But since their relationship was only for show this weekend, it was easier to speak with no feelings attached.
If she was feeling more internally, she had to battle it back.
They needed to get through this weekend and deal with the next two weeks before he decided on his next adventure.
Him leaving the island again would break her heart if she let herself open up.
She’d been locked up tight for years and it’d take more than a few fun dates with an attractive, amusing man that she got the body tingles around.
“Why do you want to be around Arik?”
Honesty was the best tactic. She was positive Sophie would report back to Arik, so she’d have to word things well.
“He allows me to be how I am with only a select few. I don’t have to guard my words or actions. I don’t have to pretend I’m someone who is perfect when we are all flawed. When those sides of me come out, he doesn’t judge, he doesn’t condemn, and he often adds his own imperfections into the mix to ease my embarrassment. It’s a rare talent he has.”
“It is one,” Sophie said and sat back to relax. “He’s not had an easy life.”
“I think maybe those on the outside would argue otherwise.”
“Because they don’t see what is inside. Do you?”
“I think I do,” she said. “It’s early yet. I knew him before the world he lives in now. We got along well. I had a secret crush on him. He flirted and I wasn’t immune to it.”
“Yet you didn’t date? Why is that?”
“Because he was graduating and moved to Seattle. He’d told me about all his job interviews across the US. I was returning to my little island where I felt more comfortable. I crammed to graduate early and stayed over the summer to finish. I never returned after. Not even to walk the stage for graduation.”
She didn’t regret that when her parents asked her to do it.
Why? She was only a name and another body to cross that stage.
Getting her diploma handed to her in person didn’t make the sacrifices or hard work any different.
“Despite what many think, Arik isn’t afraid of hard work.”
“I never thought he was. He had to work hard in order to be where he is today. Do I think he might float in the wind trying tofind himself? I do. He’s entitled to that, but it won’t change my goals in life.”
“Which are?”
“I love my job. I’ve worked my way up quicker than I thought. I spend a lot of hours there and get lectured on many fronts for it. But if I didn’t love it, I wouldn’t do it. I could move up and hope to in the years to come.”
Sophie waved her hand. “Not career goals. Family goals?”
“Oh. I haven’t had that talk with Arik. I don’t feel right having it with you.”
“It won’t leave my lips. You have my word.”
She could talk her way out of this but wouldn’t. “I come from a large family. We are close and I’d like that with a family of my own one day. Someone who takes my family in the same way I do. It doesn’t mean I’m rushing for it. It will happen if and when it does.”
Sophie nodded her head. “Arik never had a big family that took him in. That made him feel as if he belonged.”
“He has you,” she said softly.
“He does. But it’s not the same as a father he could look up to or a mother who would bake him cookies when he had a bad day.”
“Is that what Arik wants? Cookies on a bad day?”
He didn’t come across that way to her.
