“How long did it take you, Brit?” the younger girlasked.
The woman beside me made a thoughtful noise as Des turned in his seat to shoot her a look that wasn’t meant for me to see. I wondered how long they’d been together. “Twenty-eightyears.”
From up front, I heard Des, the man with the green eyes, mutter, “Damn right” under hisbreath.
“Don’t rush it, Mindy. He—whoever—you want is out there somewhere. You’re still a baby, have fun and don’t worry about relationships. I wish I could go back and skip some of the guys I dated when I was your age, believe me,” was Brittany’sadvice.
If her words reassured Mindy too, I had no idea, but they did me. Wasn’t that what I’d told Aaron before? How I hadn’t missed out on anything? Notreally.
Okay, maybe in a wayIhad.
The sigh that came out of Mindy had me glancing at her, but her attention was focused through the window. “One day. Who knows how longthat’llbe?”
Maybe it was because I saw so much of myself in her while she had a face like my little sister’s, but maybe it was because I didn’t want her to feel like she was alone, but I told her a tiny part of something I hadn’t really ever admitted out loud to anyone. “I’m twenty-four and I still haven’t found anyone who likes me enough as more than a friend.It’sokay.”
I didn’t acknowledge until after the words were out of my mouth how sad and woe-is-me they sounded, but… they were the truth. I’d been my brothers’ little sister, and now Aaron only held platonic feelings for me. It was one strike after another that I couldn’t let myself forget no matter how badly Iwantedto.
And it must have been a good thing to admit because I could see the seventeen-year-old smile a little at the window in herreflection.
But when I glanced forward again and just happened to look at the rearview mirror, I could see Aaron’s eyesonme.
And I just smiled at him, hoping I wasn’t coming off as pathetic as I thought I would after thatcomment.
Chances were,Idid.
* * *
“You okay?”I asked Aaron the second we finished carrying all the groceries up the two flights of stairs, with everyone except him cursingoverthem.
With the upper half of his body mostly in the fridge as he put up four cartons of eggs and three gallons of milk, I could tell something was bothering him even though he lifted his shoulders almost casually. But it was too casual. He’d been quiet on the remainder of the trip home, letting Brittany and Des argue about who was the better cook between them. I’d let it go, but now everyone had disappeared when Aaron had offered to put up the groceries, I wanted to take the opportunity we had to be alone together againandask.
“Are you sure?” I asked him as he took a step back and shut thewhitedoor.
Those dark brown eyes landed on mine and he nodded, his face too serious, too... distracted? I didn’t know his body language well enough to be sure yet. When he changed the subject, it pretty much confirmed that he had something else going on in his head he didn’t want to talk about. Just like when we messaged online. “Want to go to thebeach?”
What I wanted was to know what he was thinking. What I could realistically get was a trip to the beach. “Yeah, sure,” I agreed, watching his face closely. He’d looked tired that morning, but now that six hours had passed, there was something in his eyes that made him seem even more exhausted. Was he notsleepingwell?
“I just have a few more groceries to put up and I’ll meet you outside your room to go,” he offered with a funky smile that seemed like a poor imitation of the ones he’d given mebefore.
What was going onwithhim?
I nodded, keeping the question buried deep in the back of my throat, and headed down the stairs toward the room I was staying in. It didn’t take me too long to find my bathing suits, but what took the longest was deciding which one to wear. I put all three of them on before picking the most modest, this red one-piece with thin straps and a back that tapered into a V-shape halfway down my spine. There weren’t a lot of benefits of having small boobs, but a non-supportive bathing suit was one of the pluses. Throwing a cover-up over it and shoving my towel, sunblock, sunglasses and the bottle of water I hadn’t drank the night before into a canvas bag I’d brought with me, I put on my shoes and left my room, expecting Aaron to be changing or still beupstairs.
Hewasn’t.
He was already waiting in the hallway, leaning against his door like a model in a denim commercial, with a towel under one arm, a gallon of water that we’d bought at the store in hand, and that faint, unreadable smile on his mouth. “Ready?” he asked, straightening offthedoor.
“Yes.”
Not sure how to act or what I should say, if there even was anything to begin with, we walked side by side in silence, down and out. The sky was bright and blue, and the wind was strong as we made our way toward the beach, weaving between the houses and onto the boardwalk leading to it. I spotted Brittany and Des to the right, Des under an orange umbrella with Brittany laid out on towel, face downsunbathing.
“Is Max still not awake?” I asked him in a whisper. Aaron had already explained to me that Mindy had mainly just tagged along to San Blas to get out of the house; it wasn’t like she could swim with hercaston.
Aaron made a snickering noise in his throat. “No. He works a graveyard shift. It’ll probably be closer to the end of the week before he’s waking upbeforetwo.”
“He’s the one who works at therefinery?”
“Yeah.”
