I snorted and glanced at him, catching his smile cracking into awiderone.
“It’s all we have until we go to the store, swear,” he claimed, his expression telling me that might be the truth, but he was still enjoying messingwithme.
Taking the plate from his hands, I tried pinching my lips together to keep from telling him he was the first person who had ever brought me breakfast unless I was sick, but I kept the words in my mouth. I locked them up and threw away the key. Settling the plate on my lap, I held back a gulp and smiled, feeling a little shy. “Thankyou.”
He winked as he leaned forward and angled the chair he was in to face mine more, before pulling another plate off the tray to his left and settling it on his bare knee. “Somebody needs to make sure you’reeating.”
I picked up a slice and held it an inch away from the plate, watching him out of the corner of my eye. “Remind me to buy some cream cheese or jelly when we go to thestore.”
He grinned this sleepy,tiredgrin.
“Really, thank you though,” I repeated myself, just in case he couldn’t tell I was just messingwithhim.
“You’re welcome,” he replied easily, almost lazily, his eyes flicking to mine quickly before lowering back to the plate. “I told you that I’d make sure you were good. We’ll get something betterlater.”
“It’s perfect. This was really niceofyou.”
Aaron shrugged off my gratitude and leaned back as he took a bite out of one of the three pieces of toast on his plate. I did the same, taking turns between looking at him and glancing at the sliver of beach visible behind the house we werefacing.
I zeroed in on the coloring under his eyes. “Did you sleep okay?” I asked him after I finished off the first piece oftoast.
He lifted a shoulder a little more casually than I was comfortable with, but I was on to him and his vaguenessalready. “You?”
“Yeah.”Act normal,Ruby.“This is really pretty,” I said to him, gesturing forward with my chin. “This house isamazing.”
Half of Aaron’s mouth tipped its way up, but he changed the subject. “Do you want to go to the store with us to buy groceries? We’re going to take turns cooking mostnights.”
Cook? “Sure. Tell me how I canpitchin.”
He wavedmeoff.
“I’m being serious. Make it easy on yourself and tell me how I can help. Otherwise I’ll just do itanyway.”
The other side of his mouth tipped upward too, and those brown eyes flicked my way. “I thought you weren’tbossy?”
I could play the side-eye game if he wanted to. “Only when you’re beingstubborn.”
That had him laughing as he plucked at another piece of toast and brought it up to his mouth, taking a big bite out of it. “I have this to look forward to every day while we’reherethen?”
My heart beat a little faster, but I ignored it. “I guessyoudo.”
Aaron smirked as he wolfed down the rest of his bread, and I didn’t take too long with what I had left. The moment I finished swallowing the last piece, he stood up and took the plate from me. “Want to watch the sunrise on the beach?” he asked. “If we go now, we’ll probablymakeit.”
Inodded.
I followed him back into the house, watching as he dropped our plates off in the sink, before turning to me with that easygoing expression that somehow looked like he knew something I didn’t. He looked really tired. We headed down the stairs, skipping the second landing and continued on down. If he wasn’t going to stop for shoes, neitherwasI.
When we made it to the bottom floor, Aaron stepped forward first, unlocking the door and swinging it open with a, “Rubies first” that had me holding back a smile that would for sure tell him how much Ilikedhim.
I hadn’t noticed the day before, but the driveway outside of the door was graveled, not paved, and the small rocks nipped at my bare feet. Aaron didn’t comment as he closed the door behind us, slipping his long fingers through mine, and casually said, “Let’s runforit.”
Run for where, I had no clue, but when his hand tugged, I took off running beside him, dashing into the street between the houses and going slightly to the right where there was a path of wooden planks between an aqua blue home and a cream-colored monstrosity. I didn’t notice what temperature the wood was, or worry about splinters, all I felt was the sand that had been spread over the path over time and the feel of Aaron’s warmfingers.
It wasn’t the Caribbean, but the water was beautiful, especially in the oncoming sunrise. White sand snuck up between my toes and over the tops of my feet as Aaron led us to the right. There were probably twenty umbrellas anchored into the sand within a fifty-foot stretch of beach, all of them spaced apart with beach chairs settledbeneaththem.
We didn’t go to any of those. Instead, Aaron led us almost to the edge of the water, just before the sand became thick, damp and cool. Almost gracefully, he lowered himself until his butt hit the ground, his hand letting go of mine as he did it. He raised those brown eyes to me and made them wide as he propped his hands behind him. “You want to sit down, or are you going to keep pantingstandingup?”
I scoffed and fought the urge to kick sand at him before I flopped down just like he had. “We don’t all run ten milesaday.”
