But that wasn’t the way these things worked, unfortunately.

Instead, I hoped he could tell the difference in the way I had my arms around him and that he could notice I was trying to hug him instead of cling to him for dear life, and I said with my mouth real close to his ear, “You’re the best, Aaron not an asswipe.”

I was pretty sure that if anyone had been standing out on their deck that night, they could have heard us both laughing.

Chapter 20

It was stupid to think it, but I woke up feeling different the next morning.

Maybe different wasn’t the correct word to use, but I felt…

I don’t know how the heck I felt exactly. After spending a lot more than two minutes out in the water, clinging onto Aaron like a spider monkey, something in me seemed changed. Maybe that was the thing about doing things you hadn’t thought you could do, you realized that maybe you weren’t who you’d always thought you were. There was more to me than even I’d thought there was. Despite everything I thought I’d learned the day before, I felt happier, more at peace, just… better, even though I was really tired after only sleeping five hours.

Dragging myself to the bathroom that morning, I showered quickly and headed upstairs, yawning nonstop. With my usual bottle of water in hand, I made my way to the balcony and tried to clear my mind as much as possible. I tried to think of the things that made me happy and the way the air smelled. I tried to think of anything but Aaron.

But like a high school girl with my first crush, almost every thought just went back to him in some way. How I was worried about him. How I was disappointed that he didn’t trust me enough. How I shouldn’t like him as much as I did, but I did. When I wasn’t thinking about him, I thought about what I was going to do when I got back home after visiting my dad.

The door of the deck slid open and there Aaron was, with his tray. There was some coloring beneath his eyes like there had been every other day, but he smiled at me warmer than he ever had before, and that was saying something in a language I didn’t know.

“Morning,” he said.

“Good morning,” I called back to him, watching as he made his way toward where I sat.

He held out a plate toward me as he lowered himself into his same chair. On the white plate were two pancakes with what looked like chocolate chips in them. And they were shaped like Mickey Mouse’s head.

I glanced up at him to see him smiling at me almost expectantly.

“You like?” he asked, pulling out two forks from the pocket of his swim trunks and handing one over.

I couldn’t stop the stupid smile on my face. “How did you make these?”

“Skills.”

I rolled my eyes even as I kept smiling. “No, really.”

He winked. “There’s a mold in the cupboard. I thought you’d get a kick out of it.”

A mold in the cupboard of his father’s beach house. I shoved the reminder away as I said, “I already told you, but you know you don’t have to cook for me every morning. I can eat cereal.”

His words were so simple, yet more powerful than anything. “I want to.”

And like the needy idiot that I was, I asked him, “Why?”

With the side of his fork to the plate, he started cutting a piece of his plain, round pancake, his gaze flicking back and forth between the food and me, like the words coming out of his mouth were effortless. “Because I want to, Ru.” Aaron’s mouth twisted to the side as he chewed on the piece of pancake in his mouth, and he said, “Hurry up and eat so we can go.”

“Fishing?” I asked him, sounding a lot more hopeful than I ever could have imagined.

His twisting mouth turned into a smile. “No. Scalloping.”

“Scalloping?” I croaked.

“Yeah. Scalloping. Did you bring any water shoes with you?”

“I look like an idiot, don’t I?”

“You don’t look like an idiot.” Aaron tipped his head to the side and smirked.

That grin said enough. I looked like an idiot. It was in the nineties, and I had on a giant straw hat and something Aaron called a buffer that really just looked like the neck part of a turtleneck. I blinked at him and sighed. “It looks like I was planning on going to the Kentucky Derby and then changed my mind and thought about going skiing, and finally decided to go to the beach.”

He shook his head, but I couldn’t miss the grin on his face. “Your neck is red enough. I told you to put more sunblock on yesterday, remember?” he reminded me for about the fifth time.

I was tempted to reach up and touch it, but I didn’t. I’d already rubbed aloe vera gel into the skin twice before Aaron had come up to me with the buffer and smiled so sweetly, I hadn’t realized what he was putting over my head until it was on there… and then he’d given me the hat.

He kept talking. “We could swim out further and dive, but we’ll stick closer to shore. I’ve found a bunch here before.”

Before. How had I missed all the signs he gave me that he’d been here more than once in the past? It’s no biggie, I said to myself, trying not to let the reminder ruin our day.

“If the heat starts bothering you too much, just tell me and we can get out of the sun,” he offered, stepping back to look at me.