Raina worked on Monday, but on Tuesday morning, she got a call from Aaron and he asked her to take the day off and spend it with him. She was glad to do it, and she was able to shift her schedule so that she could.
She’d been so wrapped up in Michael that little else had gotten through to her, and she wanted to be there for Aaron when he needed her. She told him that there was a farmer’s market in Los Altos that afternoon that she loved to go to when she could, and she thought it would be fun for them to enjoy it that day. He told her he thought it was a brilliant idea, and an hour later, he was at her front door with a fresh hot coffee for each of them, ready to go with her.
They got into her car and he laughed when he heard the radio station that she was listening to.
“This is great! I love this song. We used to sing this together in college, do you remember?” he grinned, looking over at her in delight.
“I do remember. This station plays a lot of songs from that time, so I like to listen to as much as I can. It’s one of my favorites!”
She began to sing along with the song on the radio, and Aaron sang with her, as they cruised down the highway with the windows down, the warm California breeze blowing in around them, and the sun shining down.
They managed to sing every song that came on, and even after they parked the car in the little town center of Los Altos, they finished the song before she turned the car off, and they got out laughing and reminiscing about the music they listened to and the concerts they had gone to together when they were in college.
“Doesn’t it seem like it was just yesterday?” she asked, walking side by side with him past the small shops, under the trees filled with rust and gold colored leaves.
“College? Absolutely it does. I love autumn, but half the time I wake up in a little panic, feeling like I should be checking a schedule and getting to a class or something like that. Doesn’t it feel like that to you once in a while?” he looked at her with a light grin.
“It does. Autumn always makes me think of school. I love it, too.”
She grinned back, sliding her arm into his and walking with him down the little street to the farmers’ market that would go all day. They found everything from freshly harvested fruits and vegetables, to beautiful bouquets of flowers and raw honey straight from the beekeeper.
Aaron stopped in front of one tent where the proprietor was selling stir fried garden vegetables and meat. He took a small sample cup from the vendor and took a few bites, smiling to himself. He turned and looked at Raina and laughed a little.
“You know what I really miss?” he asked thoughtfully.
She took a bite and savored the deliciousness of it. “What?” she asked when she had swallowed it.
“Remember when we used to have our themed dinners, and everyone would show up once a week, ready for whatever theme it was that we were doing? We had Japanese dinners and we’d play Japanese music, eat Japanese food, drink green tea, everyone came in kimonos, we had Japanese flowers… and then s’mores afterward. Those weren’t really Japanese….” He trailed off and raised his brows as he laughed.
“Mexican night… Thai night… Caribbean night…” she mused happily.
“Oh… the plantains were so good! And the margaritas!” Aaron laughed as they began to stroll again. “I think everyone showing up on Greek night in togas with anything Greek they could find was pretty funny.”
“The baklava!” She laughed, sliding her arm back into Aaron’s as they walked. “How many hours did you and I slave over that baklava in my tiny kitchen, and it was a disaster in the end, and then Katie showed up with a big container of it anyway and saved us?”
Tears formed in her eyes as she thought back to it, laughing even more as Aaron laughed, until they were leaning on each other, crying through their tears. When they could finally catch a breath, and they both had wiped away the few tears on their cheeks, they began to walk again and Raina steered them toward an ice cream stand.
She reached into her pocket for some cash and Aaron waved his hand at her. “No, I’ve got it.” He treated them and the merchant handed their cones to them.
“What did you get?” he asked, looking at hers curiously.
“Pralines, caramel, and chocolate,” she answered, peering at his. “What did you get?”
“Strawberries and cream,” he answered with a smile. The ice cream almost matched the pink in his cheeks from their fits of laughter. His light eyes were shining.
“I haven’t seen you this happy in a really long time, Aaron,” Raina said pleasantly. “I’m so glad that we took this time here today.”
He was quiet a moment and watched her. “I haven’t been this happy in a long time. I’m really glad that we did this, too. No one makes me smile like you do. It’s always been that way.”
“That’s because I’m your best friend and that’s what best friends do. May I please have a bite of your ice cream?” she asked as her smile turned into a grin.
He held the cone out to her. “I’ll trade you bites,” he answered.
She held her cone out to him and they each took a bite of the other’s, but when Raina had her bite in her mouth, Aaron dabbed his ice cream on the tip of her nose and she looked up at him in surprise.
“Gotcha.” He teased her and began to eat his own ice cream.
She blinked at him and began to laugh. “This is a fight you don’t want to start!” she warned him in a teasing tone.
He shrugged. “I already started it. Besides, that little dab of pink ice cream on your nose looks cute.”
She just looked at him and shook her head, and he came close to her, laughing softly. He reached up with his free hand and held her cheek gently, and balancing his ice cream cone carefully in his other hand, he pinched a napkin in his fingers and wiped away the ice cream from her nose.
As he stood there so close to her, his hand on her face, his body so near hers, she felt butterflies begin to dance in her, and without thinking about it or wondering why, she looked from his green eyes to his lips; red and curved and an urge rose up in her to lean forward and kiss him. She had never felt that urge with him before, and it surprised her, drawing everything in her like a magnet toward him.
He lowered his hand from her nose and looked into her eyes then, and a breathless moment passed between them. He seemed as if he wanted to say something, gazing into her eyes as silence surrounded them, but then he pulled his hand from her cheek and the corners of his mouth turned up a little.
“I got it all.”
He looked away and took a deep breath. She watched him, stunned by what had just happened between them, wondering incredulously at it. She stared at him and he turned and gave her a nod.
“You’d better eat all of that before it melts.”
Aaron wrapped his arm around her shoulders and began to walk with her, and she focused on her ice cream, trying to think through what she had felt and wanted.
“Do you remember how we met?” he asked, looking over at her and breaking the quietness between them.
“Yeah, I do. You were in theater, directing a play and I was auditioning for one of the roles. You passed me by for someone else for the role, and you felt so guilty about it, that you came and found me and told me why you did it. You wanted to be sure that I was okay.” She smiled as she remembered it.
“You weren’t the right person for that role, but you’re right, I did want to make sure that you were okay.” He smiled as he thought back to it, and took another bite of his ice cream.
“Did you go and tell all of your other failed auditioners that they didn’t get their roles either?” she teased, eyeing him with a sidelong glance.
He shook his head. “Nope.”
“Why did you come and tell me?” she asked curiously, watching him as they walked slowly past more booths.
He was quiet and thoughtful for a moment. “I could see that you were different… special. I wanted to make sure that you were okay, and I wanted to know if we could be friends. I liked you.”
She grinned. “I liked you, too. Right away. You made me laugh, and from that moment forward, I wanted to be friends with you, too. We have been, haven’t we? Through all of it? All that life can throw at you, it seems like.”
He nodded. “Yes indeed, especially this whole thing with Cathy.”
Raina frowned slightly. “You know, I was there for all of it, and I remember meeting her, too, for the first time. I haven’t ever said this before but, I never understood why you married her. I mean, she was the only girl that you dated in college, and then you married her. Why didn’t you date anyone else?”
She looked at him curiously, giving voice to a question that had hovered at the back of her mind for a long time.
He looked away and shrugged, and spoke quietly. “There was one girl that I really wanted to be with, but I knew that she probably didn’t want to be with me like that… it just… the timing was off, I guess. I never would have married Cathy if I had ever gotten the nerve up to go for the girl I really wanted, but I missed my chance.
“Cathy decided that she wanted me, and she came after me and wasn’t going to let me go… at least not back then, and since I couldn’t have the girl I wanted, I guess I thought I might as well be with the girl who wanted me. That was Cathy. Of course, we can see now what a poor decision that was.” He shrugged and finished his ice cream.
Raina pursed her lips. “You can’t say that. You couldn’t have known then that she was going to leave you for another woman. You thought she had her whole world wrapped around you. She did… actually, it was kind of annoying, to be honest, but I thought that it would work out. I hoped it would. I wanted you to be happy.”
She frowned a little. “I didn’t know there was another girl that you liked in college. You never said anything. Who was it? Do I know her?” she asked, looking at him.
Aaron blushed and looked away, waving his hand dismissively. “It was a hundred years ago. It doesn’t matter now. Besides, it doesn’t matter what didn’t happen then, what matters is that you and I have still have each other, and we will always have each other, and I wouldn’t trade that for anyone or anything.”
She grinned at him and hugged him tight, and he held her close to him and nestled his face in close to her neck for a long moment, and she heard him breathe her in.
“Come on, let’s get another coffee,” he said quietly. He took her arm in his and walked down the street toward a café.
Raina thought back and wondered who it was that had captured Aaron’s heart all those years before, but she couldn’t remember everyone they had gone to school with, and by the time they were ordering their coffee, she had forgotten all about it.
They left the café and sat outside on a bench beneath a tree. He looked at her closely and changed the subject of their conversation. “How are things going with Michael?”
She nodded. “Things are going well. I really enjoy being around him. There have been some strange things… he got kind of quiet, like I told you, and pulled away, and then I found out that he is raising a teenage girl, and that was really weird for me, but I’m kind of… coming to terms with that. But, other than that, I guess we’re okay. He’s back to the way that he was before, you know… attentive and wanting to talk to me and go places with me, so I guess we’re okay and everything is fine now.”
He stared at her. “He’s raising a teenage girl? Did he not mention that to you at any point?”
She turned and looked at him with a smile of agreement. “See? That’s what I thought, too, when I found out. He should have mentioned that to me. I mean, I get it that we’re keeping our personal lives sort of out of the arrangement, but I felt like that was something that he could have told me about. She’s not his daughter, though… she’s a girl he knows through some acting group, and he thought she had a difficult life, so he took her in and now he’s raising her.”
Aaron frowned. “Really.” He was quiet for a minute. “How old is she?”
“She’s seventeen. Cutest girl… very smart and sweet. I liked her when I met her, but… it’s just a strange circumstance.” Raina frowned a little, too, and took a long pull of coffee from her cup.
He nodded. “Yes, it is. How is he with her?”
One word seared itself into Raina’s mind the instant that Aaron asked her the question. “Protective. He’s protective of her, and very close to her.”
“Huh,” Aaron replied thoughtfully. “Well, I guess whatever works for them… as long as you’re happy. That’s all that matters to me. Are you happy?” he asked, turning and looking at her.
She smiled at him and took his hand in hers. “I am. Thank you. I wish you were, too,” she admitted in a sweet voice.
He stood up and she got up with him, and they began to walk together again. “I’m happy anytime I get to be with you.”
They spent most of the day enjoying the farmers’ market and shops in Los Altos, and later that afternoon they drove back to San Francisco together. She parked in her driveway and they got out of her car.
Aaron hugged her goodbye, holding her close against him a while, and she hugged him in return.
Finally, he lifted his head and gazed at her, his eyes steady on hers. “Thank you so much. You were exactly what I needed. This day was perfect.” He leaned close to her then, and pressed his lips softly to hers, lingering in his kiss a moment before letting her go.
She felt warmth flood all through her as if a dam had been released, and she closed her fingers a little tighter around his arms as she held him, steadying herself as she grew a little breathless. He studied her closely a moment, and then reached up and touched her cheek with the tip of his finger.
“I need to go. I’ll talk to you soon. I love you. Thank you again for today.”
Raina nodded and somehow a smile found its way through the confusion she felt, to her face. “I love you, too, and thank you. I loved being with you today. It was so much fun, and I needed it, too.”
He let her go and a strange sensation washed over her; as if coolness had replaced warmth, and she didn’t want him to leave, but she didn’t say anything. Instead, she watched as he got into his car and gave her a wave, backing out of her driveway and turning down the street. She watched until his car was gone, and then she frowned a little and ran her fingertip over her full lips where his mouth had just left hers.
He had never kissed her on the mouth before, except at Christmas under the mistletoe twice. Once at a party when they were both at in college, and once right before he started dating Cathy. She was amazed at the feelings and sensations that were rolling through her, and she walked silently back into her house, closing the door behind her, and wondering at it all.
It was another half an hour before she reached into her purse and pulled out her cell phone. She was surprised at herself. She hadn’t thought of her cell phone or of Michael or texting him all day. It was completely out of the norm for her, and it caught her off guard when she realized it. She had been so wrapped up in Aaron all day, that the only time that Michael had crossed her mind was when Aaron had asked her about him. She was amazed that it had been that way, and she looked to see if she had any messages from Michael.
There were three from him, and she smiled a little to see them. They were steamy texts. He had been thinking of her, and he was wishing that they were somewhere alone where he could do all sorts of naughty things to her. She looked at the messages and a hollow feeling took over her heart.
It was as if she had sat with a bowl of frosting and eaten the whole thing until she had made herself sick. There was no substance; there was no cake with the frosting to give it foundation and balance, it was just sugar. Hot sweet sugar from Michael, and she was surprised that she hadn’t noticed the feeling before, but after having spent an entire day in Aaron’s company, the sexy texts from Michael seemed transparent and hollow, and she didn’t feel like answering him back the way that she knew he wanted her to.
Instead, she sent a different kind of text. ‘Sorry, phone was off. I was busy today. Just got these.’
A little while later, he texted her back. ‘Hope you had a good day. Missed you! You’re my favorite pleasant distraction.’
She smiled. She liked the idea of being anyone’s favorite. She texted him in return, ‘I missed you, too.’
He answered a few minutes later with a steamy suggestive text, and the two of them spent the rest of the night going back and forth, teasing and flirting with each other. She was amazed at the way he somehow brought out such a different, passionate part of her that she never knew was there. An uninhibited, adventurous, wild side that she knew she never would have discovered without him. It made her feel vibrant and alive, and while it didn’t feel like there was much substance, she was fascinated with the fire he so easy drew up in her.
Raina was sitting at her computer the next morning when Willow came in to bring her a file on a new startup company that she was considering investing in. Raina looked up at her and gave her a serious look.
“Let me ask you a question…” she began, her eyes narrowed thoughtfully.
Willow sat before her. “Shoot!” she smiled.
“I’ve been thinking about what’s going on with Michael, and I’ll be honest… I’ve started to wonder if maybe there could be something a little more between us than just the affair.” Raina bit at her lower lip.
Willow’s eyes widened. “Are you falling for him?”
Raina shrugged and glanced away for a moment, and then looked back at her assistant. “I think I might be, but I have been fighting that. I don’t want to fall for him; that’s not part of our deal, but there’s just something about him. He’s bringing out aspects of me that I didn’t even know were there, and I just wonder… if there was more between us, would it be even better than it is now?”
Willow pressed her lips together thoughtfully. “I’d say that you should talk with him about it. I mean, a relationship… a real relationship where you’re both committed to each other, is a two part, two-way street, right? So, if you’re thinking about changing that between the two of you, then you need to talk to him about it and get his side of things. Get his take. See if that’s something that he wants as well, because if it’s just you, then toss it out the window and forget about it, but if he thinks it might be a good idea, too, then it might happen. You should just talk with him about it.”
“Yes, I should. You’re absolutely right about all of that, Will,” Raina answered as thoughts of her and Michael discussing it began to blaze through her mind.
“There’s just one thing, though…” Willow added in a serious tone.
Raina looked back at her. “What’s that?”
Willow leaned forward, her eyes intent on Raina’s. “He’s got a kid. You didn’t want a family. You’d be starting something with a man who is raising a teenage girl. Now, granted, this girl is seventeen and she might take off when she turns eighteen, or whatever, who knows how long she will live with him, but there is definitely that to consider. He’s not a single guy on his own; he’s a package deal. Think about that before you make a decision. Talk with him, too, but think about that while you’re considering all of it.”
Raina nodded in agreement. “Always thinking logically… thank you, Willow. I appreciate it.”