He was my friend and I had no reason to get weird. With my hands tight on the steering wheel, I glanced at him quickly and gave him a smile that was totally tight. “Just a magnet for my mom and herhusband.”
“Nothingforyou?”
In a grumpier tone that I intended, I toldhim, “No.”
“You didn’t find anything you liked?” heasked.
“There were a few stores with really nice things in them,” I told him, trying to sound normal. Nonchalant. Fine. “I just can’t… you know, be spending money on things I don’t needrightnow.”
“I would have spotted you if you wantedsomething.”
Flexing my fingers around the steering wheel, I reminded myself that none of this was his fault. He was just trying to be nice to me. He was always trying to be nice to me. And it made me feel guilty because why did I deserve it? I hadn’t done anything special for it to becalledfor.
He had no idea how I felt about him. He didn’t deserve my pissy attitude. If I was Jasmine right now, I’d tell her to stop beingabrat.
Torn between feeling bad and still holding on to that residual anger simmering in my veins while I flashbacked to the pretty waitress he’d been talking to, I swallowed the golf ball in my throat and really,reallytried to be normal. To be kind. To be fair. “That’s okay, but thank you,” I said, only sounding about half as ungrateful as I needed to, my voice higher and squeakier than normal, betraying me. “I already owe youenough.”
Maybe I hadn’t needed to add that part totheend.
“You don’t owe me anything,” Aaron practicallywhispered.
“If you say so,” I responded just as quietly, my fingers squeezing the steeringwheel.
“Ruby—”
I shook my head and shot him a wary smile quickly before glancing forward again, the lie on my lips, the ache in my heart. “You’re a really good friend to me, stalker.Thankyou.”
I might have been fine the rest of the night if he’d responded, if he’d saidanything, but he didn’t. He just turned his attention toward the window and didn’t say hardly another word to me the rest of thenight.
Chapter19
Iwokeup early the next morning again all on my own. Whether it was because I was somewhere my body subconsciously knew wasn’t my bed back in Houston, or if it was because I hadAaron, Aaron, Aaronso imprinted on my brain that I didn’t want to sleep longer than I absolutely needed to, I had no idea. All I knew was that it was thirty minutes after six when I reached for my phone and sent my mom a message telling her I wasalive.
It was three minutes later I got a response from her that saidGood. Keep itthatway.
I’d showered the night before once we got back from the restaurant, but the idea of being in a bathing suit all day, even knowing that there was no one other than me who would notice or care if my legs were shaved smooth, I headed back into the bathroom and took a quick one. After getting dressed, the house was quiet like it had been every other morning. I headed upstairs to see the sun already rising. I grabbed a bottle of water from the kitchen, and instead of heading out to the balcony like I’d been doing, I leaned against the kitchen counter and sipped at my water, looking around the kitchen and living area, trying to get my thoughts together in a place that wasn’t where Aaron had been surprising me every morning withbreakfast.
If that didn’t make me sound like a bitter jerk, I didn’t know whatwould.
I was disappointed in myself, honestly—especially the more I thought about our situation, the situation I found myself in with Aaron. The part of my brain that wasn’t ruled by hormones and emotions, that had watched people around me struggle with relationships and friendships and judged them for their actions, knew I was being crazy. It knew it. It realized and accepted that I had zero claim on this man I was in love with who brought me breakfast and fixed my sunscreen for me and taught me to fish and made me feelspecial.
The part of me that didn’t want to hear any of this BS about how any relationship between Aaron and me was never, ever going to happen, wanted to call time-out and rageoverit.
He may or may not have flirted with anotherwoman.
He didn’t want arelationship.
I was hisfriendRuby.
These were the most important facts of all the thingsIknew.
After those were: there were things he hadn’t wanted to tell me about his past, and there were things he didn’t want to tell me in general. I’d put all that together. What I could or would do about it was yet to be determined. I wasn’t the pushy type, and the last thing I wanted to do was force him to tell me something that he didn’t want to, for whatever reason he had. At no point had he given me a reason not to trust him, I knew that forafact.
But… I really wanted him to trust me. And if I was going to be real honest with myself, it hurt my feelings that he hadn’t and didn’t. And I could live with it or I couldn’t, the choice was uptome.
Nobiggie.
Right.
