The laugh that busted out of me had me tipping my head back and literally setting my foot totally on top of his as I reached over to poke him hard in the side. Aaron captured my hand as he laughed too. “I’m going back to the house,” I whined when I could finally catch mybreath.
“No you’re not,” he quipped, squeezing my fingers before slowly lettingthemgo.
He smiled at me and I smiled at him, and I felt… I felt something. In my heart. On my skin. On my fingers and toes. Along my spine. It wasn’t a tingling. It wasn’t some earth-shattering sensation. It was something I wasn’t totally sure of, but it was enough for my smile to growwider.
Then he said, “I’m really glad you came, Ruby,” and I didn’t know my mouth could gosowide.
“I’m glad too.” Sliding my foot off his, I didn’t stop smiling. “I’m sorry for freaking out yesterday and then being so hotandcold.”
“I told you. Don’t apologize. Itwasfine.”
Clasping my hands on my lap in front of me, I shrugged. “It could’ve been better. I feel bad not talking to your friends more. I don’t want them to think I’m stuck-up oranything.”
It was the tightening at his jaw that told me he didn’t like something about what I’d said. “Somebody thought you were stuck-upbefore?”
“Once or twice, but I’m just quiet until I feel comfortable around complete strangers, you know?That’sall.”
His eyes bounced from one of mine to the next, his features still taut, and I could tell he was processing my words before he slowly let out a breath. His words were low again, understanding, so freaking Aaron. “I know, Ru. You’re not. They won’t think you’restuck-up.”
“Ihopenot.”
His smile was so soft I genuinely felt like it didn’t matter what they thought as long as he liked me. But I couldn’t think like that. “Don’t worry.” He gestured toward the rolling waves lapping close to our feet. “Look, it’s about to come up any second now.Watch.”
We sat there on the edge of the water, with his foot directly beside mine, that long upper body lined with lean muscles within touching distance if I really stretched to the side, and we watched the sun rise directly in front of us. Blue, purple, lavender, orange, red, and so, so yellow in a few places it made my heart hurt. I’d been a lot of places, but watching the sun rise that morning—because I’d never been awake early enough to watch it before—was something I couldn’t forget. It felt like an awakening. Like nothing I had ever seen and everything I had, all rolled into one single, unforgettableevent.
And when Aaron asked, “It’s beautiful, huh?” I told him the one and only truthIhad.
“It’s really beautiful.” And then I told him the second truth in my long list of things I couldn’t deny. “I’m going to owe you forever for inviting me and showing thistome.”
He didn’t say another word and neither did I as the sun kept creeping upward, unrushed. I know at one point I held my breath at the same time the sound of two new voices from somewhere behind us broke the silence. I didn’t look back, all I did was keep my eyes forward and swallow the raysentirely.
“I think I want to wake up every day and watch this,” I whispered to him, pulling my knees into my chest so I could settle my chin on top of them. “It would be worth waking upearlyfor.”
And all Aaron said, in his low, soft-spoken voice that he’d been using on me since yesterday, with something in the notes I couldn’t classify that sounded almost like hope, if hope had a sound and if a promise could be made without vocalizing it, was, “Any morning you want, Rube. I’ll watch itwithyou.”
* * *
“So,Ruby… I have an important question toaskyou.”
Scrunched into the middle in the back of Aaron’s double cab pickup truck, I slipped my hands between my thighs and accepted that I’d gotten off easy on the way to the grocery store. I’d helped Aaron make a list that mainly consisted of salt and vinegar chips, Fritos, macaroni and cheese, and frozen pizzas while we’d waited around in the kitchen for everyone to wake up. Aaron, Des, Max’s sister whose name I learned was Mindy, and Brittany, Des’s girlfriend, and I had all climbed into the truck at exactly 10:05 a.m. Aaron had invited me to take the front seat, but I had waved him off because obviously Des’s legs were longer than mine. Then, noticing that Brittany was five inches taller than me and that Mindy had a broken arm that probably shouldn’t get jostled around, I’d offered to take the seat on the bench in themiddle.
Mindy and Brittany had both been busy on their phones before we’d even gotten into the car and had stayed on them the entire trip to the grocery store. I’d only caught bits and pieces of each of their conversations over the music that Des had started playing in the truck, but I knew Brittany was on the phone with someone she worked with and Mindy was arguing with who I’m pretty sure was the other girl who had been in the accident with her because they’d been talking about pain medication and how it was affecting themdifferently.
Not that I was paying that close attention. I’d already texted my mom to let her know I was alive and kicking; there was no one else for me tomessage.
Half an hour later, with the groceries in the bed of the truck, we’d all climbed back in, no one on their phone. So I wasn’t surprised when Mindy finallyspokeup.
“Okay,” I told her, taking in her light brown hair and a face whose youth and angles reminded me of Jasmine… if my little sister didn’t have the crazy person glint inhereye.
The younger, very pretty girl had her broken arm propped against the car door. Her expression was serious. “Where did you get thosetightsfrom?”
Tights?
“The ones you had on yesterday with the cats on them. Where’d you get them?” she asked, like she’d readmymind.
I blinked, taking a second to process what she was saying. “Oh. Online. There’s a store that I order things from that’s cheap. I’ll write down the link for you if you want,” I answered her, only sounding a littleawkward.
The side of Brittany’s thigh touched mine as she asked, “And theskirt?”
