He squeezed my hip, his gaze intent. “Yes.”

My entire world went hazy as I got out, with more hope than I ever could have dreamed, “As more than a friend?”

All of Aaron’s facial features gentled and dropped, even his shoulders seemed to slump a little, those mahogany eyes boring right into mine, capturing them and not letting them go as he said one word and only one word, “Yes.”

It was a miracle my mouth didn’t just drop open so I’d gape at him.

“As a lot more than just a friend,” he clarified like his “yes” hadn’t been enough. His voice sounded watery and a little unsure, and it… it wrecked me.

I felt like… everything was a lie. Like I knew nothing. Like everything I thought I knew was BS. Skepticism I didn’t even know I was capable of seemed to drip from my words as I looked up at him in 1000 percent confusion. “But you… you said….” Aaron liked me? I couldn’t even wrap my head around the “Aaron” part of the sentence, let alone the rest of it. “You said I was like your sister,” I pretty much accused him.

He made a groaning noise deep in his throat, his gaze never straying. “Not even a little, Rube,” he replied. “I was drunk, and I’d been…” He swallowed and shook his head. “I’d been having a real hard time trying to talk myself out of thinking about you like that, but it didn’t work.”

That time, I’m pretty sure I did fail at keeping my mouth closed.

I must have because Aaron’s smile grew a fraction and he dipped his head closer until his nose touched my forehead. “At first, you really were just a nice stranger. Then you were my friend, and I really did want you to be happy and do your thing,” he explained softly. “And then it changed. The next thing I knew, you were telling me about some dick kissing you and it pissed me off more than anything ever had before.”

“But… but… but…” I sputtered, my pulse going crazy, my breath getting thick, my mind swimming against the current. “But you… but I… but—”

His laugh was low. “Ru.”

Jerking my head back, I glared up at him, unsure about how the hell I was feeling. He liked me. He liked me? I wasn’t ready for this. It was what I wanted, what I should have wanted, but… “Aaron, why are you telling me this?”

That had him blinking. “Because I need to. I want you to know.”

“But why?”

“Because you make me happy, Ruby. Because there’s no one else I want to be around more.”

In any other circumstance, I might have fainted, but I didn’t. Every piece of my sanity was going nuts, and I couldn’t line everything up and put it back in order yet. Not while I had a thousand questions and insecurities bouncing around in my head. “But you don’t…,” I stammered, trying to think of why I would be ruining this moment and then remembering. “This was a real crappy idea.”

His eyelids hung so low over his irises I almost couldn’t see them. “Why’s that?” he asked slowly.

“Because I’m crazy about you too, but this wouldn’t work out. I think I might have rather not known,” I told him honestly.

“Why is this a bad idea? Why wouldn’t it work?” he whispered almost cautiously.

“Because!” I hissed at him.

“Because what?”

“Because you know I want to get married someday,” I told him quickly. “And you don’t.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“But mostly because you don’t want to tell me things for whatever reason,” I responded, almost quietly. “I care about you so much… I love you, Aaron, but I don’t want to get shut out. I told you yesterday. Every time I ask you something you don’t want to answer, you don’t. You tell me almost everything, I think, but the things you don’t….” I shrugged. “I don’t want you to be alone. I want you to know I’m here, even if it’s just as a friend. But I can’t love you when you just brood about things and bury them inside you. I get how it is, I get there’s a lot you don’t want to tell me because I wouldn’t understand, but I’m sure there’s a lot of stuff where that isn’t the case.”

Aaron stared down at me for so long, I thought I’d made him change his mind, and I wanted to believe I would have been all right with that because I didn’t want to be with someone who held so much back from me. That wouldn’t be fair. But finally, finally, one palm left my waist and cupped the back of my head, gently coaxing it forward until my cheek rested against his pectoral. Aaron hugged me to him, his chest expanding greatly beneath me. His words were soft. “I’m sorry, Ru. You’re right. I shouldn’t. I’ve told you almost everything. What do you want to know?”

There were multiple things, I knew there were. And I was glad he wasn’t pretending like there was just one. So I picked the big one, the one that had been turning my stomach for days, and I asked.

“Who’s been calling the house making you mad?”

I felt his sigh beneath my cheek. “My birth mom.”

“What happened?”

He sighed again, the hand on the back of my head slid down my spine to land on my waist. “She’s been calling since she knows I’m back in the States,” he explained. “We don’t…. All right, I don’t like to talk to her or about her, I’m sorry. I’m sure you can tell from our messages. She left when I was little. She cheated on my dad. I remember her saying how unhappy she was. How it had been him that wanted kids and she was the one stuck at home raising us while he worked all the time. How we weren’t what she’d wanted out of her life.