I woke up early the next morning again all on my own. Whether it was because I was somewhere my body subconsciously knew wasn’t my bed back in Houston, or if it was because I had Aaron, Aaron, Aaron so imprinted on my brain that I didn’t want to sleep longer than I absolutely needed to, I had no idea. All I knew was that it was thirty minutes after six when I reached for my phone and sent my mom a message telling her I was alive.

It was three minutes later I got a response from her that said Good. Keep it that way.

I’d showered the night before once we got back from the restaurant, but the idea of being in a bathing suit all day, even knowing that there was no one other than me who would notice or care if my legs were shaved smooth, I headed back into the bathroom and took a quick one. After getting dressed, the house was quiet like it had been every other morning. I headed upstairs to see the sun already rising. I grabbed a bottle of water from the kitchen, and instead of heading out to the balcony like I’d been doing, I leaned against the kitchen counter and sipped at my water, looking around the kitchen and living area, trying to get my thoughts together in a place that wasn’t where Aaron had been surprising me every morning with breakfast.

If that didn’t make me sound like a bitter jerk, I didn’t know what would.

I was disappointed in myself, honestly—especially the more I thought about our situation, the situation I found myself in with Aaron. The part of my brain that wasn’t ruled by hormones and emotions, that had watched people around me struggle with relationships and friendships and judged them for their actions, knew I was being crazy. It knew it. It realized and accepted that I had zero claim on this man I was in love with who brought me breakfast and fixed my sunscreen for me and taught me to fish and made me feel special.

The part of me that didn’t want to hear any of this BS about how any relationship between Aaron and me was never, ever going to happen, wanted to call time-out and rage over it.

He may or may not have flirted with another woman.

He didn’t want a relationship.

I was his friend Ruby.

These were the most important facts of all the things I knew.

After those were: there were things he hadn’t wanted to tell me about his past, and there were things he didn’t want to tell me in general. I’d put all that together. What I could or would do about it was yet to be determined. I wasn’t the pushy type, and the last thing I wanted to do was force him to tell me something that he didn’t want to, for whatever reason he had. At no point had he given me a reason not to trust him, I knew that for a fact.

But… I really wanted him to trust me. And if I was going to be real honest with myself, it hurt my feelings that he hadn’t and didn’t. And I could live with it or I couldn’t, the choice was up to me.

No biggie.

Right.

Maybe I had been better off not caring about dating and men and relationships. This crap was way too complicated. I wasn’t built for this. At the rate I was going, everything was going to make me cry silently into a pint of ice cream.

With a sigh, and with the remainder of my water bottle in hand, I headed out to the balcony, hugging my legs to my chest once I’d sat down.

There were only four full days left until I flew back to Houston, and the notion made a lump fill my belly… but I tried my best to ignore it and just clear my head and enjoy the moment. I didn’t have to dread whatever came, or didn’t come, in the future. Sometimes things worked out and other times they didn’t. I’d go to San Francisco to visit my dad for a while, and then I’d head back home and keep on trying to expand my business. Somehow. If not… well, I wasn’t sure what Plan B was exactly.

Plenty of people didn’t figure out their lives for a long, long time. It wasn’t a big deal if I still hadn’t sorted out what I was supposed to do. Maybe it was a good thing that Aaron was just my friend. Who was I to be in a relationship with someone when my life was all over the place?

I’d survived having feelings for someone who didn’t share them in return with me before. I could survive it again. I would have to.

I needed to—

It was the sliding of the deck door that had me glancing over my shoulder to find Aaron there, one shoulder coming through the door first before another one followed. His hands were awkwardly up at his sides as he held a plate in each one. How long had I been outside already? Long enough for him to make food? He didn’t bother closing the door behind him as he came out, giving me something that was supposed to look like a smile but didn’t quite.

“Morning,” he said in a restrained voice as he walked over to where I was sitting.

“Morning.” My eyes bounced back and forth between him and the plate in each hand that I still couldn’t see well. “I thought you’d sleep in longer,” I told him.

He shook his head and stopped right beside my chair, extending the plate toward me. “Couldn’t sleep. Eat.”

“Thank you,” I told him a lot more quietly than I had over the last two days, taking the plate from his hands with that strange, uncertain emotion filling my chest. There were two pieces of toast, each topped with scrambled eggs, something that looked like pico de gallo, cheese, avocado, and bacon. I held my breath and watched as he lowered himself to his chair, already picking up a piece of toast with his left hand and taking a bite out of it. I watched him eat it.

We hadn’t said more than fifteen words to each other after we’d gotten back to the house the night before, and yet, he’d still made me breakfast. I didn’t know whether to cry or hug him, I really didn’t.

Who made food for a friend anyway? I loved my friends, and I loved my sisters, but unless they asked, I wouldn’t make them breakfast. Did he not know I wasn’t mentally stable enough for this? That my heart wasn’t in the right place? That it didn’t know Aaron was my friend and would only ever be my friend, no matter how much I told it otherwise?

You would have figured no one in my life had ever been kind to me by the way I sat there.

He’d probably gotten through half of it when he realized I was staring at him instead of eating, and he started chewing slower. “I know you like eggs, and you have to like bacon, what is it?” he asked, hoarsely, swallowing what he had left in his mouth. His eyes went round and he spoke slowly, “If you say you don’t like avocado, I’m going to need to rethink this whole thing we have going on.”

This thing we had going on? Friendship?

We were back to acting like everything was fine and that I hadn’t started being crazy and cool the night before and he hadn’t gotten lost in his mysterious thoughts and stopped talking to me?

I’d worry about it later. Instead, I shook my head, as every cell in my body cried out for this man who always made sure I ate and had made me something to eat for breakfast again. I wanted him. I wanted him so badly I could barely breathe. And…

I couldn’t have him.

Was this a test? My mom always mumbled about how she was being tested: her patience, her wallet, her mental health. Then she’d start mumbling about how God never gave you more than you could handle.

So was that what this was?

Was I being tested by this beautiful man so if I passed, I could hopefully find one just like him that did like me the way I wanted to be liked?

“Is it the avocado, Ruby?” Aaron asked slowly, taking another bite and frowning as he did it.

Swallowing the questions and the frustrations inside of me, I tried to remember I had to be fair. I had to. So I told him, weak, weak, weak, “No, I like avocado.”

Even with his cheeks stuffed full of toast, tomatoes, cheese, avocado, and bacon, he blinked. “You sure?”

Why? Why? Why couldn’t he have been normal? Handsome but not stunning. Nice but not kind. Understanding but not so patient. Thoughtful but not so much.

I should have gone home. I really should have gone home so I could have had a fighting chance of moving on with my life once this week was over. I didn’t need to add a person to my obsessive personality.

But I didn’t do any of that.

“I’m sure,” I promised him, forcing myself to pick up my toast and take a bite.

Maybe this was my test. Maybe I just needed to get through this week as best as I could, and then I’d know I could handle anything. I could be his favorite friend and eventually, at some point, move on and find someone else who might not be so handsome or sweet, but he could be honest and share things with me. And that would be enough. He could still be normal handsome. Who said he couldn’t?

“Ruby—” he started to say before the sound of a phone ringing inside the house cut him off.

There was a home phone in the house? I wondered, knowing I hadn’t seen one.

Aaron cursed, setting his plate on the side table and getting to his feet. “I’ll be right back,” he said to me, giving me a tight expression before practically jogging back inside.

I hadn’t really planned on being nosey and eavesdropping on whatever conversation was about to take place on a phone I hadn’t even known existed, but curiosity got the best of me. Mostly because I wanted to see where the heck the phone had been the entire time. But something bothered me as Aaron headed straight to a cabinet directly beside the refrigerator that I had never opened before, like he knew exactly where it was, and pulled out a corded white handset, bringing it up to his ear.

I guess that shouldn’t have been surprising considering he’d been the one to put up the groceries the second day we’d been there. Maybe he’d looked around the house, or maybe this was the same place that they had all stayed at when they’d come to San Blas last year. That would make sense.

The thing was, I kept watching him as he answered, in a voice that was intentionally low, “Hello?”

I might not be as athletic as Jasmine or as smart and outgoing and pretty as my mom and sister, but I’d inherited my dad’s excellent hearing, vision, and teeth. I wore earplugs every single time I went to a concert and I could usually hear just about everything. So even though Aaron was basically whispering as he reclined against the kitchen counter with the phone to his ear, I heard him and I watched his facial expression, and the tone of his voice change instantly. I mean, instantly.

We’d had our beef the night before, but it was nothing like the tension that strummed through his body, and I definitely hadn’t thought it was possible for him to scowl and frown as he said to whoever was talking to him, “What do you want?”

If that wasn’t abrasive, I didn’t know what was.

His features didn’t change even a little bit as he replied to the voice on the other end, “I’m fine. I’m sure Colin told you I was fine when you talked to him.”

Who was Colin?

“Look,” he basically growled after a moment, making me lean toward the glass panel separating the deck from the living area like that would get me closer to the action going on inside. “If I had wanted to see you while I was home, I would have. Sorry.”

I’d already known Aaron had sarcasm down stat, but he’d never sounded more insincere ever. Who was he talking to? Who would have the home’s phone number anyway?

“I’m at the beach house—”

The beach house. Not a beach house. Wait a second….

“—I need to go. If you want to talk, call Colin or Paige—”

I knew that name. Paige was his sister’s name. Was Colin his older brother? It had to be. So who—

“I’m going now. Bye,” he ended the call abruptly, still talking and sounding like a totally different person from the warm man I’d gotten to know.

He stood there. All long and lean, his body strung completely tight. It wasn’t until his head drooped forward and his hands went up to lace behind his head that I turned around, my heart beating quickly.

I tried to process everything. A phone call. Aaron’s entire personality changing like Jekyll and Hyde. Him mentioning his sister and who I could only imagine was his brother. The beach house.

He’d never once mentioned renting the house, had he?

He’d brought up several times having a decent relationship with his dad, so there was no way that could have been him on the phone, but… had it been the woman he’d repeatedly called his “birth mom” who had “left?”

My mind was running a mile a minute as I tried to think. Think, think, think.

A brief memory of the T-shirt he’d worn the first morning flicked through my thoughts. Hall Auto. He’d never mentioned what his dad did exactly, only that he had employees and that his brother and sister worked for him.

I knew it was none of my business, but the need to know lingered in my brain as my stomach turned at the not-lie but not-truth Aaron might have been hiding from me. Maybe not hiding exactly, but he hadn’t been forthcoming either. With a glance into the house one more time to find Aaron in the same position he’d been, I brought my phone up to my face and launched the browser, quickly typing in “Hall Auto” and “Shreveport” into the search.

It didn’t take more than two seconds for five different results to fill the screen. Five different results for five different auto dealerships in the state of Louisiana, all called some variation of HALL AUTO. This lump formed in my chest, and even though I knew I didn’t deserve to feel like he’d lied to me, I couldn’t help it. It took about a minute of searching before I found an “About Us” section on one of the dealership’s websites. Keywords like “family owned business since 1954” and “family values” caught my eye. But it was the three pictures at the bottom that made me not move.

One was an old picture that had to have been taken in the 50s with a gentleman and a woman beside a car that would have been vintage today. That one was no big deal.

The second image was a recent one of a man in his late fifties standing beside a white car.

The third was a clearly dated picture of a man standing in between two males and a younger girl. The older man was obviously the one who had been standing solo in the first photograph, but it was the male beside him was almost a mirror image of Aaron just a little younger than what he was now. Standing a few inches away was the younger girl, not touching the man. And on the far end was a face I knew well. A face much younger than the one I’d been seeing constantly.

It was a seventeen maybe eighteen-year-old Aaron standing there besides who I was sure had to be his brother.

If the physical proof hadn’t been enough, Aaron had told me his dad always owned white cars.

His dad owned car dealerships. Not just one or two, or the little, used car ones on the side of the freeway or took up space on corners of streets in certain neighborhoods. They were huge dealerships. And his dad—granddad, family, whatever—owned them.

Hadn’t he told me he didn’t want to join the family business and everyone thought he was dumb? Hadn’t he said his dad would have supported him financially if he’d needed something? Hadn’t he specifically told me he was fine on money? Always so vague.

Why hadn’t he just… told me? Did he think I was a gold digger?

The answer to that question came to me immediately, making me feel foolish. No, he wouldn’t think that. He had to have his reasons for not being up front with me about his family’s businesses. He had to. I knew that.

The greatest question remained: who had he been on the phone with? Did his dad own the beach house? I knew I could find out at least the second question, but going behind his back felt sleazy.

I needed to trust him. I needed to not take his silence personally. I needed—

“Sorry about that,” Aaron said, stepping onto the porch with an expression that seemed a little too forced. He cleared his throat as he sat down and gave me a smile I knew he wasn’t feeling. “What do you think about going fishing again?”

* * *

“Goodnight,” Brittany and Des called out as they made their way toward the stairs.

Everyone else had already gone to bed, or at least headed to their rooms.

Aaron, who had been seated on the love seat while we’d been watching a DVD of The Mummy that he’d “found” in a binder full of other movies, sat up in his seat and looked over in my direction, his expression carefully blank, just like it had been the entire afternoon and evening since we’d gotten back from fishing. He’d been trying his best to act normal, sweet, like usual while we’d been out in the surf, but I could tell something was on his mind. I just didn’t know what exactly. “You tired?”

We hadn’t talked much while we’d been fishing, with Des coming along. I’d gone to the beach with Mindy and Brittany once we got back when Aaron had claimed he needed a nap and had stayed at the house. By the time we made it back after two hours of lying under the umbrella, we had found all three of the guys passed out throughout the house. Aaron on one recliner, Max on the big couch, and Des had apparently been sleeping in his room from what Brittany had said. I’d helped her make dinner, and by the time we were done, everyone had woken up.

It wasn’t too much of a stretch to say that I had tried to give him his space when I could still tell there was something going on with him that he didn’t want to share. I’d spent the last few hours, especially during the movie, reminding myself that he’d invited me to spend time with me. Because he cared about me. Not for me to act like a heartbroken twat who ignored him and got her feelings hurt for no reason.

You would figure I’d know by that point how complicated life could be, but apparently I didn’t.

So his dad—his family—was rich and he hadn’t said a word about it. So what?

So there was someone calling the house who made him mad enough for his entire demeanor to change and he didn’t want to talk about it. So what?

I shook my head, trying to keep the expression on my face a clear, easygoing one that didn’t have you break my heart by keeping things from me written all over it. It wasn’t like I hadn’t known that coming here. “I’m not tired, are you?”

“No,” he answered, rubbing his hands over his khaki shorts.

I watched him, that beautiful face, the resigned-looking language printed all over his body, and honestly, it made me ache. What could I do?

“Want to take a walk on the beach?” I asked him before I thought it through.

To give him credit, he didn’t hesitate. He nodded and stood up.

It didn’t take us long to go down the stairs and out of the house, Aaron grabbing a flashlight from the mudroom on the first floor though he didn’t bother turning it on during our walk down the moonlit street and through the homes in the neighborhood. I’d already done the walk enough to know exactly how many beach umbrellas we would find and how many chairs would be under each.

I wasn’t surprised when Aaron headed straight to the same spot we’d gone to watch the sunrise that first morning. He lowered himself to the ground, the sound of him sighing the only noise other than the waves I could hear. It made me want to cry. I didn’t want to see him like this; I didn’t care who or what could have caused it. I just didn’t want him with this… whatever it was, taking away so many of the things I loved about him. Knowing there was a line I needed to straddle, I tried to think of what I could say or do and simply went for the simplest option.

“Are you okay?” I asked as I took a seat a foot away from him, stretching my legs out. I didn’t have the heart to punish him for being secretive. He was my friend, and most importantly, I cared about him.

He nodded, his gaze on the water, but it was this distracted kind of thing that only reiterated he was going through something and not exactly winning.

I was sure he had his reasons, and if I hadn’t already made it clear enough he could talk to me about anything, well, he was dumb and he should have known better by that point. “Are you having a good time so far?” I went with instead of pressuring him to talk to me about whatever or whoever was on his mind.

Aaron nodded, and I forced myself to quit wondering things that had nothing to do with me. “It’s gone by faster than I thought it would.”

“I know,” I agreed with him, shifting my gaze toward the dark water. “I’m dreading going back home.”

There was a pause and then a “You are?”

“Yeah. I wish I could stay here for another month or two.” I sighed. “How perfect would that be?”

That had his head pivoting to look at me, a flicker of the man I’d started getting used to hiding in plain sight on the sharp bones of his cheeks and jaw. “What’s wrong? You’re stressed about work?”

I kept my gaze on the water as I nodded. “Yeah. I’m trying not to let it freak me out, but it is. My mom sent me a link to that job opening that’s still available at her work while we were at the beach, and it’s just got me thinking about what I’m going to do when I get back.” I told him the truth. My mom had sent me a link with a smiley face at the end of it, but the problem was, I’d thought about it, only I’d thought more about what was going on with him.

“You’re not going to do it, are you?” he asked, sounding more like himself than he had all day. Not totally like the Ron to my Ruron, but close enough.

I couldn’t look at him then. “I don’t know. They’ll probably hire someone before I get back from my dad’s. But… I can’t keep going with my money situation the way it is, at least not for too much longer.”

“But you don’t want to get an office job,” he reminded me.

“I know I don’t.” I swallowed and shifted my focus toward the midnight-colored gulf again, not wanting to look at him as I told him the truth. “I’m a chicken, Aaron. I’ve told you that already. I’m too scared things won’t work out. I’ve already told you the craziest things I’ve ever done. I was freaked out to go fishing. Fishing. I think I’ve taken enough risks just these last few months since I quit the job I had with my aunt.”

“You’re not a chicken,” he said, as what I could only assume was his foot slid across the sand to touch mine. I didn’t let myself focus on his affection. What I did let myself zero in on was this gesture that was all my Aaron. It wasn’t like I could bring attention to it though and tell him I noticed what was going on.

Instead, I told him, in a weird voice that almost sounded disappointed, “I hate to break it to you, but I am.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I am. We talked about this.”

“Yeah, we did, but you’re still not.”

“Aaron—”

“You’re not,” he insisted. “What are you scared of that you haven’t done?” he asked, his voice rising.

I screwed up my nose and finally turned my head just enough to make eye contact with him for all of a second before glancing forward with a shrug. “A lot of things.” Maybe I didn’t want to talk about this, but I didn’t want him going back to his morose, mopey crap again.

“Like?”

It was my turn to sigh. “I don’t know. Lots of stuff. Jumping out of a plane. Getting a tattoo.” I pointed at the water vaguely. “Heck, go swimming at night. There’s a ton of stuff.”

Aaron paused. “You’re scared of going swimming at night?”

“You saw me jump on top of you when something touched my leg a couple of days ago. I almost cried when you made me hold that first fish, remember? The Loch Ness monster is probably swimming around in the water right now right beside Jaws, ready to get me if I go in.”

Aaron snickered and I found myself smiling more at him sounding like himself than anything. I flicked my gaze to the side, finding him with his arms planted behind him, eyes on me. I looked back at the water. “Nessie isn’t going to get you,” he claimed.

I side-eyed him with a smirk. “You’re on a first-name basis with her?”

“Yeah, what of it?” He nudged me again, and again I kept my attention forward. “Get in the water. Nothing will get you.”

“No.”

“Ruby.”

“Aaron.”

“Get in the water. You say you’re scared, and I know you’re braver than that, so do it.”

I couldn’t help but turn my head to look at him with a crazy expression on my face. “That’s easy for you to say.”

“Why?”

I blinked. “Because you’re probably not really scared of anything.”

Aaron’s head jerked back and he frowned. “I’m scared of enough things.”

It was my turn to raise an eyebrow. “Like?”

“I told you. Things I can’t control. Being a failure,” he said.

“You’ll never be a failure, and I can’t control if a giant sea creature swims up to me.”

He sighed again and chose to ignore my first statement. “She’s on the other side of the ocean, and Jaws is way up along the coast. You’ll be fine.”

I scoffed, but Aaron didn’t make a sound. He was too busy looking at me expectantly, like he was waiting for me to see reason and decide that yes I would go in water so dark no one could see anything beneath the surface, because that was logical. But he just kept on staring.

And staring.

And staring a little more.

“Aaron,” I mumbled, tipping my head back to look up at the sky because I couldn’t handle his gaze anymore.

It wasn’t until he swiftly got to his feet and stood up straight that I finally glanced up at him, finding that long body standing over me, his hands going to the hem of his shirt for a moment before he pulled it up over his head and dropped it to the sand without ceremony.

I jerked back, sputtered and glanced at his abs for all of one second before moving my eyeballs to his face. “What are you doing?”

He was watching me as his hands went to the front zipper of his shorts, and he was still watching me as he unbuttoned and unzipped them, tugging them down his legs with a shake of those narrow hips I’d been discreetly eyeing every time he’d been in a bathing suit around me. And just like the first time, and every time, his body was immaculate, even in the moonlight as he stood there in boxers that inadvertently highlighted his long, muscular legs and that spot right at the center of his body that made me feel like too much of a perv if I did more than glance at it quickly.

“Taking off my clothes so I don’t get them wet,” he replied casually, stepping out of his shorts before bending over to pick them up.

“Why would they get wet?” I asked him in a voice even I could tell sounded hysterical, something in me already telling me that I’d dug this grave for myself and knew exactly where he was going with this crap. I was beginning to have second thoughts about wanting to cheer him up if it was at this cost.

“Because I’m going in the water.” He folded his shorts in half and dropped them on top of his T-shirt. “You coming?”

My heart was beating, beating, beating. “No.”

Aaron winked. “Yes.”

My throat clammed up. “Aaron—”

“Come on. We don’t have to go in deep. You can hold my hand.”

I coughed. Sputtered some more. Maybe even gagged a little. “I’d want to hold something more than your hand going into the water—”

Aaron choked. Literally choked. Gasping out, “Jesus, Ru.”

Oh no.

The blood drained from my face. “You know that’s not what I meant!”

His laugh was so rough and loud and happy it made something in me click. “Do I?”

“Yes!”

I didn’t know it was possible for him to laugh louder, but he did.

“I’m going back to the house,” I muttered, not moving.

He dropped his head back and kept on laughing, a hand coming up to rest on the six-pack I was not going to look at. “All right, all right. I’m just messing with you,” he said, chuckling and sounding pretty much delighted, with a long sigh afterward. I narrowed my eyes when he reached up to swipe under his eye. “Come in the water with me and I’ll never bring it up again. Promise.”

I groaned.

“Ruby.”

“Aaron.”

“Come in the water with me,” he insisted, sounding totally back to normal.

I stared at him. “I don’t think so.”

He stared back at me. “You’re going to regret it later when you think about it,” he egged on.

How could I have forgotten how well he knew me?

I scoffed again, ignoring the truth to his words.

“Come on, will you? Just you and me,” he said gently. “Ruron forever.”

Of all the things he could have said, he went with the one that I loved and wanted to hate at the same time. Ruron. Ugh.

What had to be his toes pressed to the side of my foot. “Ruby Cube. You can hold on to whatever you want if we go in. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

He had me. He had me big time. And I was pathetic.

Fisting my hands, I groaned in resignation and held back a whine. “Just for… two minutes. Two minutes is all.”

I slid an eye in the direction of the waves gently rolling on to the beach, calm, black, black, black. No part of me wanted to go in there, but… I knew what he was trying to do. He knew what he was trying to do.

But…

I squeezed my hands into fists at my sides and told him the truth in a near croak. “I’m scared.”

He blinked and the next thing I knew, he was dropping into a crouch directly in front of me, his face just above mine. Both his hands went to one of mine, enveloping it in between his. His words were soft and gentle as he brought our palms toward his chest. “I’ll be with you the whole time. You know I wouldn’t just leave you out there to be mean.”

The worst part was, I knew he was telling me the truth. That was something my brothers would do, but not Aaron. Never Aaron. Not if he knew I was genuinely scared, which I was.

“Two minutes, that’s all. I just want you to know there’s nothing to be scared of. It’s past feeding time—”

I stopped breathing.

“Ruby.” His chuckle was low. “There’s more scary shit in the world out there than in the water, but it’s all about how you face the things that you’re not sure about, understand?”

I groaned at his words and the truth in them.

“You understand,” he answered his own question when I hadn’t. “Come on. I won’t leave you. You’re braver than you think.”

I was, wasn’t I? Or at least… I could be. Hadn’t I already shown myself that?

I didn’t want to be that chicken Ruby anymore, even though I might always be. Maybe. I didn’t want to be so scared of things that I actively avoided them. My mom, who had gotten her heart broken time after time, relationship after relationship, didn’t stop being scared of falling in love because it hadn’t worked out for her in the past. Besides losing, I couldn’t think of a single thing Jasmine was scared of. They were the two most fearless people I had ever known. I could be like them. We had the same DNA after all.

I didn’t even realize I was getting to my feet until I was on them. I definitely didn’t notice I was pulling off my shirt until it was over my head and I was dropping it on top of Aaron’s pile of clothes. What I did realize, just as my hands went to the elastic band of my shorts, was that Aaron was now standing up once more.

He was watching me. His eyelids were a little hooded and his eyes might have been focused in a dozen different places, but I couldn’t be sure because of the darkness. It was his turn to ask the same question. “What are you doing?”

I tugged my shorts down my legs and did the same shake he had before I stepped out of them. “Getting out of my clothes so I don’t get them wet,” I explained, using his exact same words. “I’m not getting naked.”

Even in the darkness I could tell his throat bobbed. But he didn’t say another word as I set my shorts down on top of the rest of the pile. Nerves and anticipation thrummed through my veins and arms, but screw it, I was going to do it. Two minutes. I could go in there for two minutes.

The breath that came out of my mouth was shaky and weak. “Are you sure I can hold on to anything that I want?”

Aaron raised an eyebrow in a way that had me thinking he was second-guessing his offer.

“All right, don’t forget what you said,” I warned him, taking a step closer to the water. “Let’s get this over with then.”

He kept his gaze on me a second longer before dipping his head just enough for it to be counted as a nod and then took a step forward. I waited until he was at my side to turn to face the water and wade in. His hand hung loosely at his side as we walked side by side, deeper into the cool but not cold water hitting my ankles, my shins, my knees. It wasn’t until the water lapped just over my knee that I shivered and took a half step to the side, closer to him.

I was halfway up to my thigh when I reached over and grabbed his forearm.

“That’s it?” he asked calmly the moment my fingers touched him.

I shook my head, looking down and trying not to freak out when the inky water started to lap at my hip. “Ah, nope.”

“Then what—”

I moved behind him like a ninja, the palms of my hands going to his shoulder blades, absently noticing his skin was warm. The ridges of Aaron’s spine rippled when I touched him, my palms sliding up to straddle each side of his neck. I knew what I was going to do, and I knew it wasn’t exactly what platonic friends did, but he’d said it, hadn’t he? I could grab whatever I wanted.

“Giddy up, cowboy,” I told him all of two seconds before I jumped on his back.

Looking back on it, I should have given him a longer warning or at least a better one.

Because he hadn’t been ready.

He hadn’t been ready.

Otherwise, if he had, I’m sure neither one of us would have fallen face first into the water, me on top of him, flying over him, pretty much somersaulting into a roll that had me snorting water up my nose the second my head dunked into the surface. For one second, I thought I was about to drown, taking way too long to get to my feet before I could shove my upper body out of the water with a gasp like I really had been on the verge of death.

I heard him before I saw him spitting water. “What the hell was that?” he coughed, as I spit out the gulf water I’d just inhaled a gallon of.

Freaking soaked and with my nose and eyes burning, I shivered and crossed my arms over my chest. “I was going to make you give me a piggyback ride,” I tried to explain, still blinking the water out of my eyes so I could see better.

“I could’ve if you’d given me a warning,” he said, laughing easily as he swiped a hand down his face, so much like my Aaron I couldn’t find it in me to regret what had just happened. “My forehead hit the floor and my stomach scraped bottom.”

I shivered again. “I’m sorry. This was a stupid idea. If that’s not a sign I should get out before I get eaten alive, I don’t know what would be.”

Aaron’s hand landed on my forearm before I could take a step toward the shore, and the next thing I knew, that smooth, muscular expanse of his back, with its two little dimples at the bottom, was in my vision. “We’re already wet. Come on.”

I hesitated and Aaron scooted back just a little more so that if I leaned forward just an inch, he’d be right there, pressed up against me.

I could see his profile under the moonlight as he glanced at me over his shoulder. “I can carry you in my arms if you want.”

Aaron carrying me into his arms? Heck yes.

Realistically though, and for the sake of my sanity and feelings, no. Heck no. That was an awful idea.

“No, no, it’s all right,” I said, probably a little too quickly. “Are you ready this time?”

“I would’ve been ready last time if I’d known—”

I didn’t wait after I put my hands on his shoulders and just jumped, again, knees going to the sides of his hips, my forearms locked around his neck so tightly I might have been choking him. Then his own hands were on my butt, and I squeaked as he gave me a boost just a little higher up him.

“Ru, I need to breath before I pass out and we both become shark bait.”

I tried wiggling one of my legs out from around where they were wrapped at his waist, but his palm slapped high up on my thigh.

“Stop. We’ll just go in a little deeper,” he assured me with a snicker.

“Fine,” I mumbled behind him. “But I swear, if we become a shark attack statistic, and it bites me in the face, and the surgeon can’t repair the damage, you’re marrying me so you can look at my face the rest of your life and remember it was your fault.”

He chuckled so quietly as he moved deeper into the water I almost couldn’t hear him. It didn’t take long before we were chest deep in the gulf. The water was hitting me right at my breasts from how high up I was on his back. I could feel him breathing, and I was sure he could feel me breathing and feel my heart beating so fast it almost seemed at capacity.

But I ignored it all. I ignored it all except for the lights coming from the houses on shore when Aaron turned us in a circle. Except for the bright, nearly full moon in the sky illuminating the surface of the glassy water. Except for the feel of Aaron’s solid build in front of me, his hands coming to rest on my calves.

“Nice, hmm?” he asked in a whisper like he was stuck in a trance too.

“Very nice,” I agreed, my mouth just to the side of his ear. “I could get used to this.”

“You’d come in the water by yourself next time?”

I snorted. “Heck no. But if you gave me a piggyback, I’d do it again,” I said, letting my clutch of death go just enough so I could pinch his lean cheek. “Have I told you thank you today for inviting me?”

He made a thoughtful noise. “Not today.”

With my arm back around his neck, I gave him another squeeze and whispered, “In that case, thank you for inviting me.”

And Aaron squeezed my calves as he said right back, “Thank you for coming with me.” And then, “And thank you for writing me for so long.”

This man owned me entirely, and he had no idea. “Don’t thank me for that.”

He turned his head just a little, like he could see me out of the corner of his eye. “Why?”

“Because. Trust me, you helped me out a lot more than I helped you out.”

“Nah.”

“It’s true.”

“No, it’s not,” he argued. “You don’t even know how much I needed your e-mails, Ruby.” There was a pause. “I didn’t even know how much I needed your e-mails.”

I almost gushed sugar out of my mouth, and I definitely had to ignore the warm sensation in my stomach reminding me I was in love with him. I had no business thinking that, especially not when there were so many things he couldn’t tell me. “You had like two other families, too. Don’t give me all the credit. I know how it is.”

Fingertips grazed my calves and I felt him sigh beneath me. “No, you don’t, and I hope you never do,” he said in a voice that sounded resigned or sad, or maybe both. “There are so many things you see and hear that you can never forget or get out of your head, no matter how much you try. It wasn’t until you that I heard myself laugh, Ruby.” That perfect profile tipped to the side and I saw the corner of his eye peeking at me. “You don’t know what that means to me.”

I sniffed, touched by his words, and so freaking in love with this guy I wanted to make a potion that would make him fall in love with me so I could keep him forever. I’d keep spiking him for the rest of my life if I could. All so I could have him.

But that wasn’t the way these things worked, unfortunately.

Instead, I hoped he could tell the difference in the way I had my arms around him and that he could notice I was trying to hug him instead of cling to him for dear life, and I said with my mouth real close to his ear, “You’re the best, Aaron not an asswipe.”

I was pretty sure that if anyone had been standing out on their deck that night, they could have heard us both laughing.