

  “No. No money. My mom didn’t have time to take me to meetings.” I wrung my hands. “She had work and night school. It was tough. Maybe one day when I’m older I can lead my own troop or something. That would be fun.”

  “Your mom went to night school?” he asked, his back to me.

  “Oh yeah. That’s why we were so tight. She went back to get her degree right after my dad left. She’d dropped out of college when they got married. That’s actually how they met. She was an intern at a firm he worked at. She was young and wanted to have kids. Then after that, she got her master’s; she wanted to be an auditor. She’s kind of amazing. I didn’t think of it too much when I was a kid, all I knew was that she was gone a lot and my aunt and grandpa would watch us all the time during the week. Then Saturdays were for homework and Sundays were our family day. She apologized to us a few times once we were older, but we all told her she didn’t have anything to apologize for. She busted her butt for us.”

  “My dad worked all the time too, so I know what you mean, but he just likes working.”

  The reminder of his dad’s work made this uneasy feeling fill my stomach. Did I play stupid or did I say something? Watching the lines of his back, I knew my answer the second I questioned it. “Aaron.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You know I don’t care that your dad is loaded, right?”

  Slowly, slowly, he pivoted around in his
crouch and stared at me.

  I smiled. “I know I look pretty oblivious, but I’m not.”

  “Ruby—”

  “I just wish you would have told me yourself.”

  His mouth opened and it gaped, the skin on his neck turning pink and getting darker as the color rode up his jawline and filled his cheeks. “I was going to. It’s just—”

  I held up my hand to stop him. “It’s none of my business. I just wanted you to know that I knew is all, okay?”

  I could tell Aaron was uncomfortable. Embarrassed maybe. And honestly, I could have repeated to him a dozen times that it was fine he hadn’t been upfront about his family or who owned the beach house but… why? It had hurt my feelings a little when I’d found out and put the rest of the pieces together. I understood why he’d done it. I did.

  But…

  He still hadn’t told me, and it made me ache a hair. Just a hair. I couldn’t cure trust issues overnight.

  “Ru—”

  Getting up to my feet, I grabbed a log off the stack and walked around to the other side of the pit. “You need another one. I wasn’t an Eagle Scout, but I can tell that’s going to fall over in no time.”

  Aaron’s mouth seemed to open before he closed it and pasted a tight smile on his mouth with a nod and a gulp he probably assumed I didn’t noticed, but I had.

  “You still haven’t gotten the fire started?” came Max’s voice a moment before he started kicking up sand just a few feet away, stopping at the edge of the pit with his hands on his hips. “Do you need me to do it?”

  Aaron huffed a tight laugh at the same time Max shot him a dirty look. “You do it? Right.”

  Max rolled his eyes. “Some of us go into manhood knowing how to do things and don’t need to be in the Scouts.”

  “Is that why you made me change your tire twice?”

  Max blinked. “Fuck you.”