Dear Aaron(83)

And Aaron had proven himself to be a good friend plenty of times over the past few months. I didn’t want to screw this up. I could keep it together and be a friendly, normal friend who wasn’t making moony eyes at a guy who was so far out of her league, he saw her as a little sister. Me.

That thought was a lot more miserable than I would have liked it to be.

There was no way I’d been out there longer than half an hour when I heard the door slide open and found Aaron standing there, balancing a tray in his hands. When I went to stand up and help him, he shook his head. It took him a second to balance everything, but he slid the door mostly closed behind him and walked toward where I was sitting with a groggy, rough, “Morning” in that wonderful timbre that was almost hoarse so early in the day.

I whispered back, “Good morning,” as I dropped my feet to the floor and sat up straight as he set the tray down on one of the small tables and took a seat on the chair closest to the one I was on. His blond hair was damp and his skin still held a hint of pink beneath the golden color. In a faded, old gray T-shirt that said HALL AUTO and aqua blue swim trunks that nearly reached his knees, he was barefoot.

“Did I wake you up?” I asked him as he started moving things I couldn’t see around on the tray.

Aaron peeked over at me with a small smile that could have been a reserved one or a tired one, and shook his head a second before picking up something off the tray and holding out a plate in my direction. On it were two slices of toast, each topped with a perfect little square of butter.

I snorted and glanced at him, catching his smile cracking into a wider one.

“It’s all we have until we go to the store, swear,” he claimed, his expression telling me that might be the truth, but he was still enjoying messing with me.

Taking the plate from his hands, I tried pinching my lips together to keep from telling him he was the first person who had ever brought me breakfast unless I was sick, but I kept the words in my mouth. I locked them up and threw away the key. Settling the plate on my lap, I held back a gulp and smiled, feeling a little shy. “Thank you.”

He winked as he leaned forward and angled the chair he was in to face mine more, before pulling another plate off the tray to his left and settling it on his bare knee. “Somebody needs to make sure you’re eating.”

I picked up a slice and held it an inch away from the plate, watching him out of the corner of my eye. “Remind me to buy some cream cheese or jelly when we go to the store.”

He grinned this sleepy, tired grin.

“Really, thank you though,” I repeated myself, just in case he couldn’t tell I was just messing with him.

“You’re welcome,” he replied easily, almost lazily, his eyes flicking to mine quickly before lowering back to the plate. “I told you that I’d make sure you were good. We’ll get something better later.”

“It’s perfect. This was really nice of you.”

Aaron shrugged off my gratitude and leaned back as he took a bite out of one of the three pieces of toast on his plate. I did the same, taking turns between looking at him and glancing at the sliver of beach visible behind the house we were facing.

I zeroed in on the coloring under his eyes. “Did you sleep okay?” I asked him after I finished off the first piece of toast.

He lifted a shoulder a little more casually than I was comfortable with, but I was on to him and his vagueness already. “You?”

“Yeah.” Act normal, Ruby. “This is really pretty,” I said to him, gesturing forward with my chin. “This house is amazing.”

Half of Aaron’s mouth tipped its way up, but he changed the subject. “Do you want to go to the store with us to buy groceries? We’re going to take turns cooking most nights.”

Cook? “Sure. Tell me how I can pitch in.”

He waved me off.

“I’m being serious. Make it easy on yourself and tell me how I can help. Otherwise I’ll just do it anyway.”

The other side of his mouth tipped upward too, and those brown eyes flicked my way. “I thought you weren’t bossy?”

I could play the side-eye game if he wanted to. “Only when you’re being stubborn.”

That had him laughing as he plucked at another piece of toast and brought it up to his mouth, taking a big bite out of it. “I have this to look forward to every day while we’re here then?”

My heart beat a little faster, but I ignored it. “I guess you do.”

Aaron smirked as he wolfed down the rest of his bread, and I didn’t take too long with what I had left. The moment I finished swallowing the last piece, he stood up and took the plate from me. “Want to watch the sunrise on the beach?” he asked. “If we go now, we’ll probably make it.”

I nodded.

I followed him back into the house, watching as he dropped our plates off in the sink, before turning to me with that easygoing expression that somehow looked like he knew something I didn’t. He looked really tired. We headed down the stairs, skipping the second landing and continued on down. If he wasn’t going to stop for shoes, neither was I.

When we made it to the bottom floor, Aaron stepped forward first, unlocking the door and swinging it open with a, “Rubies first” that had me holding back a smile that would for sure tell him how much I liked him.

I hadn’t noticed the day before, but the driveway outside of the door was graveled, not paved, and the small rocks nipped at my bare feet. Aaron didn’t comment as he closed the door behind us, slipping his long fingers through mine, and casually said, “Let’s run for it.”