It was stupid to think it, but I woke up feeling different the next morning.

Maybe different wasn’t the correct word to use, but I felt…

I don’t know how the heck I felt exactly. After spending a lot more than two minutes out in the water, clinging onto Aaron like a spider monkey, something in me seemed changed. Maybe that was the thing about doing things you hadn’t thought you could do, you realized that maybe you weren’t who you’d always thought you were. There was more to me than even I’d thought there was. Despite everything I thought I’d learned the day before, I felt happier, more at peace, just… better, even though I was really tired after only sleeping five hours.

Dragging myself to the bathroom that morning, I showered quickly and headed upstairs, yawning nonstop. With my usual bottle of water in hand, I made my way to the balcony and tried to clear my mind as much as possible. I tried to think of the things that made me happy and the way the air smelled. I tried to think of anything but Aaron.

But like a high school girl with my first crush, almost every thought just went back to him in some way. How I was worried about him. How I was disappointed that he didn’t trust me enough. How I shouldn’t like him as much as I did, but I did. When I wasn’t thinking about him, I thought about what I was going to do when I got back home after visiting my dad.

The door of the deck slid open and there Aaron was, with his tray. There was some coloring beneath his eyes like there had been every other day, but he smiled at me warmer than he ever had before, and that was saying something in a language I didn’t know.

“Morning,” he said.

“Good morning,” I called back to him, watching as he made his way toward where I sat.

He held out a plate toward me as he lowered himself into his same chair. On the white plate were two pancakes with what looked like chocolate chips in them. And they were shaped like Mickey Mouse’s head.

I glanced up at him to see him smiling at me almost expectantly.

“You like?” he asked, pulling out two forks from the pocket of his swim trunks and handing one over.

I couldn’t stop the stupid smile on my face. “How did you make these?”

“Skills.”

I rolled my eyes even as I kept smiling. “No, really.”

He winked. “There’s a mold in the cupboard. I thought you’d get a kick out of it.”

A mold in the cupboard of his father’s beach house. I shoved the reminder away as I said, “I already told you, but you know you don’t have to cook for me every morning. I can eat cereal.”

His words were so simple, yet more powerful than anything. “I want to.”

And like the needy idiot that I was, I asked him, “Why?”

With the side of his fork to the plate, he started cutting a piece of his plain, round pancake, his gaze flicking back and forth between the food and me, like the words coming out of his mouth were effortless. “Because I want to, Ru.” Aaron’s mouth twisted to the side as he chewed on the piece of pancake in his mouth, and he said, “Hurry up and eat so we can go.”

“Fishing?” I asked him, sounding a lot more hopeful than I ever could have imagined.

His twisting mouth turned into a smile. “No. Scalloping.”

“Scalloping?” I croaked.

“Yeah. Scalloping. Did you bring any water shoes with you?”

* * *

“I look like an idiot, don’t I?”

“You don’t look like an idiot.” Aaron tipped his head to the side and smirked.

That grin said enough. I looked like an idiot. It was in the nineties, and I had on a giant straw hat and something Aaron called a buffer that really just looked like the neck part of a turtleneck. I blinked at him and sighed. “It looks like I was planning on going to the Kentucky Derby and then changed my mind and thought about going skiing, and finally decided to go to the beach.”

He shook his head, but I couldn’t miss the grin on his face. “Your neck is red enough. I told you to put more sunblock on yesterday, remember?” he reminded me for about the fifth time.

I was tempted to reach up and touch it, but I didn’t. I’d already rubbed aloe vera gel into the skin twice before Aaron had come up to me with the buffer and smiled so sweetly, I hadn’t realized what he was putting over my head until it was on there… and then he’d given me the hat.

He kept talking. “We could swim out further and dive, but we’ll stick closer to shore. I’ve found a bunch here before.”

Before. How had I missed all the signs he gave me that he’d been here more than once in the past? It’s no biggie, I said to myself, trying not to let the reminder ruin our day.

“If the heat starts bothering you too much, just tell me and we can get out of the sun,” he offered, stepping back to look at me.

I sighed, and that only made him grin more.

“Am I annoying you?”

Was he annoying me? It was the furthest from the truth in a way. And I told him so. “No. You’re just—” I waved my hand a second before dropping it. “You’re so nice to me.” Even though you don’t tell me things.

His laugh almost eased the ache away. “Am I supposed to be mean to you?”

“No.” I snickered.

There was a smirk on his face as he turned his back to me to head into the water, when he threw over his shoulder, “If you decide you need to jump on my back today, give me a warning, will you?”

My mouth might have dropped open for a second before I blinked at him. “Has anybody else ever told you what a pain in the you-know-what you are?”

Aaron stopped walking and tossed that blond head back to laugh. “Yeah. Except you’re the only one who’s ever called it a ‘you-know-what.’”

“Ha, ha,” I joked, starting to follow his path. “It’s something to work on, I’m just throwing that out there.”

He snorted and glanced over his shoulder, a small smile on his face. “Lessons with Ruby at 8:00 a.m.”

I was at his side when I nudged him with my hip. “Shut up and show me what we’re looking for.”

* * *

“Need a hand?”

I froze with my elbow in the air, my hand just barely touching the back of my neck as I sat on the edge of the couch in the living area of the beach house with a tube of aloe vera gel balanced on my thigh. Sitting on the recliner to the left of where I was, with the clanking of pots and pans in the background, was Max, leaning back against the seat with an amused smile on his good-looking face. On the love seat to the opposite side were Brittany and Des, who were busy snuggling adorably and watching television. Aaron was in the kitchen, washing the dishes that weren’t going into the dishwasher, following a nice spaghetti meal the seventeen-year-old with only one good arm had managed to make, despite most of us offering to help her out. She’d gone to her room to talk on the phone.

I’d been trying to reapply aloe vera to the achy skin on the back of my neck, which hadn’t gotten more burned after the three hours we’d spent scalloping… but it hadn’t exactly helped either. The problem was, I couldn’t exactly see what I was doing and my arms felt dead after hunting for clams and then following that up by going for a swim.

“Uh,” I kind of muttered to myself for a second, taking in the man that had been sleeping most of his days away. I hadn’t really spoken too much with him on this trip, but… it was fine. “Sure,” I told him, with a shy smile, not wanting to tell him no when he’d offered assistance. I hated when I could tell someone needed help, and when it was offered, they denied it.

With a tip of his chin, the very handsome man that I’d learned through bits and pieces was thirty years old and worked graveyard shifts at a refinery, got up and took a seat on the cushion directly beside me. The side of his knee touched mine, but I didn’t think anything of it as I handed him the tube of gel.

“Thanks,” I said a little weakly, dipping my chin toward my throat to expose the back of my neck.

I heard the tube lid click open and followed by that was the almost farting sound of the gel coming out of the container and onto what I could only imagine was his palm. Seconds later, I felt the cool touch of his gel-covered fingers lightly grazing the nape of my neck and moving around. “I thought Aaron was going to make you wear a scarf or something?” he asked, spreading the gel.

Looking at my ultra-tan thighs from all the sun I’d taken in, I smiled. “He did. This is from two days ago. I think it’s getting better.”

“I guess,” he said, his fingers still moving back and forth in circles and lines across my skin. “It looks painful.”

“Only a little,” I admitted, peeking at him over my shoulder.

Max leveled a smile at me that six months ago would have knocked me off the couch, or at least had me texting someone to tell them all about the hot guy touching me. But now… well, now I felt nothing but appreciation.

“You’re good,” he said, pulling his hand away.

“Thank you,” I told him, taking the tube from him to set it on the side table beside me. Turning back around to face forward, I found a familiar pair of khaki cargo shorts standing nearly directly in front of me.

I didn’t get a chance to say anything before he’d turned himself around and dropped that rounded butt into the sliver of space separating me from Max. Leaning to the arm rest, I lifted a thigh to give him room to sit as his best friend scooted over. Way over. What was he doing? I didn’t need to look around the room to know there were other spots he could have taken instead. Not that I necessarily wanted him to sit somewhere far away, but…

I snickered when he leaned back against the back cushion, wedged so tightly in there that the only way he fit was because Max and I were both crowded into the sides. “What are you doing?” I asked him with a grin once he’d settled in and looked down at me.

He slipped an arm over the back of the couch behind my head. “Sitting down.” I scrunched up my nose at him, and all he did was smile back. “Does your neck hurt?”

“Not really,” I told him honestly. “It’s fine. It was worth it.”

“If you want to stay inside tomorrow to give your neck a break, we can,” he suggested, moving his leg just enough so that the entire length of his thigh was squished against mine.

“That’s probably a good idea,” I said. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to stay inside with me if you don’t want. I can just watch TV by myself or something.”

His hand landed on my bare thigh, and I was really grateful that I’d showered and shaved after I’d come back inside following our swim.

“Ru, I don’t care—”

The suggestion came out of my mouth so unexpectedly, I hadn’t even realized it was still on my mind. “If you wanted to call your friend or hang out with her, I’d understand.”

The lids covering those dark brown eyes hung low. “My friend?” he asked slowly.

Why had I brought this up? It was too late now, wasn’t it? “The, uh, waitress.”

“The waitress?”

Crap. “The one at the restaurant.”

At the rate of a snail, the confused expression on Aaron’s face slowly melted off, replaced by a smile at the same pace. Why did he look so smug? “RC, I know her, but she’s not my friend.”

I kept my mouth shut.

“She used to mess around with my brother. She’s nice and all, but we’re not friends.”

Well. What could I say after that besides “Oh”?

The blond beside me grinned a little too smugly. “She’s not my type.”

“Did she just stick her fingers in his ass?”

What? Where? I wondered, forgetting all about what type Aaron had.

Across the room, Brittany let out a laugh in response. “She did!

“What the hell are you watching?” came Max’s second question as he sat up and looked around the room to make sure his little sister wasn’t still in the kitchen.

She wasn’t.

I could feel rather than see Aaron tense beside me. What I did see was him leaning forward, planting those impressive blond-hair dusted arms on his knees and saying in his controlled, even voice, “Would you change the channel? Ruby and Mindy don’t need to see that shit, come on.”

Me? Mindy I could understand. But me?

“Put it on something else,” Aaron said with a finality I couldn’t miss. “Ruby’s right here.”

And when three other sets of eyes all swung over to my direction, I blushed. Everywhere. Up to the roots of my hair.

While I wouldn’t have been outraged at seeing a girl sticking her fingers in a guy’s butt—and it wouldn’t be the first time or the second or third I had—I cringed on the inside at Aaron basically comparing me to a seventeen-year-old. Because just like that I knew what he was saying and why he was being so defensive and overprotective.

He was hinting at what I thought he was hinting at, there was no doubt about it.

All I could do was give the other three a smile, which probably looked like a mixture of deranged and embarrassed, even as I looked down at my clean fingernails and stretched them wide on my lap, saying, “You can leave it on if you want.” My voice was all whispered and funky and I don’t want to talk about this, but…

But these friends of my friend, a lot nicer and kinder than I ever could have given them credit for, changed the channel. Immediately.

They all thought…

Yeah, they all thought I was a virgin now. Or maybe just really, really, really innocent. Basically: a virgin.

What was this? The 1860s? Was porn not a click away anymore? Did he not have any idea the kinds of things I’d seen on the Internet late at night when I had my door locked?

Not that there was anything wrong with being a virgin, but I wasn’t one. I hadn’t been one for a while. Where the hell could Aaron had gotten that impression from?

It took me all of a moment, sitting there embarrassed out of my mind, to figure it out.

It was the never-having-a-boyfriend thing. Being in love with the same guy for years. Not really even dating ever. That would be it. I knew it. It had to be.

Oh man.

I couldn’t look at him as I blindly reached over the side table where I’d set the aloe vera gel and picked up my phone instead. I could sense Aaron’s gaze on me as I brought the phone close to my face and opened my notepad app, typing the words that I didn’t expect to ever tell anyone, much less Aaron. But I didn’t know how else to get out of this conversation gracefully. I couldn’t let him keep thinking… that. No wonder he thought of me like a little sister if he was comparing me to Mindy. This was my fault. Totally.

You know how much I love that you’re so nice to me? I wrote him, before handing over the phone not very discreetly.

His eyebrows rose in my direction as he took it from me and read the screen, his eyebrows dropping back into place in an expression of confusion. I know, he replied before returning it to me.

How was I supposed to tell him this? I’d never told anyone this, never even thought it would come up and I’d have to have a game plan. Yet here we were, and I knew I needed to tell him.

I’m not THAT innocent, I typed.

Then I added, But thank you for watching out for me, and set the phone on top of the thigh he had lined up with mine. He lifted it up without hesitation and read the words. There was a moment between when he read it and then stared at the screen before typing, his thumbs looking too large for the touch screen.

He handed it back over.

I figured you… knew stuff was his response.

Knew stuff? What did he…? He was going to make me say it, wasn’t he? He really was.

Flashing him a side look that he met with his dark brown eyes, I cleared my throat and typed a message back that had me cringing on the inside. Maybe I should have dropped it and let him keep believing what he’d been believing.

What do you mean by “stuff”? I’ve seen… penises. I’ve watched… stuff… online.

His face turned a shade of red I’d never seen on him before as he read my reply. He hesitated. Gulped. His thumbs flew across the screen in a blur before he handed me back the phone with his gaze trained forward.

OK.

I swallowed and decided I needed to just tell him. Get it over with. So I did.

I’m not a virgin.

It wasn’t like he knew what I’d typed when he took his time picking the phone off his leg and reading what was on the screen. I didn’t miss how his eyes flicked back up to the top as if he was rereading what I’d written. Then he did it again. Slowly, too slowly, he typed up another message and set the phone on my thigh.

I thought you said you’d never had a boyfriend before.

Really? Really? My heart was beating fast as I typed, You’ve only had sex with people who were your girlfriends? Did I write that more defensively than I probably needed to? Yes. Definitely yes. But I’d never told anyone this before, and… well, I’d chosen him. It wasn’t like admitting what I’d done was easy for me.

Aaron stared at the screen for a second before his Adam’s apple bobbed once.

No. Was his simple, basic response that I couldn’t get even a remote feel on. His attention was still focused directly in front of him, and I didn’t know what to think about him not wanting to make eye contact with me.

But what was I going to do? Lie? Let him do this double-standard crap? It was my fault for not being more upfront with him, but it wasn’t like I was proud of what had happened, and if I could go back, I wouldn’t have let it go down like that.

But you couldn’t go back to change things that were already in the past.

It was only once and I was 21. He wasn’t my boyfriend then or afterward. He regretted it almost immediately, and besides apologizing to me for it, we never talked about it again.

My face was red as I finished typing out the truth, but I kept holding the phone in my hand, trying to think of what else I could tell him.

I don’t like talking about it because it’s hard to think that I gave someone something I’d really wanted to, had them accept it and then pretty much reject it and make me feel like I was a giant mistake. He blamed it on “being caught up in the moment.” Do you know what I mean? It wasn’t what I had expected. I felt like an idiot.

Aaron took the phone from me slowly and read the message at least three times from the way his eyes moved down and across the screen several times. Then slowly, slowly, he typed out a message and set my phone back down on my thigh for me to take.

What happened?

Nerves caught up with me as I reminisced about that one thing I really tried hard not to think about ever.

Right after I turned 21, I told myself I was going to try and be more outgoing, that I’d go after the things I wanted more often, you know? I tried, I really tried to get out of my shell. My brother’s birthday is a few months after mine, and he decided to have a party. I went. I’m a crappy drunk, and I had one too many margaritas at his house that night, so I wasn’t exactly acting like myself. Which was what I wanted. I guess I was more outgoing and uninhibited. I never would’ve come on to him that hard or flirted so much if I hadn’t drank so much… but I did. We ended up talking all night. He was being so nice to me and friendly… He acted like he liked me, but I think I made up more to it in my head, and when I wanted to go home, he offered to take me.

When he dropped me off, he asked if I wanted to go to a party with him the next day. I didn’t want to, not really, but I wasn’t going to tell him no. So I went. And I drank too much that night too because I’d been so nervous. I just wanted him to like me. And he was great. I thought that was it.

I cleared my throat and kept on typing away.

On the way home, I pretty much threw myself at him. Literally. It was the ballsiest thing I had ever done before I met you. He tried telling me it was a bad idea and that we shouldn’t, but… we did. Once. He took me to his place and it happened. He wouldn’t even look at me afterward. I got dropped off at home and he kissed my cheek without saying anything. The next day he came by and told me we shouldn’t have done that. That he cared about me and thought of me like a little sister, and that he hoped I wouldn’t tell anyone. I told him I wouldn’t, but when he left, I cried for days. I thought there was more to “it,” thought he’d come around one day and apologize because he’d changed his mind, but he never brought it up ever again, and I couldn’t either.

I knew Aaron saw the way my hands were shaking as I typed on the screen and then set the phone on his knee. I could see him flicking his gaze between my face and the phone as I put my hands in my lap and waited for him to read what I told him. He had to have read what was on the screen at least five times because it seriously took almost ten minutes before he finally wrote a reply. I didn’t miss the way his hands trembled as he set my phone on his leg that time, not mine.

There were only three words on the screen, but they were the three words I’d hoped he wouldn’t write.

It was him?

We both knew who “him” was.

But I couldn’t actually type the words out and make it a reality. What I did manage to do was turn my head and meet those brown eyes even though I really, really didn’t want to, those irises met mine so openly and evenly, and I nodded.

Aaron blinked.

His throat bobbed.

But his gaze didn’t go anywhere else.

The breath that came out of his nose was strangled.

Those brown eyes moved over my face as his hands moved to his knees. He squeezed them. Once, twice.

And then he looked away and let out another deep breath that ripped the air right out of the room as it filled his lungs.

I was so stupid.

I’d been so stupid. Why? Why had I done that? I’d asked myself that a thousand times over the last three years, and I still didn’t have an answer that made me feel any better. Chances were, I never would.

My heart started racing even faster, and tears pooled in the back of my eyes as I faced forward just like Aaron had done. For a second, I thought about getting up and going to my room, saying I had a headache or something. But I didn’t want to be that person any more. Goose bumps rose on my arms and my stomach started cramping and a part of me wanted to throw up.

For all the world knew, Squirt was still a virgin. I’d never told anyone about that before. Not even my best friend. Not anyone.

Only Aaron.

And I’d kept my secret for this exact reason.

I lifted my left hand and ignored the way it shook as I swiped it along my lower lash line, holding back tears. I’d tried to justify my actions by telling myself I’d been young and dumb, but it hadn’t helped at all. The only thing that had soothed me had been that no one except Hunter and I had known what happened. I could still remember the bright smile on my mom’s face when I’d walked into the house after he dropped me off—after Hunter had sat inside his car and hadn’t even bothered walking me to the door. She had asked me, looking expectant and happy, “How was it, Squirt? Did you have fun?”

And in one of the rare moments of my life, I’d lied to my mom and managed not to burst into tears even though I’d wanted more than anything to do that. I had told her, “It was fun. Hunter dropped me off.”

I’d cried so hard in the shower, trying to get everything off. Off, off, off. When Hunter had shown up to the house the next morning, claiming I’d left my ID with him, I’d been hopeful, so freaking hopeful. But it had only taken him saying two words for me to know I’d misinterpreted why he’d come by.

The rest was history.

It had been my fault I’d been dumb enough to hold on to some blind faith that he’d somehow come back into my life in the end. It had been my fault I’d put my life on hold waiting for a love that would never present itself. Everything had been my fault.

Out of my peripheral vision, I saw both of Aaron’s hands go up to his face, the fingertips pressing against his brow bone as he let out an uneven breath. I could see Max watching him with a frown, as if he couldn’t understand what was his deal. It wasn’t like I would tell him.

“Aaron,” I whispered, touching the back of my hand to the section of thigh exposed from his shorts riding up.

He peeked at me from his left eye. And then he was up on his feet, maybe not intentionally shaking off my touch but basically doing the same thing as he strode toward the patio doors leading to the deck and disappearing through them, closing them with a lot more strength than was necessary.

Max looked at me with wide eyes, his forehead furrowed. “What’s his deal?”

I wasn’t about to give him a detailed explanation, but I could tell him part of it, even knowing this was his best friend and he might not like me afterward for making Aaron upset. “I think I made him mad.”

Max’s facial expression changed so quick I almost missed it. He rolled his eyes and let out a snort. “Ah. Don’t worry about it. That just means he cares about you. That’s the only reason he ever gets mad. I piss him off all the time.”

What was that supposed to mean? I’d just watched him get mad yesterday at whoever he’d spoken to on the phone. Who could it have been then?

“Give him a minute. He’ll be over it in a sec,” Max assured me easily.

I hesitated. Did I want to go out there? Nope. But… I thought that maybe I did. Hadn’t I already learned the hard way that when something was bothering him, he shut down and retreated until he was over it? My sister Jasmine was the same way, and even with her I’d learned that sometimes the people who instinctively went with that reaction, needed someone to say “screw it” and go after them anyway.

The last thing I wanted was for Aaron to think I didn’t care about his feelings, even if I absolutely didn’t want to confront him about anything related to Hunter.

I gave Max a weary smile as I got to my feet and let out a shaky breath through my mouth before heading toward the deck. I didn’t open the doors quietly, I wanted him to know I was coming, and closed them behind me when I spotted him with his elbows on the deck railing, his fingers laced together. Even with only the light from the living room illuminating the space, I could see the tightness along his jaw and cheekbones. I could sense the rigidity in his body.

But I wasn’t about to let any of that intimidate me. Not this time.

“Are you okay?” I asked, approaching him.

He didn’t look at me. “I’m fine.”

Everything in me screamed to just go back inside. Go back inside. I didn’t want to do this. But… “I’m sure you are,” I said to him. “But I’m not.”

That had him cocking his head just enough to the side to look at me out of the corner of his eye. “Can we talk later?”

Chicken Ruby wanted to agree, but this new Ruby I wanted to be, she might have shaken and cried on the inside, but she said, “I would rather not.”

“Ruby,” he suddenly sounded exasperated. “I’m not in the mood, all right?”

“I get it. I’m not in the mood to talk about this either, but I think we should. I think I deserve to know why you’re upset.”

Aaron shook his head, his gaze straying back in the direction of the beach. “You know why I’m upset.”

“No, actually I don’t,” I told him, my voice shaking.

“You… you—” He let out a grunt like maybe he didn’t even know what he was mad about. “Everything you told me makes sense now. I told you I don’t like feeling stupid.”

Something inside of me reared up in indignation, in respect for myself, and I got all defensive again. “No one does, Aaron. I don’t like it either.”

His jaw moved just enough for me to tell he was back to side-eyeing me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know what that’s supposed to mean. I don’t like being kept in the dark about things either.”

He could have lied. He really could have. He could have played dumb. He didn’t. Instead, Aaron let out this deep breath that almost seemed like he’d been holding it for years and years and years. Some part of him seemed to deflate, but just as quickly as it had, he sucked in a fortifying breath. “Look, can we talk about this tomorrow?”

“No.” Where the heck that had come from, I had no idea, but I kept going. “No. You don’t get to push me away and choose when to talk to me about things. I care about you so much, and I’m not going back into the house so you can sit out here and stew and bottle things up. I told you something that I’ve never, ever told anyone, and I didn’t want to. I know I did something stupid, okay? You don’t need to remind me. I’ve lived with that almost every day for the last three years.

“You keep pushing me to be braver than I feel, and when I finally do, you’re just going to storm out and not talk about it and try to turn this around? I don’t think so, mister. Maybe other people will let you go and do your thing, but I’m not. Not with you,” I said to him, my voice going in and out from normal volume to a whisper as my emotions got the best of me.

“I’ve gotten to know you, and I know there’s a lot you still haven’t told me, and that’s fine. I figure one day, hopefully you’ll trust me enough to. I know a lot of people haven’t given you a reason to believe in them, but I’m not like that. I’m not one of your ex-girlfriends or anybody else. I promised you I wouldn’t lie to you, and I’m sorry I kept that from you, but I hope you understand how humiliating that was. How much it still hurts me. I can’t pretend like it doesn’t, and it kills me that you might think differently about me because of it.”

Aaron’s head lowered until his forehead touched the hands he had hanging over the ledge of the balcony. I could hear him breathing. I could sense that his tension wasn’t going anywhere, and I knew, I knew he wasn’t going to break down now. Whatever he was thinking about and getting mad over, wasn’t going to get resolved right then.

And that notion made a knot form in my throat in disappointment and resignation.

He didn’t say anything, and I had no words left to give him. So I did the only thing I was capable of then, because I wasn’t about to let myself cry. No way. I settled myself into one of the chairs closest to me and I sat there as Aaron kept standing against the rail of the balcony.

Neither one of us said another word.