I wasn’t surprised at all when I woke up the next morning and realized I was already in a crappy mood that had nothing to do with being groggy and tired after only sleeping a handful of hours.

The night before had been exhausting, and that was keeping it simple. Aaron and I had stayed outside for over an hour, with everyone else eventually stumbling off to bed. It wasn’t until he finally took a step away from the rail that he acknowledged I was there again. His fingertips had grazed my knee as he passed by me, his gaze not once meeting mine as he headed toward the doors and shoved one open. Aaron had stood there as I got to my own feet and headed back inside, while he closed it.

When he started flicking lights off was when I finally headed downstairs and went straight into my room. I figured that if he wanted to talk, he could come to my room and say whatever he wanted to say. Except he didn’t.

Was he disappointed in me for not being a virgin or for just being a dumb kid and adult? Was he mad at me for keeping it a secret? Or was there something else going on?

I had no clue.

What I did know was that I felt exhausted even though I didn’t want to go back to sleep. I didn’t feel like I had the strength right then to sit with him in silence in case he wasn’t ready to talk. Some part of me expected that was how it would go. Hadn’t we gone two weeks without talking in the past? I only had a couple more days left here, and I didn’t want to spoil them, but I wasn’t about to apologize either.

Frustrated, I unplugged my laptop from where I’d left it charging on the floor, opened it up, plugged in my headphones and began streaming a movie through Netflix. The sun filled the room with color, but I ignored it until the credits scrolled down the screen an hour and a half later. I wasn’t hesitant opening the door to go to the bathroom with my clothes rolled up under my arm. I couldn’t hear a sound in the house, but I didn’t put any thought into it. It didn’t take me long to shower and get dressed, and I took my time putting aloe vera on my neck in my room, noticing that it was already feeling a lot better than when the hot water had initially touched it.

Feeling brave, I finally left my room with the intent of going to the living area, wanting to just get this awkwardness over with. But I hadn’t even taken a step when I heard the familiar voice talking in almost a hiss upstairs.

“I don’t understand what you’re expecting from me,” Aaron said in an angry whisper.

When there wasn’t a response, it confirmed that whoever he was talking to wasn’t someone in the house. I should have gone back into my room instead of eavesdropping, but instead, I just stood there as he kept speaking, his voice a steady, angry thrum throughout the house.

“Do you need more money, is that it?... Not more money, you just want me to let him know you’re running low, right?... Again? Running low again… How many times is this now? Five? You’ve asked five, maybe six times, to put in a good word for you and I haven’t. I don’t understand why you’d think this time I’d change my mind… I’ve told you, if you want something, call Colin. He might have some sympathy, but Paige and I won’t… What?”

There went the mention of Colin and Paige again. Was it his mom? I couldn’t think of who else it would be, especially not when there was a mention of a “him” and “more money” like there could be someone else other than his dad this could be about.

“That’s not my problem. I told you already I didn’t want to talk to you, but every single time you think I’m joking, you think I’ve changed my mind…” Aaron practically growled. “That’s never going to happen. You think I’ve forgotten how you used to cry on demand around Dad? It stopped meaning anything a long time ago. You’ve overused that card, don’t blame me.”

I didn’t need him to use the “M” word to know it was definitely his mom—his birth mom—he was speaking to. Jesus. Was she asking him for money? Who did that? And what the heck had happened to make him so mad at her?

Suddenly feeling like a little bit of a jerk for listening in on something I knew down to my bones was extremely personal for Aaron, I turned around and headed back to my room, trying to be as quiet as possible as I closed the door and leaned against it.

What was I supposed to do now?

I must have stood there for at least half an hour, playing a game on my phone before I straightened and decided to try this again. Based on the tone of voice Aaron had been using, there was no way that that conversation had lasted too much longer. I was only slightly worried as I headed up the stairs, keeping my ears peeled for any noise, but there was none. I made it halfway into the living room when I found it empty, and looking out onto the deck, I found it was empty too.

It was the bowl sitting randomly on the kitchen island that had my eyes zooming in on it. There was something that looked like a piece of paper sitting beside it. As I approached it, I could see scrambled eggs, a biscuit, and a tablespoon of jelly inside of it and everything in me stopped. My heart gave a squeeze.

And the only thing I could think of was that as pissed as he’d been, he’d still made me breakfast.

Picking up the note, I read the words scribbled on it quickly and sighed.

* * *

At some point, Aaron must have decided he was going to start staring at me again.

Because that was exactly what he was doing.

He’d been boring a hole in my direction from the moment he’d climbed up the stairs late that afternoon, looking beyond exhausted in a way I could tell wasn’t just physical. Max had braved the trip to wake him up after we’d all agreed to go out to dinner that night instead of having anyone cook. I hadn’t been sure what exactly Aaron planned on doing with the scallops, so I hadn’t signed up to make something out of them when I’d never messed with them before.

When he hadn’t come up at noon for lunch, when we usually ate, I made him a sandwich with a side of those gross salt and vinegar chips he liked and a pickle, and went downstairs to offer it up to him. He hadn’t answered when I knocked on his door lightly, and in a move there was no way I would have made months ago, I’d opened his door and peeked inside.

Sure enough, he’d been curled up on his side, facing away, sleeping soundly, not a snore, not a whistle, nothing coming out of him except the soft inhale and exhale of his breathing. So I’d left the plate of food on the dresser in front of his bed and tiptoed out, closing the door as quietly as possible. I’d spent the day watching TV, with only a thirty-minute break to walk the beach with Mindy, wearing the giant, ridiculous hat that Aaron had given me to wear the day before.

So when he’d finally come up the stairs in his slightly rumpled clothing and gone straight for the newest package of bottled water, I’d kept my eyes on him. He’d barely finished guzzling an entire bottle when those deep brown eyes moved around the room and landed on me.

And they hadn’t left me since then.

Even on the car ride to the restaurant—a new one we hadn’t gone to yet—I’d been able to see him glancing at me through the rearview mirror every few seconds. With Max and Mindy in the truck, I hadn’t been ballsy enough to ask him if he was fine. And when we were led to a table, I wasn’t sure what to do with myself, but he’d taken the decision right out of my hands when he’d pulled a chair out, gestured me toward it, and taken the seat directly beside it. The place was loud and crowded, and it shouldn’t have been surprising considering that the Fourth of July was the next day. Over to the far side of the restaurant was a small dance floor with three couples, two-stepping on it.

I could sense Aaron’s gaze on me as I scooted my chair forward and he did the same. Chancing a peek at him, I gave him a smile that was a lot weaker than any I’d given him yet, and he returned it to me, those eyes drilling into mine in this way that was completely new to me. Almost like… I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure at all, because I’d seen every man my mom had ever married look at her the same way. I’d seen my brother’s boyfriend look at my brother that way.

And Aaron wasn’t supposed to be looking at me the same. Not even close.

We all ordered and ate, with Max and Des taking ahold of the conversation about a sports team I’d never heard of. Meanwhile, I tried to collect my thoughts. Tried to plan what I could tell Aaron when he decided to talk to me again. Would we brush everything off and act like nothing had happened the night before? I wondered, bringing my fork to my mouth. I’d just closed my lips around it when I felt a hand cover my right one. The palm of Aaron’s hand covered the back of my hand, his fingers going over mine.

This was a good sign, wasn’t it?

With his free hand, he gestured to the waiter who was busy collecting Max’s empty plate. “A double please.”

“Of?” the man asked.

“Anything.”

I shot Aaron a frown as he let out a choppy exhale, his eyes now on his own mostly empty plate. If it wouldn’t have been for the weight of his hand on mine and the thumb moving along the bone that stretched from my pinky to my wrist, I would have asked him if he was fine, but I didn’t want to ruin it, as selfish as that made me.

But Aaron’s hand didn’t go anywhere even though he didn’t say anything until after the waiter had brought a glass filled with amber liquid and he’d sucked it down in record time, tossing it back like whatever was in it was water. He didn’t cough, he didn’t squirm, nothing.

I glanced over at the other end of the table to see Brittany and Des both watching him with a funny expression on their faces, and when they caught me looking at them, all I could do was lift a shoulder in a shrug, not wanting to take credit for leading Aaron to drink a double.

When the hand over mine squeezed it one more time, he leaned to the side and whispered, “Come dance with me.”

Uh. “Okay? I don’t really dance though…”

“We’ll make it work,” he said, already pulling me up to my feet, his gaze so intense, I almost started to worry.

I nodded and followed behind him as he maneuvered between tables and toward the tiny area in the back with a dance floor empty now except for a single older couple, swaying together. This wasn’t exactly the type of atmosphere I danced in when I usually did. On the rare occasion it happened, it was usually on a crowded floor at someone’s wedding or party when everyone was too hammered to pay attention to what was going on.

And this wasn’t a crowded floor.

But surprisingly, the instant that Aaron stopped at nearly the middle of the very small floor and reached out to me with both of his hands going to my waist, I stopped thinking. Stopped caring. Anyone could have been sitting there watching me and judging me and it wouldn’t have mattered in the least. With my stomach still feeling off about his reaction to everything that had been said and done over the last twenty-four hours, I was equal parts nervous and apprehensive to be so close to him.

Mostly nervous though, even as my arms went up and my hands went to his shoulders. For some reason, linking them around his neck just seemed too personal.

And Aaron must have noticed because he shuffled closer to me, so close that our fronts grazed one another’s. I’d danced with enough men in the past, friends of my brothers and distant relatives to know that this wasn’t how it was done.

I stopped breathing and asked, “What are you doing?”

For one brief moment, Aaron looked me right in the eye and then brought us even closer together, so close I could feel the side of his jaw at my temple.

I wasn’t going to overanalyze him not wanting to make eye contact and bringing us so close together there was no way this was friendly.

I wasn’t.

But I did.

Because what the hell was happening?

“What are you thinking?” I tried not to hiss but failed.

Something raspy touched my temple, and I didn’t imagine the sigh that made his chest meet mine. His voice was lower, hoarser, the words dragged and slow. “You really want to know?”

Did I? “Not if it’s something bad,” I told him, just barely loud enough for him to hear me over the music, people’s voices, and the tinkling of plates and silverware.

He made this chuffing sound that could have been a single laugh on the verge of tears. “Ruby girl…”

It was pathetic, but I pressed my forehead tighter in to him, knowing I had no right to, knowing I shouldn’t because there were a hundred reasons why this was a terrible idea, yet somehow making my grip more possessive, stronger. “Why are we so close together?”

“Because.” One of the hands at my waist tightened. “I want to.”

I stuttered. “Why?”

“Ruby,” was all he said.

Did he feel bad for me? Did he think I was an idiot? Was he doing this because he thought—

There were tears lurking in my eyeballs, all pathetic and too easy to trigger. But I still told him, “I don’t want you to think I was stupid.” I sniffled and felt tears clinging to my eyelashes. “I already beat myself up enough about it over the years. I know how dumb I was. I never planned on telling anyone because… I’d never met anyone I would want to tell. Until you.”

I felt his whole body go hard. I felt tension fill one muscle after another in his incredible body. I felt him tip his face down and felt the breath out of his mouth hit the shell of my ear. The hands on my hips contracted even more and Aaron pulled me in closer, so close even I knew without a doubt that was something friends didn’t do. Ever. They didn’t have one zipper meeting another zipper. Friends with beautiful faces that you were in love with didn’t croak into your ear, “You’re not stupid. I don’t think that you’re stupid or dumb or pathetic, you understand me? Not even a little.” The fingers around my waist gave me an even tighter squeeze, and I was sure his lips brushed my forehead as we stood there, an unmoving island in this world. “I hate you thinking that of yourself, because you’re not.”

And then he repeated for good measure, “You are not, Ruby.” His chest pressed closer to mine on another inhale and he said, “You’re the opposite of all those things. Every single one. You’re smart, you’re funny, you’re talented…” That mouth went to my temple again and just stayed there, whispering words directly into me. “You think I’ve forgotten about you and you’re ‘just Ruby’ shit?”

I just about choked.

And he kept going, oblivious. “You’re beautiful, Ru. And you’re sweet and kind. You’re all those things you don’t think you are… all those things you think everyone else in your family is, and more. I didn’t understand why you couldn’t see that in yourself, but I get it now.”

With all the questions bouncing around in my head, I could only focus on one. He got it now?

“I wasn’t thinking anything bad about you, RC.” He continued speaking in that low voice. “I’m not mad at you. Most of what I’ve been thinking about is how I’m going to beat that piece of shit’s ass the first chance I get for what he did to you, and nothing you do or say will talk me out of it.”

I stopped breathing again.

“And I was thinking you messed up, like most of us do, being with somebody who you ended up regretting,” he explained.

I guess I’d never thought about it like that. Then again, it was rare I ever let myself think about that. It was one of the lowest points of my life.

“Mostly though, Rubes, I want to go back in time and beat every single person’s ass who’s ever made you doubt yourself, because the girl who makes me smile ‘til my face hurts even on a shit day needs to see that in herself. I feel like I owe it to you.”

Aaron kissed my temple, and I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t get my cells to move.

My legs were weak.

And if that wasn’t enough, he kept going. He kept going. “I was a goner from the first time you gave me hell.” Aaron smiled. “Maybe even before then.”

I was going to pass out. Right here on this crappy dance floor, I was just going to faint. And I highly doubted anyone had smelling salts.

I honestly couldn’t do a single thing but just… stand there, and that was just barely. Because my knees… they had turned into jello.

That hand that had held mine countless times over the last few days came up and Aaron brushed at my cheek with his thumb. I heard him gulp. Heard him breathe. I felt him over the entire length of my body. “You are so goddamn special, Ruby. I’ll tell you every day if I have to.”

I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t. It was taking an act of nature to even keep myself standing. “Okay.” I gulped as my mind reeled, reality and just everything settling down enough for me to put the pieces back together. Then I stopped moving and raised my head so I could meet his eyes as I opened and closed my mouth. “Wait a second.”

He raised a blond eyebrow, his facial features a mix of hope and nerves. Nerves. Coming from Aaron. What was going on?

“I don’t understand,” I told him slowly, still processing everything, forcing myself to back up a second.

“What don’t you understand?” he asked easily, a partial smile on his features.

I squinted. “What do you mean?”

“What do you mean what do I mean?”

I blinked. “Do you…?” I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t say it, but I needed to. Had to. The words came out of me in syllables, a blush rising to my face at the fact that I was even about to ask this because it seemed so unreal. “Do you like me? Is that what you’re trying to say?”

He squeezed my hip, his gaze intent. “Yes.”

My entire world went hazy as I got out, with more hope than I ever could have dreamed, “As more than a friend?”

All of Aaron’s facial features gentled and dropped, even his shoulders seemed to slump a little, those mahogany eyes boring right into mine, capturing them and not letting them go as he said one word and only one word, “Yes.”

It was a miracle my mouth didn’t just drop open so I’d gape at him.

“As a lot more than just a friend,” he clarified like his “yes” hadn’t been enough. His voice sounded watery and a little unsure, and it… it wrecked me.

I felt like… everything was a lie. Like I knew nothing. Like everything I thought I knew was BS. Skepticism I didn’t even know I was capable of seemed to drip from my words as I looked up at him in 1000 percent confusion. “But you… you said….” Aaron liked me? I couldn’t even wrap my head around the “Aaron” part of the sentence, let alone the rest of it. “You said I was like your sister,” I pretty much accused him.

He made a groaning noise deep in his throat, his gaze never straying. “Not even a little, Rube,” he replied. “I was drunk, and I’d been…” He swallowed and shook his head. “I’d been having a real hard time trying to talk myself out of thinking about you like that, but it didn’t work.”

That time, I’m pretty sure I did fail at keeping my mouth closed.

I must have because Aaron’s smile grew a fraction and he dipped his head closer until his nose touched my forehead. “At first, you really were just a nice stranger. Then you were my friend, and I really did want you to be happy and do your thing,” he explained softly. “And then it changed. The next thing I knew, you were telling me about some dick kissing you and it pissed me off more than anything ever had before.”

“But… but… but…” I sputtered, my pulse going crazy, my breath getting thick, my mind swimming against the current. “But you… but I… but—”

His laugh was low. “Ru.”

Jerking my head back, I glared up at him, unsure about how the hell I was feeling. He liked me. He liked me? I wasn’t ready for this. It was what I wanted, what I should have wanted, but… “Aaron, why are you telling me this?”

That had him blinking. “Because I need to. I want you to know.”

“But why?”

“Because you make me happy, Ruby. Because there’s no one else I want to be around more.”

In any other circumstance, I might have fainted, but I didn’t. Every piece of my sanity was going nuts, and I couldn’t line everything up and put it back in order yet. Not while I had a thousand questions and insecurities bouncing around in my head. “But you don’t…,” I stammered, trying to think of why I would be ruining this moment and then remembering. “This was a real crappy idea.”

His eyelids hung so low over his irises I almost couldn’t see them. “Why’s that?” he asked slowly.

“Because I’m crazy about you too, but this wouldn’t work out. I think I might have rather not known,” I told him honestly.

“Why is this a bad idea? Why wouldn’t it work?” he whispered almost cautiously.

“Because!” I hissed at him.

“Because what?”

“Because you know I want to get married someday,” I told him quickly. “And you don’t.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“But mostly because you don’t want to tell me things for whatever reason,” I responded, almost quietly. “I care about you so much… I love you, Aaron, but I don’t want to get shut out. I told you yesterday. Every time I ask you something you don’t want to answer, you don’t. You tell me almost everything, I think, but the things you don’t….” I shrugged. “I don’t want you to be alone. I want you to know I’m here, even if it’s just as a friend. But I can’t love you when you just brood about things and bury them inside you. I get how it is, I get there’s a lot you don’t want to tell me because I wouldn’t understand, but I’m sure there’s a lot of stuff where that isn’t the case.”

Aaron stared down at me for so long, I thought I’d made him change his mind, and I wanted to believe I would have been all right with that because I didn’t want to be with someone who held so much back from me. That wouldn’t be fair. But finally, finally, one palm left my waist and cupped the back of my head, gently coaxing it forward until my cheek rested against his pectoral. Aaron hugged me to him, his chest expanding greatly beneath me. His words were soft. “I’m sorry, Ru. You’re right. I shouldn’t. I’ve told you almost everything. What do you want to know?”

There were multiple things, I knew there were. And I was glad he wasn’t pretending like there was just one. So I picked the big one, the one that had been turning my stomach for days, and I asked.

“Who’s been calling the house making you mad?”

I felt his sigh beneath my cheek. “My birth mom.”

“What happened?”

He sighed again, the hand on the back of my head slid down my spine to land on my waist. “She’s been calling since she knows I’m back in the States,” he explained. “We don’t…. All right, I don’t like to talk to her or about her, I’m sorry. I’m sure you can tell from our messages. She left when I was little. She cheated on my dad. I remember her saying how unhappy she was. How it had been him that wanted kids and she was the one stuck at home raising us while he worked all the time. How we weren’t what she’d wanted out of her life.

“One day, she just upped and left. We didn’t hear from her or see her for the next six years, until I was thirteen. The only reason she tried to come back was to ask for more money than she’d gotten in the divorce. I hadn’t even known they’d gotten divorced, you know?”

I squeezed my eyes closed and nodded into him, focusing on the arms at my sides.

“About ten years ago, she came back again, claiming she’d found religion again and said she wanted to have a relationship with us. She talked my brother Colin into it, but Paige and I didn’t fall for her shit. We know how things are with her. She only comes around when she wants something from my dad, mostly money, once a car. She’s been calling the house, and I know that’s what she’s working up to, and it just… it pisses me off, Ruby. It messes with my head. She broke my dad when she left. She….” He let out another breath. “But he got over it and moved on and… some days, I still can’t.”

I knew what it was like to not have two parents around at the same time, but my dad had always been a call away. Always. “I’m sorry, Aaron.”

He shrugged in front of me. “I’m sorry for not telling you. I don’t talk about it. Her. You know what I mean.”

“I might have not wanted to tell you either,” I admitted to him. “I’m sorry she’s like that though.”

“I told you, the crazy ones like me. It runs in the family,” he said, almost like he was trying to make a joke.

“I’m not crazy and I like you,” I told him, trying to sound like I was joking when I really wasn’t.

Aaron pulled me in close to him again, his mouth lowering so that he could speak directly into my ear. “You’re not crazy. You’re the best, and you deserve better than me, but I hope you don’t care.”

I was not going to have a panic attack or much less faint. Not me. Not me. Maybe I’d just slide to the floor, worst case. This is not a dream, I told myself. I repeat, this is not a dream. You are awake.

I didn’t want to believe him. I really didn’t. But…

“You think I’d do for anybody else what I do for you?” he asked, reminding me that he’d always been able to read my mind.

I was no match. Maybe it made me naïve that I wanted to believe he cared about me so much, but I didn’t care. I didn’t. I didn’t need to think about the way he was with me to know it was real.

Because I knew what it was like when it wasn’t real, and this wasn’t it. Not even close. It was as far from being fake as you could get.

Because this was Aaron.

“You’re sure?” I whispered.

His “hmm” was rumbled into my hair.

“For sure-for sure?”

He chuckled into my hair, roughly. “For sure.”

“I need to make sure I’m not misunderstanding this, okay?” I asked, almost croaking, and he laughed again, all low and sexy and almost confident, nodding. “Don’t laugh. I’m being serious.”

“Okay.” He still chuckled, his hands flexing at my waist. “I’m sorry for not telling you things, RC. I really am. You’re the only person I’ve ever wanted to tell things to.” Aaron pulled away from me just enough so he could look down and I could look up at him. “I know I told you I don’t know about marriage and all that, but…” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “The idea of you being with somebody else… even just texting them… him… even before I saw your face or heard your voice, Rube… I don’t want you with anybody else. You’re my Ruby, and you have been for a long time.”

There was no doubt in my mind I swooned. Hard. My sister Tali would have smacked me in the face, and Jasmine would have told me to grow up. Maybe I should have questioned this more. Maybe I should have thought about this more, but I wasn’t going to. I knew what I felt. I could sense what Aaron felt. What more did I need?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

“Does that mean you want to kiss me?” I just went and blurted out.

He didn’t vocally laugh, but I could sense the vibrations coming from his chest before he said, grinning down at me, “Uh-huh.”

He wanted to kiss me. Aaron wanted to kiss me.

“Not as a friend?” I clarified.

“Not as a friend,” he confirmed, amusement tingeing his words.

“Are you telling me this because you know I’m not a virgin now?”

There was a pause. He froze again. And then the next thing I knew, Aaron had dipped his face into my neck, over my hair. And he was laughing, laughing, as he kissed where my throat would be, and everything in me just went nuts. “No,” I thought he said. “I was going to tell you at some point. Tomorrow I think. You’re just always rushing me.”

I snorted even as I felt like I was falling into quicksand, into this place I didn’t know what to do in.

Aaron liked me? Aaron. Liked. Me?

I guess the signs had been there.

And still… “What are we supposed to do now?”

His chuckle was soothing, his palm going to the small of my back as those brown eyes stared into mine with more love and affection than I knew what to do with. “Whatever you want, RC. Keep doing what we’ve been doing. We’ll figure it out.”