When we’d finally gone down the stairs and headed toward our bedrooms, I’d thought about asking Aaron if he wanted to sleep in the room with me, but I’d chickened out and just kissed that mouth like it was the greatest chore I would gladly do every morning for the rest of my life and the next if anyone gave me the choice.
But it was the hand of his that cupped the back of my head as he tipped his mouth deeper into mine that had got me going to my tiptoes. Just as quickly as he’d leaned in, he pulled back, kissing one of my cheeks quickly.
I was a sucker. A real, real sucker.
With my head full of crap, I did my usual shower and shaving and headed upstairs, knowing that was about as far as my morning routine would go. Instead of going out on the deck like I had almost every other morning, I opened the fridge and started pulling out ingredients. I’d just finished sliding the first omelet onto a plate when the stairs squeaked with weight. Sure enough, it was Aaron, freshly showered and looking not as tired as he usually did.
But there was something there in his eyes I hadn’t seen before.
“Morning.”
“Morning, RC,” he replied in that quiet, rough voice, slowly walking toward me. “What are you making?”
“Omelets,” I said. “I already made you one. I figured you’d want two at least, right?”
His gaze flicked to the pan I had in my hand before he nodded. “Need any help?”
“No.” I looked toward the stove again. “It’s my turn this morning.”
I wasn’t going to be sad. Today was going to be a good day. A great one. One that didn’t end with me blubbering into my pillow because tomorrow I’d be flying back home.
No. Today was going to be a good day if I had anything to say about it.
“You mad at the eggs or what?” came Aaron’s amused voice.
I stopped with the whisk in my hand and looked down at the overly whipped concoction in the bowl.
He must have already been standing right by me because his hip checked mine, almost scaring the crap out of me. “Scoot over. I’ll help so you can get done faster and you can sit with me.”
So I could sit with him.
Tears prickled in the backs of my eyes and I stopped freaking blinking so they wouldn’t get any ideas about what they were going to do next. The next few minutes went by quickly, but the most memorable thing about it was avidly avoiding Aaron’s eyes as we moved around each other, making two more omelets in half the time it had taken me to make the first one.
“Who taught you how to cook?” I pretty much croaked out, knowing full well he had to have heard the hitch in my voice.
“My stepmom, ex-stepmom,” he answered. “She’d only make breakfast and dinner. If we were hungry the rest of the time, we were on our own for food. She wasn’t going to be anyone’s maid, she used to say.”
That made me smile. “My mom would say the same thing.”
I could see him try to make eye contact with me, but I couldn’t get myself to meet him halfway. I couldn’t. I knew I’d cry. I just needed… another second. Or five.
“I’ve found a few recipes on my own too, if you can believe that,” he said sarcastically.
I wasn’t in the mood for sarcasm yet, not when it felt like there was this giant chasm in my chest getting bigger by the second. “It’s hard to believe,” I replied weakly.
There was a pause. A silence. And then a sigh seconds before two arms came around me from behind, a mouth speaking against my ear, “There’s nothing to be sad about, okay? This isn’t our last day.”
I sucked in a breath and didn’t make a single sound before I whispered, “It bothers me how well you know me.”
“Tough shit.”
That had me laughing, even if it did sound watery and almost heartbroken.
“See? Everything is going to be all right. Let’s go eat our breakfast on the deck, yeah?”
And that’s exactly what we did.
“Do you think you bought enough firewood?”
Aaron snickered as he dropped the last two bundles of wood on the blanket I’d laid out when he first asked me to help him set everything up. “This is all they had,” he explained. “I’m surprised they even had this much left after the Fourth of July yesterday. Pass me four pieces, would you, stalker?”
It was my turn to snicker as I handed him what he asked for. We’d come out to the beach right after dinner, finding the spot we’d found earlier that others before us had used as a fire pit. Large heavy rocks had already been lined up in a large circle. I’d noticed that morning when we’d come out to the beach, with me in the ridiculous, large hat, that there were only about half the amount of people who had been sunbathing and swimming the day before. It’d been another painful reminder that this whole trip was coming to a close.
But I tried not to let it show on my face. I smiled at Aaron every time he’d been watching, and every time he hadn’t. I was going to eat up every moment we had left together and store it all up for when we weren’t. And then, then, I’d think about all the things he had said and all the things he had hinted at and all the things he had promised me. I just wanted to swallow up everything else in the meantime.
“Do you need help?” I asked him as he walked in a circle around the pit, looking at the center of it with a furrow between his brows.
Aaron snickered. “I know what I’m doing.”
“I didn’t say you didn’t.”
He walked directly in front of me, grazing his fingers across my cheek before stooping. “I was an Eagle Scout.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” he answered.
“It’s hard to get your badge for that, isn’t it?”
One of those brown eyes peeked at me over his shoulder. “Yeah.”
“I always wanted to be a Brownie.”
I could see him pause where he was, his hands loose in front of him as he arranged the wood into a teepee-shape. “You couldn’t?”
“No. No money. My mom didn’t have time to take me to meetings.” I wrung my hands. “She had work and night school. It was tough. Maybe one day when I’m older I can lead my own troop or something. That would be fun.”
“Your mom went to night school?” he asked, his back to me.
“Oh yeah. That’s why we were so tight. She went back to get her degree right after my dad left. She’d dropped out of college when they got married. That’s actually how they met. She was an intern at a firm he worked at. She was young and wanted to have kids. Then after that, she got her master’s; she wanted to be an auditor. She’s kind of amazing. I didn’t think of it too much when I was a kid, all I knew was that she was gone a lot and my aunt and grandpa would watch us all the time during the week. Then Saturdays were for homework and Sundays were our family day. She apologized to us a few times once we were older, but we all told her she didn’t have anything to apologize for. She busted her butt for us.”
“My dad worked all the time too, so I know what you mean, but he just likes working.”
The reminder of his dad’s work made this uneasy feeling fill my stomach. Did I play stupid or did I say something? Watching the lines of his back, I knew my answer the second I questioned it. “Aaron.”
“Yeah?”
“You know I don’t care that your dad is loaded, right?”
Slowly, slowly, he pivoted around in his crouch and stared at me.
I smiled. “I know I look pretty oblivious, but I’m not.”
“Ruby—”
“I just wish you would have told me yourself.”
His mouth opened and it gaped, the skin on his neck turning pink and getting darker as the color rode up his jawline and filled his cheeks. “I was going to. It’s just—”
I held up my hand to stop him. “It’s none of my business. I just wanted you to know that I knew is all, okay?”
I could tell Aaron was uncomfortable. Embarrassed maybe. And honestly, I could have repeated to him a dozen times that it was fine he hadn’t been upfront about his family or who owned the beach house but… why? It had hurt my feelings a little when I’d found out and put the rest of the pieces together. I understood why he’d done it. I did.
But…
He still hadn’t told me, and it made me ache a hair. Just a hair. I couldn’t cure trust issues overnight.
“Ru—”