Dear Aaron(84)

Run for where, I had no clue, but when his hand tugged, I took off running beside him, dashing into the street between the houses and going slightly to the right where there was a path of wooden planks between an aqua blue home and a cream-colored monstrosity. I didn’t notice what temperature the wood was, or worry about splinters, all I felt was the sand that had been spread over the path over time and the feel of Aaron’s warm fingers.

It wasn’t the Caribbean, but the water was beautiful, especially in the oncoming sunrise. White sand snuck up between my toes and over the tops of my feet as Aaron led us to the right. There were probably twenty umbrellas anchored into the sand within a fifty-foot stretch of beach, all of them spaced apart with beach chairs settled beneath them.

We didn’t go to any of those. Instead, Aaron led us almost to the edge of the water, just before the sand became thick, damp and cool. Almost gracefully, he lowered himself until his butt hit the ground, his hand letting go of mine as he did it. He raised those brown eyes to me and made them wide as he propped his hands behind him. “You want to sit down, or are you going to keep panting standing up?”

I scoffed and fought the urge to kick sand at him before I flopped down just like he had. “We don’t all run ten miles a day.”

“Or one mile,” he muttered, angling his hips just enough so that he was facing me and the water at the same time, the side of his foot moving just enough so that it brushed my own.

“Ha, ha.”

He grinned. “I thought it’s good for people with heart problems to do cardio?”

“I don’t have a heart problem anymore,” I reminded him. “And I like to go for walks—”

He coughed.

“—long walks, thank you very much.”

“Long walks,” he repeated. “And kickboxing.”

I nodded at him. “I took a Zumba class three times a week for three months once.”

He blinked. “What’s Zumba?”

It was my turn to blink at him. “You dance to exercise.”

The way he stared at me blankly made me snort.

“It was harder than you think,” I said, earning a smirk from that mouth that I purposely hadn’t thought about.

“I’ll take your word for it.”

I snickered, and before I knew what I was doing, I moved my foot to the side until it bumped with the side of his. “Are you still going to run now that you’re back?” I asked.

He shrugged as his eyes swung toward the water. “Not as much. It relaxes me, but I don’t love it.”

What he meant too was that he had better things to occupy his time with than running just to make the day go by faster. That was one of the things I tried not to worry about with our friendship once his life got back to normal. About how he’d forget about me. Make less time to sit on his computer and chat… and then, eventually, he’d be gone, living his life. And if I was lucky, he might think of me once a month or once every other month and shoot me an e-mail. As time went on—

I was being a selfish jerk, wasn’t I? Worrying about things I couldn’t control? Expecting everyone to be like everyone else that had used me for something and then forgotten I existed?

“I like going for bike rides more,” he admitted, breaking my thoughts when he nudged my toes with his sand-covered ones.

That had me perking up. “Mountain biking?”

“Yeah.” He smiled. “You mountain bike?”

I shook my head. “No, but it’s always sounded like fun. There aren’t any mountains or hills in Houston. There are two trails that I know of, but they’re usually packed with people because there’s nowhere else for them to go. I’d be too scared to start there.”

“There are lots of trails in Kentucky,” he told me, giving me a little smile that sent my heart doing pit-pats it had no business doing.

“What kind of bike do you have?”

“A Yeti.”

“Never heard of it. I still have my Huffy from when I was a kid.”

I could tell by the creases at the corners of his eyes that Aaron was biting back a smile. “I bet you’d still fit on your kid-sized Huffy.”

That got me side-eyeing him. “I know a lot of people shorter than me, thank you.”

“Oh yeah?” He raised an eyebrow like he didn’t believe me, which chances were, he didn’t.

I nodded sarcastically. “Yeah.”

“Where do you know them from?” he asked, those eyebrows still up. “From the Shire?”

The laugh that busted out of me had me tipping my head back and literally setting my foot totally on top of his as I reached over to poke him hard in the side. Aaron captured my hand as he laughed too. “I’m going back to the house,” I whined when I could finally catch my breath.

“No you’re not,” he quipped, squeezing my fingers before slowly letting them go.

He smiled at me and I smiled at him, and I felt… I felt something. In my heart. On my skin. On my fingers and toes. Along my spine. It wasn’t a tingling. It wasn’t some earth-shattering sensation. It was something I wasn’t totally sure of, but it was enough for my smile to grow wider.

Then he said, “I’m really glad you came, Ruby,” and I didn’t know my mouth could go so wide.