I nodded.
I followed him back into the house, watching as he dropped our plates off in the sink, before turning to me with that easygoing expression that somehow looked like he knew something I didn’t. He looked really tired. We headed down the stairs, skipping the second landing and continued on down. If he wasn’t going to stop for shoes, neither was I.
When we made it to the bottom floor, Aaron stepped forward first, unlocking the door and swinging it open with a, “Rubies first” that had me holding back a smile that would for sure tell him how much I liked him.
I hadn’t noticed the day before, but the driveway outside of the door was graveled, not paved, and the small rocks nipped at my bare feet. Aaron didn’t comment as he closed the door behind us, slipping his long fingers through mine, and casually said, “Let’s run for it.”
Run for where, I had no clue, but when his hand tugged, I took off running beside him, dashing into the street between the houses and going slightly to the right where there was a path of wooden planks between an aqua blue home and a cream-colored monstrosity. I didn’t notice what temperature the wood was, or worry about splinters, all I felt was the sand that had been spread over the path over time and the feel of Aaron’s warm fingers.
It wasn’t the Caribbean, but the water was beautiful, especially in the oncoming sunrise. White sand snuck up between my toes and over the tops of my feet as Aaron led us to the right. There were probably twenty umbrellas anchored into the sand within a fifty-foot stretch of beach, all of them spaced apart with beach chairs settled beneath them.
We didn’t go to any of those. Instead, Aaron led us almost to the edge of the water, just before the sand became thick, damp and cool. Almost gracefully, he lowered himself until his butt hit the ground, his hand letting go of mine as he did it. He raised those brown eyes to me and made them wide as he propped his hands behind him. “You want to sit down, or are you going to keep panting standing up?”
I scoffed and fought the urge to kick sand at him before I flopped down just like he had. “We don’t all run ten miles a day.”
“Or one mile,” he muttered, angling his hips just enough so that he was facing me and the water at the same time, the side of his foot moving just enough so that it brushed my own.
“Ha, ha.”
He grinned. “I thought it’s good for people with heart problems to do cardio?”
“I don’t have a heart problem anymore,” I reminded him. “And I like to go for walks—”
He coughed.
“—long walks, thank you very much.”
“Long walks,” he repeated. “And kickboxing.”
I nodded at him. “I took a Zumba class three times a week for three months once.”
He blinked. “What’s Zumba?”
It was my turn to blink at him. “You dance to exercise.”
The way he stared at me blankly made me snort.
“It was harder than you think,” I said, earning a smirk from that mouth that I purposely hadn’t thought about.
“I’ll take your word for it.”
I snickered, and before I knew what I was doing, I moved my foot to the side until it bumped with the side of his. “Are you still going to run now that you’re back?” I asked.
He shrugged as his eyes swung toward the water. “Not as much. It relaxes me, but I don’t love it.”
What he meant too was that he had better things to occupy his time with than running just to make the day go by faster. That was one of the things I tried not to worry about with our friendship once his life got back to normal. About how he’d forget about me. Make less time to sit on his computer and chat… and then, eventually, he’d be gone, living his life. And if I was lucky, he might think of me once a month or once every other month and shoot me an e-mail. As time went on—
I was being a selfish jerk, wasn’t I? Worrying about things I couldn’t control? Expecting everyone to be like everyone else that had used me for something and then forgotten I existed?
“I like going for bike rides more,” he admitted, breaking my thoughts when he nudged my toes with his sand-covered ones.
That had me perking up. “Mountain biking?”
“Yeah.” He smiled. “You mountain bike?”
I shook my head. “No, but it’s always sounded like fun. There aren’t any mountains or hills in Houston. There are two trails that I know of, but they’re usually packed with people because there’s nowhere else for them to go. I’d be too scared to start there.”
“There are lots of trails in Kentucky,” he told me, giving me a little smile that sent my heart doing pit-pats it had no business doing.
“What kind of bike do you have?”
“A Yeti.”
“Never heard of it. I still have my Huffy from when I was a kid.”
I could tell by the creases at the corners of his eyes that Aaron was biting back a smile. “I bet you’d still fit on your kid-sized Huffy.”
That got me side-eyeing him. “I know a lot of people shorter than me, thank you.”
“Oh yeah?” He raised an eyebrow like he didn’t believe me, which chances were, he didn’t.
I nodded sarcastically. “Yeah.”
“Where do you know them from?” he asked, those eyebrows still up. “From the Shire?”
The laugh that busted out of me had me tipping my head back and literally setting my foot totally on top of his as I reached over to poke him hard in the side. Aaron captured my hand as he laughed too. “I’m going back to the house,” I whined when I could finally catch my breath.
“No you’re not,” he quipped, squeezing my fingers before slowly letting them go.
He smiled at me and I smiled at him, and I felt… I felt something. In my heart. On my skin. On my fingers and toes. Along my spine. It wasn’t a tingling. It wasn’t some earth-shattering sensation. It was something I wasn’t totally sure of, but it was enough for my smile to grow wider.
Then he said, “I’m really glad you came, Ruby,” and I didn’t know my mouth could go so wide.
“I’m glad too.” Sliding my foot off his, I didn’t stop smiling. “I’m sorry for freaking out yesterday and then being so hot and cold.”
“I told you. Don’t apologize. It was fine.”
Clasping my hands on my lap in front of me, I shrugged. “It could’ve been better. I feel bad not talking to your friends more. I don’t want them to think I’m stuck-up or anything.”
It was the tightening at his jaw that told me he didn’t like something about what I’d said. “Somebody thought you were stuck-up before?”
“Once or twice, but I’m just quiet until I feel comfortable around complete strangers, you know? That’s all.”
His eyes bounced from one of mine to the next, his features still taut, and I could tell he was processing my words before he slowly let out a breath. His words were low again, understanding, so freaking Aaron. “I know, Ru. You’re not. They won’t think you’re stuck-up.”
“I hope not.”
His smile was so soft I genuinely felt like it didn’t matter what they thought as long as he liked me. But I couldn’t think like that. “Don’t worry.” He gestured toward the rolling waves lapping close to our feet. “Look, it’s about to come up any second now. Watch.”
We sat there on the edge of the water, with his foot directly beside mine, that long upper body lined with lean muscles within touching distance if I really stretched to the side, and we watched the sun rise directly in front of us. Blue, purple, lavender, orange, red, and so, so yellow in a few places it made my heart hurt. I’d been a lot of places, but watching the sun rise that morning—because I’d never been awake early enough to watch it before—was something I couldn’t forget. It felt like an awakening. Like nothing I had ever seen and everything I had, all rolled into one single, unforgettable event.
And when Aaron asked, “It’s beautiful, huh?” I told him the one and only truth I had.