Dear Aaron(79)

I was going to talk to him, I told myself as I buckled in the seat belt.

It was going to be just like when we messaged each other, I swore to the universe.

I was fine now. We were going to have a good time, get to know each other even more than we already had, and that was going to start right then… as soon as he was back on the road.

I told myself all of this over and over again as he pulled the truck back onto the highway to drive the rest of the way to the beach house.

I told myself all of this, really believing it, feeling pretty darn determined… and I still passed out almost immediately after he began driving. Because the next thing I was aware of was gasping awake, jolting in my seat, the air getting ripped out of my lungs when I felt my head droop so far forward it scared me badly enough that I jerked backward and hit my head on the rest behind me.

That’s when I heard Aaron choke.

I watched him out of the corner of my eye as I raised the back of my hand to wipe at the area around my mouth in case I’d started drooling, because it wouldn’t be the first time that happened. I fell asleep at my work table every other day, that was my norm. There were more than likely at least fifty pictures of me passed out with drool on my face floating around my family members’ phones. One picture had been Jasmine’s screensaver for six months, until Christmas had come and Tali had drawn that penis on Sebastian’s face.

Aaron did that choke again, his whole face scrunched up, and I watched him press his lips together then tuck them in as his shoulders shook. I was pretty sure those were tears making his eyes glassy and not allergies.

“Laugh all you want,” I mumbled, wiping at my mouth anyway because he’d already caught me. What was I going to do? Pretend it hadn’t happened? But I still said, “I wasn’t joking when I told you I hadn’t slept in a while.”

To give him credit, he kept his lips tightly sealed. What he did do was reach toward his face with his right hand and press the tip of his index finger to those long, curling blond eyelashes of his, swiping upward as he choked back another laugh. And in a quiet voice that said how much control it was taking him to not burst out laughing, he gasped, “Your face was almost on your knees….”

“I thought I saw a stain on my tights…,” I muttered, pinching my own lips together because the urge to laugh at him, with him, was right there as his hands squeezed the steering wheel so tight his knuckles went white and his shoulders shook even more.

He snickered deep in his throat and cocked his face away from mine just as his shoulders trembled even harder. “Is that what happened?”

“Yes. It was.”

Aaron coughed, earning him a side-eye and a frown. “Sure. Whatever you say, Rubes.”

I’d gotten what I wanted, hadn’t I? Us being back to “normal?” “Do you know how much longer we have until we get there?” I asked, trying to change the subject. The scenery had started to change again. Beach houses clustered together on the left side, and even though I couldn’t see it, I knew water had to be close by.

“Five minutes, ten minutes max,” he informed me.

Ten minutes to meet more people. No biggie. I squeezed my left hand into a fist. “Do you mind if I use your mirror?”

He shook his head.

“Thanks,” I told him as I flipped the visor down and then opened the panel for the lit-up mirror. I tried to ignore the nerves in my stomach as I swept my hair into a low ponytail and started wiping below my eyes with the side of my finger.

I could feel him glance at me. “You already look nice.”

I blushed and flipped the visor closed like a little kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar. “You only get one first impression—”

“What?”

“You only get one first impression,” I repeated myself, pretty sure I was still blushing. “I don’t want them to not like me.”

Aaron’s mouth screwed up and his forehead furrowed as he shot me a glance out of the corner of his eye. “They’re not going to not like you, Ru.” Then he slid me a full look. “You don’t have to be nervous. You meet your friends’ friends all the time, I thought.”

One explanation after another backed up inside my throat, and I couldn’t pick one that made me sound less lame and self-conscious, but I had to. I tried to reason with myself that he already knew nearly all the worst things about me and I was still here. What was a little more embarrassment after I’d already called him gorgeous? “But these are your friends,” I explained, hoping he’d understand what I meant.

Which was that he was special to me. More special than he should have been. But there was my newest truth out in the open.

And Aaron must have known what I was trying to tell him, because he smiled so tenderly, so freaking sweetly, like you’d look at a puppy being cute, that I felt like a nut cracked in half. “You’re my friend. I want you to like them too. I told them not to make a mess before we got back.”

He…

“Don’t worry, all right?” he said in that gentle, calm voice that could have made him a Ruby Whisperer. When I didn’t respond, he reached over and touched the side of my arm with the back of his hand briefly. “All right?”

“All right,” I agreed, even though my stomach was still all knotty and uneasy, and it wasn’t all because of his friends.