I could, I thought as he put a hand on my shoulder and slid it down the length of myupperarm.
But it would beunbelievablyhard.
“You all right?” he whispered. He still had that smile on his face that honestly made my heart start beating a little weird again, but in a way that had nothing to do with a panic attack orpalpitations.
I nodded at him, sensing my unease slowly going away as I took him in, this guy who knew more about me than a lot of other people I’d known for years. This guy who brought me water and squeezed my leg when I told him I was on the verge of losing it. This was the man I’d become friends with. The man I’d tried talking myself out of having a crush on and failing, all because of e-mails andmessages.
This was Aaron. My friend. The person who had invited me to Florida because he wanted to meet me, and he was smiling at me, looking more worried than heshouldhave.
“You sure? Your heart is okay?” he asked so earnestly I had to stop breathing for asecond.
I plucked the bottle cap from his fingers and looked down as I screwed it on. “It’s okay. I wasnervous.”
“You’re not anymore?” he asked, and it took everything in me to not glance up as hespoke.
I lifted up a shoulder and let out another breath from my mouth to calm down even more. “No.” My mouth twisted, and that time I couldn’t stop myself from glancing up at him. He was still watching me so closely, I had to glance down for a second before looking up again. “I lied. I am. Just alittle.”
That pretty mouth twisted, his eyes going nowhere. “I thought I could watch the doors better if I was on the side of the lot, but this van was blocking right where you were standing,” he explained. His mouth formed a soft smile that my entire body wasn’t sure how to handle. At the same time, he put his hand back on my knee like it had always been there. His voice was slow and still so low only I could hear. “I wasn’t going toleaveyou.”
There went my heartoncemore.
He blinked, and it was like he could read my mind. “You really thought I wasn’tcoming?”
I shrugged all overagain.
“I—” He shook his head, and I finally noticed his hair wasn’t just neat, he’d combed it a little. There might have even been gel in it. It was short but just long enough to be able to be parted. “I don’t know what to say, Rubes.” It was the reluctant smile that crept over his face that was so unexpected, so much like the sun coming out over a cloudy day, I forgot about his hair. If that smile wasn’t enough, he squeezed my knee one more time. “Maybe we should text for a minute first. Breaktheice.”
It was me who laughed, all awkward and choppy and still sounding like there were tears hanging around the back of my throat. “Maybe.” I laughed again, and that time it was watery and a bit broken, and luckily I hadn’t tried to act like I was tough because he’d know right then that I’d been on the verge of crying because I thought he wasn’tcoming.
That handsome, model-like, slightly sun-weathered face flashed me a grin before tipping toward the bottle of water I was holding between my hands. “Take anotherdrink.”
I undid the cap and took another drink. He was still watching me. Why was he watching mesomuch?
That pink mouth went tight as his eyes scanned over my face with a slowness that made me want to fidget and ask him to stop. “Why didn’t you saying anything?” he asked, still being soquiet.
Dragging the rim of the bottle from my mouth down to my chin and leaving it there, suspended in the air, I blinked, taking him in one more time and eating up the lines of his bones and the clear skin of his face and thinking he was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. Of course he was. “I’ve told you everything.” Did he have a dimple too or was I imagining it? “I promise,” I assured him, trying to think of what I could have deliberatelymissed.
Aaron’s golden eyebrows rose just a little, just a little, that smirk-ish smile still playing at the corners of his mouth. “Almosteverything.”
I lowered the bottle to my lap and frowned. “What do you think I didn’ttellyou?”
Those brown eyes swept over my face, and he squeezed my knees again before planting his feet flat. He started straightening, his face pausing while he was still eye level with me when he said way too evenly, “You could’ve told me your mom and sister are the ugly ones in thefamily.”
I didn’t even get a chance to throw my head back before I laughed, laughed like I hadn’t just been on the verge of crying and then on the edge of having a panic attack. I just laughed my butt off. Loud and dorkyandbig.
When I managed to open an eye to see what he was doing, and what that was, was him crouched all over again in front of me like he’d been, with his cheeks and neckcolored.
He wasblushing.
And that only made meblush.
Leaning forward, his words and his pink cheeks and his smile with a dent in it still fresh on my mind, I asked him, still practically whispering, “Are you drunkagain?”
That dimple that was for sure a dimple went even deeper and his smile went full-powered on my heart, almost knocking the wind and every thought out of me when hesnickered.
“Are you going to hug me or are you just going to stand there?” Iaskedhim.
I had no idea right then that, for as long as my soul resided in my body and I could reminisce on the best parts of my life, I’d remember how Aaron Hall leaned forward and wrapped those long, tan arms around my back and pulled me into his chest. Me who was still on the bench. The way he hugged the hell out of me would be something that sickness and death could never take away. And in the time it took me to suck in a breath, I put my own arms around him. I’d hugged dozens of men before. Dozens and dozens, hundreds of times. And Aaron’s upper body was just as wide and solid in front of mine like the bestofthem.
