That’s when I heard Aaronchoke.
I watched him out of the corner of my eye as I raised the back of my hand to wipe at the area around my mouth in case I’d started drooling, because it wouldn’t be the first time that happened. I fell asleep at my work table every other day, that was my norm. There were more than likely at least fifty pictures of me passed out with drool on my face floating around my family members’ phones. One picture had been Jasmine’s screensaver for six months, until Christmas had come and Tali had drawn that penis onSebastian’sface.
Aaron did that choke again, his whole face scrunched up, and I watched him press his lips together then tuck them in as his shoulders shook. I was pretty sure those were tears making his eyes glassy and notallergies.
“Laugh all you want,” I mumbled, wiping at my mouth anyway because he’d already caught me. What was I going to do? Pretend it hadn’t happened? But I still said, “I wasn’t joking when I told you I hadn’t slept in awhile.”
To give him credit, he kept his lips tightly sealed. What he did do was reach toward his face with his right hand and press the tip of his index finger to those long, curling blond eyelashes of his, swiping upward as he choked back another laugh. And in a quiet voice that said how much control it was taking him to not burst out laughing, he gasped, “Your face was almost on yourknees….”
“I thought I saw a stain on my tights…,” I muttered, pinching my own lips together because the urge to laugh at him, with him, was right there as his hands squeezed the steering wheel so tight his knuckles went white and his shoulders shookevenmore.
He snickered deep in his throat and cocked his face away from mine just as his shoulders trembled even harder. “Is that whathappened?”
“Yes.Itwas.”
Aaron coughed, earning him a side-eye and a frown. “Sure. Whatever you say,Rubes.”
I’d gotten what I wanted, hadn’t I? Us being back to “normal?” “Do you know how much longer we have until we get there?” I asked, trying to change the subject. The scenery had started to change again. Beach houses clustered together on the left side, and even though I couldn’t see it, I knew water had to becloseby.
“Five minutes, ten minutes max,” heinformedme.
Ten minutes to meet more people. No biggie. I squeezed my left hand into a fist. “Do you mind if I use yourmirror?”
He shookhishead.
“Thanks,” I told him as I flipped the visor down and then opened the panel for the lit-up mirror. I tried to ignore the nerves in my stomach as I swept my hair into a low ponytail and started wiping below my eyes with the side of myfinger.
I could feel him glance at me. “You alreadylooknice.”
I blushed and flipped the visor closed like a little kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar. “You only get one firstimpression—”
“What?”
“You only get one first impression,” I repeated myself, pretty sure I was still blushing. “I don’t want them to notlikeme.”
Aaron’s mouth screwed up and his forehead furrowed as he shot me a glance out of the corner of his eye. “They’re not going to not like you, Ru.” Then he slid me a full look. “You don’t have to be nervous. You meet your friends’ friends all the time, Ithought.”
One explanation after another backed up inside my throat, and I couldn’t pick one that made me sound less lame and self-conscious, but I had to. I tried to reason with myself that he already knew nearly all the worst things about me and I was still here. What was a little more embarrassment after I’d already called him gorgeous? “But these areyourfriends,” I explained, hoping he’d understand what Imeant.
Which was that he was special to me. More special than he should have been. But there was my newest truth out intheopen.
And Aaron must have known what I was trying to tell him, because he smiled so tenderly, so freaking sweetly, like you’d look at a puppy being cute, that I felt like a nut cracked in half. “You’remy friend. I want you to like them too. I told them not to make a mess before wegotback.”
He…
“Don’t worry, all right?” he said in that gentle, calm voice that could have made him a Ruby Whisperer. When I didn’t respond, he reached over and touched the side of my arm with the back of his hand briefly. “Allright?”
“All right,” I agreed, even though my stomach was still all knotty and uneasy, and it wasn’t all because of hisfriends.
Luckily, he didn’t say anything else as we drove for all of six minutes longer before he turned left into a neighborhood of massive, colorful beach houses, one right next to the other. We drove passed aqua, blue, green, and white homes, but it was a bright purple house on stilts he headed toward. To one side was a small, fenced-in pool, and on the other side of where he parked was a silver Alero. Aaron shot me another calming smile as he opened his door and got out. I only felt a little nauseous as I got out too, hopping down. Aaron was already opening the back door as I pulled my bag out from the front and tossed it over my shoulder, looking around at the rest of the homes and listening for the waves that had to becloseby.
“Come on,” he said, snapping me out of looking around, as he stood there with his hand extendedtowardme.
Neither one of my sisters would have taken it. Iknewthat.
But they were them and I was me, and I didn’t wait until he realized I had to think about it before I took the two steps I needed to get to him and slipped my fingers through his, like we’d done this a thousand times in the past. His fingers were cool and rough and his palm was broad, and somewhere my subconscious was aware that these hands might have done something that wasn’t nice or tender, that Aaron had lived in dangerous places for a long time and might have done things he would never want to talkabout.
But I took his hand anyway and wrapped my fingers around his, hoping mine didn’t feel as warm and clammy as they would have with any other human being in thissituation.
