“She used to mess around with my brother. She’s nice and all, but we’re notfriends.”
Well. What could I say after thatbesides“Oh”?
The blond beside me grinned a little too smugly. “She’s notmytype.”
“Did she just stick her fingers inhisass?”
What? Where? I wondered, forgetting all about what typeAaronhad.
Across the room, Brittany let out a laugh in response. “Shedid!
“What the hell are you watching?” came Max’s second question as he sat up and looked around the room to make sure his little sister wasn’t still in thekitchen.
Shewasn’t.
I could feel rather than see Aaron tense beside me. What I did see was him leaning forward, planting those impressive blond-hair dusted arms on his knees and saying in his controlled, even voice, “Would you change the channel? Ruby and Mindy don’t need to see that shit,comeon.”
Me? Mindy I could understand.Butme?
“Put it on something else,” Aaron said with a finality I couldn’t miss. “Ruby’srighthere.”
And when three other sets of eyes all swung over to my direction, I blushed. Everywhere. Up to the roots ofmyhair.
While I wouldn’t have been outraged at seeing a girl sticking her fingers in a guy’s butt—and it wouldn’t be the first time or the second or third I had—I cringed on the inside at Aaron basically comparing me to a seventeen-year-old. Because just likethatI knew what he was saying and why he was being so defensive andoverprotective.
He was hinting at what I thought he was hinting at, there was no doubtaboutit.
All I could do was give the other three a smile, which probably looked like a mixture of deranged and embarrassed, even as I looked down at my clean fingernails and stretched them wide on my lap, saying, “You can leave it on if you want.” My voice was all whispered and funky andI don’t want to talk aboutthis,but…
But these friends of my friend, a lot nicer and kinder than I ever could have given them credit for, changed the channel.Immediately.
They allthought…
Yeah, they all thought I was a virgin now. Or maybe just really, really, really innocent. Basically: avirgin.
What was this? The 1860s? Was porn not a click away anymore? Did he not have any idea the kinds of things I’d seen on the Internet late at night when I had my doorlocked?
Not that there was anything wrong with being a virgin, but I wasn’t one. I hadn’t been one for a while. Where the hell could Aaron had gotten thatimpressionfrom?
It took me all of a moment, sitting there embarrassed out of my mind, to figureitout.
It was the never-having-a-boyfriend thing. Being in love with the same guy for years. Not really even dating ever. That would be it.I knew it.It hadtobe.
Ohman.
I couldn’t look at him as I blindly reached over the side table where I’d set the aloe vera gel and picked up my phone instead. I could sense Aaron’s gaze on me as I brought the phone close to my face and opened my notepad app, typing the words that I didn’t expect to ever tell anyone, much less Aaron. But I didn’t know how else to get out of this conversation gracefully. I couldn’t let him keep thinking… that. No wonder he thought of me like a little sister if he was comparing me to Mindy. This was my fault.Totally.
You know how much I love that you’re so nice to me?I wrote him, before handing over the phone not verydiscreetly.
His eyebrows rose in my direction as he took it from me and read the screen, his eyebrows dropping back into place in an expression of confusion.I know,he replied before returning ittome.
How was I supposed to tell him this? I’d never told anyone this, never even thought it would come up and I’d have to have a game plan. Yet here we were, and I knew I needed totellhim.
I’m not THAT innocent,Ityped.
Then I added,But thank you for watching out for me,and set the phone on top of the thigh he had lined up with mine. He lifted it up without hesitation and read the words. There was a moment between when he read it and then stared at the screen before typing, his thumbs looking too large for the touchscreen.
He handed itbackover.
