Maybe I had been better off not caring about dating and men and relationships. This crap was way too complicated. I wasn’t built for this. At the rate I was going, everything was going to make me cry silently into a pint of icecream.
With a sigh, and with the remainder of my water bottle in hand, I headed out to the balcony, hugging my legs to my chest once I’dsatdown.
There were only four full days left until I flew back to Houston, and the notion made a lump fill my belly… but I tried my best to ignore it and just clear my head and enjoy the moment. I didn’t have to dread whatever came, or didn’t come, in the future. Sometimes things worked out and other times they didn’t. I’d go to San Francisco to visit my dad for a while, and then I’d head back home and keep on trying to expand my business. Somehow. If not… well, I wasn’t sure what Plan B wasexactly.
Plenty of people didn’t figure out their lives for a long, long time. It wasn’t a big deal if I still hadn’t sorted out what I was supposed to do. Maybe it was a good thing that Aaron was just my friend. Who was I to be in a relationship with someone when my life was all over theplace?
I’d survived having feelings for someone who didn’t share them in return with me before. I could survive it again. I wouldhaveto.
Ineededto—
It was the sliding of the deck door that had me glancing over my shoulder to find Aaron there, one shoulder coming through the door first before another one followed. His hands were awkwardly up at his sides as he held a plate in each one. How long had I been outside already? Long enough for him to make food? He didn’t bother closing the door behind him as he came out, giving me something that was supposed to look like a smile but didn’tquite.
“Morning,” he said in a restrained voice as he walked over to where I wassitting.
“Morning.” My eyes bounced back and forth between him and the plate in each hand that I still couldn’t see well. “I thought you’d sleep in longer,” Itoldhim.
He shook his head and stopped right beside my chair, extending the plate toward me. “Couldn’tsleep.Eat.”
“Thank you,” I told him a lot more quietly than I had over the last two days, taking the plate from his hands with that strange, uncertain emotion filling my chest. There were two pieces of toast, each topped with scrambled eggs, something that looked like pico de gallo, cheese, avocado, and bacon. I held my breath and watched as he lowered himself to his chair, already picking up a piece of toast with his left hand and taking a bite out of it. I watched himeatit.
We hadn’t said more than fifteen words to each other after we’d gotten back to the house the night before, and yet, he’d still made me breakfast. I didn’t know whether to cry or hug him, I reallydidn’t.
Who made food for a friend anyway? I loved my friends, and I loved my sisters, but unless they asked, I wouldn’t make them breakfast. Did he not know I wasn’t mentally stable enough for this? That my heart wasn’t in the right place? That it didn’t know Aaron was my friend and would only ever be my friend, no matter how much I told itotherwise?
You would have figured no one in my life had ever been kind to me by the way I satthere.
He’d probably gotten through half of it when he realized I was staring at him instead of eating, and he started chewing slower. “I know you like eggs, and you have to like bacon, what is it?” he asked, hoarsely, swallowing what he had left in his mouth. His eyes went round and he spoke slowly, “If you say you don’t like avocado, I’m going to need to rethink this whole thing we havegoingon.”
This thing we had going on?Friendship?
We were back to acting like everything was fine and that I hadn’t started being crazy and cool the night before and he hadn’t gotten lost in his mysterious thoughts and stopped talkingtome?
I’d worry about it later. Instead, I shook my head, as every cell in my body cried out for this man who always made sure I ate and had made me something to eat for breakfast again. I wanted him. I wanted him so badly I could barelybreathe.And…
I couldn’thavehim.
Was this a test? My mom always mumbled about how she was being tested: her patience, her wallet, her mental health. Then she’d start mumbling about how God never gave you more than you couldhandle.
So was that whatthiswas?
Was I being tested by this beautiful man so if I passed, I could hopefully find one just like him that did like me the way I wanted to beliked?
“Is it the avocado, Ruby?” Aaron asked slowly, taking another bite and frowning as hedidit.
Swallowing the questions and the frustrations inside of me, I tried to remember I had to be fair. I had to. So I told him, weak, weak, weak, “No, I likeavocado.”
Even with his cheeks stuffed full of toast, tomatoes, cheese, avocado, and bacon, he blinked. “Yousure?”
Why? Why?Why couldn’t he have been normal? Handsome but not stunning. Nice but not kind. Understanding but not so patient. Thoughtful but notsomuch.
I should have gone home. I really should have gone home so I could have had a fighting chance of moving on with my life once this week was over. I didn’t need to add a person to my obsessivepersonality.
But I didn’t do anyofthat.
“I’m sure,” I promised him, forcing myself to pick up my toast and takeabite.
Maybe this was my test. Maybe I just needed to get through this week as best as I could, and then I’d know I could handle anything. I could be his favorite friend and eventually, at some point, move on and find someone else who might not be so handsome or sweet, but he could be honest and share things with me. And that would be enough. He could still be normal handsome. Who said hecouldn’t?
