That last one had my heart hurting, and there was no hesitation in me as I typed out a reply to my mom and another to mysister.
I love you too. Made it to Panama City safe. Aaron already picked me up. Everything’s good. Textyousoon.
You can borrow my clothes but touch the ones I have folded on the floor and I’ll put Nair in your shampoo. P.S. I loveyoutoo.
“Did you tell them you made it?” Aaronasked.
“Yeah, and that I’d message them soon. My sister threatened to borrow my clothes, and I told her if she took the ones I set aside to take with me to visit our dad, I’d put hair removal cream in hershampoo.”
He raised one of those blond eyebrows of his, a slight smile playing at his pink mouth. “Is she skatingagain?”
“She’s going early in the morning just by herself still, but she hasn’t worked out with her coach since her last competition. She’s been skating longer each day from what I overheard her coach tell my mom on speakerphone the other day. They’ve been watching her on security footage, but no one has the guts to confront heraboutit.”
“She’s still madatyou?”
“Shewas.”
He nodded, his hand still propping up his chin, his other one still resting loosely around his bottle. Those brown irises continued lingering on me. What in the world was hethinking?
I fought the urge to fidget and cleared my throat, trying to be a lot more casual and easygoing than I really felt. “So, you left your friends at the beachhouse?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Aaron caress the beer bottle with the tips of his fingers. “Yeah, but knowing them, they’re probably sleeping, even though I’m the one who drove allnight.”
“You didn’t trust them driving yourtruck?”
The blond man smirked. “No.” He paused and took another sip of his beer before setting it down on the wood surface of the table, loudly, peering up at me in this way that made me even more self-conscious. “I didn’t want to overwhelm you bringing a bunch of people you don’t know to the airport,” he explained at the same time the pads of his fingers made a trail up the neck of the bottle. His gaze was on me as he said, “And I wanted to hang out with you first. Justustwo.”
Of all the responses I could have come up with after that, Isaid“Oh.”
Oh.
When in reality it was more like,are you trying to kill me?That he knew me well enough to understand I’d feel overwhelmed… I wasn’t going to overthink it. I couldn’t. I wasn’t about to stew on him wanting to hang out with me firsteither.
Either my tone or blah response must have unsettled him because, for one brief second, a flash of hurt crossed his eyes, but it was gone before the next blink. He smiled at me tightly. “If you’re not comfortable, there’s a couple motels on the way to the houseinstead—”
Hethought….
“No, no,” I stammered. “That’s not it. You’ve done—you’re—” Why couldn’t I get my words straight? “I’m still a little nervous. You’re just—”Too surreal. Too perfect. So much more than I ever could haveimagined.
But I said noneofthat.
“What?” he asked, cautiously, like he didn’t know his billboard-belonging face could reduce anyone with a pulse to a mess of blood andbones.
I mean, I’d grown this giant crush on him just through e-mails. Having him face to face was almost too much to handle when he looked the way he did. But I couldn’t tell him any of that. I knew why I was here. Because he’d connected with me too, because he’dlikedme.
As afriend.
Like a little sister, he’d told me that one time recently when he’d beendrunk.
That was all…. Even if the T-shirt he had on showed off pecs that demonstrated he’d definitely been hitting the gym regularly while he’d been stationed in the desert and had biceps and forearms that were lined with lean muscles. I could see, but I couldn’t touch as anything more than a friend could orwould.
The Friend Zone: The Life of RubySantos
I cleared my throat and glanced at his styled hair again, something about it niggling at me. I swallowed and dragged my eyes up to the ceiling for a second before flicking them back down to him, regretting even starting to say something. I blinkedathim.
And he blinked right back at me,expectantly.
When I slid my gaze to the side for a moment and then returned it to him, he just sat there, like he was trying his best to look innocent andcurious.
