Page 57

“So you can’t hide your face.”

“Who does that help but you?” I demand. “I’m not going to sit in your lap.”

“Why not?” He smiles again, this one sickly sweet. “It’s one of your favorite places.”

I’m only in a tank top, but I start sweating like I’m in winter layers. “I told you not to make sexual jokes,” I squeak out, reaching out to shove his shoulder. He smoothly threads his fingers through my extended ones, then pulls, tugging me out of my seat and over the middle compartment.

“I wasn’t talking about sex,” he says with an insufferable laugh, settling my weight in his lap. Infuriated but knowing it’s not a battle I can win, I part my knees on the driver’s seat around his thighs, straddling him.

“Happy?” I snap.

“Exhilarated,” he says. I’m propped up enough to be at eye level with him, so I can pierce him with my glare more easily. I fumble with my fingers, but he captures my hands and draws them behind his neck, thrusting them through the gap between his seat and headrest. Casually, he pushes the headrest down, and it clicks over my wrists, essentially cuffing me.

“Sometimes you treat me like a hostage,” I grumble, wanting to bite the smugness off his handsome face. The dagger stud in his ear catches in the yellow light trickling around the window curtains in my house. His hands fall to the curves of my waist and settle. “If you try anything weird—”

“I love you, Riley Wilson,” he whispers.

I stare at him in bemusement. Then another surge of warmth floods my face, and I try to veer my head away so he won’t see, but I have nowhere to hide. Not with my wrists trapped under the headrest behind his neck.

“I love you,” he repeats. “But I wish you would love yourself more. You treat your time like it’s worth less than others’. No matter where you are in life, you make excuses to take more responsibilities. Right now, it’s because it’s summer break. During school, it’s because you don’t have a job. You’re always making justifications.”

I’m starting to understand why he wants me here. My instincts are telling me to curl into fetal position so he won’t see my face. I’m trapped, though, in full view of his ruthless stare, unable to duck around its hypnotic pull. My brain works furiously to defend me. I’m at a disadvantage, though—we’ve clearly had this conversation before, if he managed to sway me into moving in. His arguments are practiced, whereas I’m scrounging mine together from scratch.

“It’s nice that you want to help your family,” Aaron says, his fingertips sliding under the gap between my shirt and waist, crawling along my skin. “But you don’t exist to be a helping hand. You have things you like, even if you crush them down and call them distractions. Exploring. Learning. Having fun. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to live.”

He’s aggravating me even more, heartlessly nailing me with these points I don’t have the mental energy to combat. “Pull the headrest up,” I mutter.

Aaron’s smile widens with mischief. His arms curl in around my waist, hugging my abdomen to his. “No,” he says. “I think I’ll keep you here all night.”

“I order you to. Because you’re my servant today,” I remind him.

Aaron clicks his tongue. “But you haven’t been ordering me around. You wouldn’t even let me call you my lord. This isn’t good for you. Since you’ve been letting me do what I want, and I know you’re too nice to punish me, I’ve become unruly and rebellious.”

I scoff as he sticks his palms up the back of my tank top again, fingertips scratching slow, deliberate trails up my spine, clearly indifferent to the day’s grime probably caking my skin. He finds a spot of tension between my shoulder blades and kneads.

“It took you a long time to realize you were living your life for others instead of yourself,” he says, pressing my chest against his. We’re close enough now that our lips graze with every word, and being this near his searing ice-gray stare ruptures my skin with goose bumps. “I’ll do everything I can to bring you back to that moment. To help you talk through these feelings toward yourself. I know you love your family, but that doesn’t mean they’re not hurting you.”

My jaw flexes with annoyance. “They aren’t hurting me,” I mumble.

“But they are.” His index knuckle grinds into the nape of my neck, and I hate how nice it feels. “Your family isn’t helpless, Riley. But you’ve volunteered to take over the cooking and cleaning repeatedly, and they got used to letting you. I’m not saying they intentionally put the burden on you. I know your parents are a little…clueless sometimes. But guess what. When we were living together, they managed to survive.”

His hand moves fully up and out the back of my tank top to grasp my neck and nudge my forehead against his.

“When you came home, things were probably a little more disorganized, but still fine,” he murmurs. “Right? With the way you’ve convinced yourself that your family can’t run their own house, you’d think your absence would’ve meant it would be a total disaster. But it wasn’t.”

My blood is cooling. He’s not wrong. When I returned from the hospital, it was clear nobody had cleaned it to my extent, but it was still clean. There were some things out of place—some dishes in the sink, some dusty surfaces, the yard in disarray—but nothing unmanageable.

“But I volunteer to do these chores for a reason,” I say, my lower lip beginning to wobble. “I’ve caused problems with the medical stuff…It’s fine…I don’t want to be high-maintenance, so it’s better to do things myself, like cleaning and cooking…I’ll be less worried about getting sick…”

My voice trembles around the words. I’m not sure why I’m getting emotional. There’s no reason to be upset, because the situation is too nuanced for him to shave it down to this extent.

“It’s not fine,” Aaron whispers. “You don’t owe your family just because you’ve had a history of illness. It’s your parents’ job to keep you healthy. They seem willing to put in more effort to stop you from getting sick, so why not let them? Why do you still feel like you need to make two meals every night when they’ve said they don’t mind eating gluten-free?”

If I open my mouth, I’ll start crying, so I keep it shut.

“You came to this realization once, and you can do it again,” he continues. “If you decide to try getting some space, you’re still welcome to stay with us. You don’t remember meeting my dads, but they’re big fans. I think they like you more than me.”

I don’t expect that last part, and I laugh. It’s quick and frail, but something about it triggers a sudden yearning in Aaron’s eyes. He draws me in, meeting my lips. I should probably yell at him for daring to do this with my wrists trapped, but for all my whining and squirming, I don’t actually mind having a valid reason to be close to him.