What in thehellhad I just done? Had I actually just said that toAaron’smom?
I couldn’tbelieveit.
I couldn’t freakingbelieveit.
WhowasI?
“Everything okay?” came a voice that had me jumping in place and slamming the cabinet doorclosed.
It wasAaron.
“Oh, yeah,” I stuttered. “Um.” I knew I needed to tell him. I couldn’tnot. My face still went red anyway. “Your, ah, momcalled.”
He was halfway to the kitchen when he stalled in motion. Already in his swim trunks and a white T-shirt, he blinked at me sleepily. “Did it go all right?” he askedslowly.
“Yes,” I told him, faking the brightness in my voice and failing miserably. “Don’t say I never did anything foryou,okay?”
He stared at me for so long, I fidgeted, thinking I’d done somethingwrong.
“I didn’t want her to make you mad and ruin your day,” I tried toexplain.
Aaron took a step forward and then another and another until he stopped in front of me, and lightning quick, his hands came up to my face, cupping my cheeks in those rough, broad palms. A small smile had started covering his mouth at some point. Right before he kissed each of my cheeks with that perfect mouth, he said, “Have I told you today how happy I amyou’rehere?”
* * *
“Jasmine,Jasmine,listentome—”
“Nope.”
“I’m not joking. If your thunder thighs”—she didn’t have anything close to huge legs. Jasmine’s were the stuff people’s dreams were made of. Strong, athletic legs that looked great in everything and nothing. But I wasn’t about to compliment her—“rip my tights, I’ll give you bangs like I did when we were kids,rememberthat?”
There was a pause, and I’m sure even though she couldn’t genuinely remember asking me to cut her hair when she was five, and the awful haircut that had followed, it had been well-documented by our mom in picture form. She knew it had happened. Then my little sister made her decision. “I’ll risk the bangs. I’m wearing your tights. Bye,Squirt.”
And then she hung uponme.
All I could do was basically cough out a laugh in surprise, when I shouldn’t have been surprisedatall.
“What are you cracking upabout?”
I was still smiling as I turned in the seat to find Aaron standing at the doorway with a beer and a bottle of water in each palm. Reaching toward the chair he usually sat in, I patted the armrest as I answered his question. “Jasmine had texted me asking where I had some of my tights, so I called her to ask why she was asking. One thing led to another and I threated to cut her hair if she wore them and ripped them. Then she just said ‘bye, Squirt’ and hung uponme.”
“Are they special… tights? What are tightsagain?”
“Basically pantyhose.” I smiled at him. “The ones she was looking for have cats on them. I think she’s going on a date if she’sasking.”
Aaron nodded as he sat down, the hand with the water bottle extending in my direction. I took it. “Catpantyhose,huh?”
“Catpantyhose.”
“That’scute.”
What was I supposed to say after that? “I have some with elephants onthemtoo.”
He raised an eyebrow as he lifted the bottle of his beer to that mouth that had touched various places on my face the night before. “I’d like to seethose.”
It was times like that I wished I actually had some experience flirting, instead of losing my words and not knowing what to say. “Hopefully one day you can,” I said, unsure if that was too presumptuousornot.
But the smile he gave me said it wasn’t. “One day,” heconfirmed.
