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.