“I’m jealous of your relationship with Bella. I don’t have that many friends from high school I’m still that close with.”
“We’ve been friends since we were seven years old,” I say. “I barely have a childhood memory she’s not a part of.”
“You’re protective of her,” he says. It’s not a question.
“Yes. She’s my family.”
“I’m glad someone is looking out for her. You know, besides me.” He tries for a smile.
“I know you are,” I say. “It wasn’t you. She’s just dated people who didn’t really put her first. She falls in love quickly.”
“I don’t,” he says. He clears his throat. The moment stretches out to the horizon. “I mean, I haven’t, in the past.”
I know what he’s saying—what he’s hesitant to say now, even to me. He’s in love with her. My best friend. I look over at him, and his eyes are fixed out on the ocean.
“Do you surf?” he asks me.
“Really?”
He turns back to me. He wears a sheepish expression. “I thought I might be embarrassing you with this bleeding heart.”
“You weren’t,” I say. “I think I brought it up.” I walk a few paces down to the water’s edge. Aaron joins me. “No,” I say. “I don’t surf.” There are no surfers out there right now, but it’s late. The real ones are usually gone by 9 a.m. “Do you?”
“No, but I always wanted to. I didn’t grow up around the ocean. I was sixteen before I went to the beach for the first time.”
“Really? Where are you from?”
“Wisconsin,” he says. “My parents weren’t big travelers, but when we went on vacation it was always to the lake. We rented this house on Lake Michigan every summer. We’d stay there for a week and just live on the water.”
“Sounds nice,” I say.
“I’m trying to convince Bella to go with me in the fall. It’s still one of my favorite places.”
“She’s not much of a lake girl,” I say.
“I think she’d like it.”
He clears his throat. “Hey,” he says. “Thanks for earlier. I don’t really ever talk about my mom.”
I look down at my feet. “It’s okay,” I say. “I get it.”
The water comes up to greet us.
Aaron jumps back. “Shit, that’s cold,” he says.
“It’s not that bad; it’s August. You don’t even want to know what it feels like in May.”
He hops around for another moment and then stops, staring at me. All at once, he kicks up the retreating water. It lands on me in a cascade, the icy droplets dotting my body like chicken pox.
“Not cool,” I say.
I splash him back, and he holds up his towel in defense. But then we’re running farther into the ocean, gathering more and more water in our attacks until we’re both soaking wet, his towel nothing more than a dripping deadweight.
I duck my head under the water and let the shock of cold cool my head. I don’t bother taking off my hat. When I come back up, Aaron is a foot from me. He stares at me so intently I have the instinct to look behind me but don’t.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he says. “I just...” He shrugs. “I like you.”
