Dear Aaron(86)

The side of Brittany’s thigh touched mine as she asked, “And the skirt?”

My face definitely turned a little pink at the attention they were both giving me. “I got it from a thrift store and redid a lot of it, I’m sorry.”

She blinked. “You redid it, how?”

“She makes costumes and dresses,” Aaron piped in from the front, his brown eyes visible in the rearview mirror.

Brittany leaned further into me, narrowing her eyes a little in a way that didn’t make me feel like it was judgmental, more just… curious. “Where do you live?”

“In Houston,” I told her, cocking my head to the side just enough to make eye contact with the pretty black-haired woman that had been watching me closely on and off with a friendly expression on her face every time I’d caught her. I could do this. Everyone had been nice so far. “Are you in Shreveport?” I asked her, trying to make conversation.

“I live in Haughton. It’s outside Shreveport,” she explained, giving me an easygoing smile that relaxed me.

I nodded and tried to think of something else to ask her. “Have you been here before?”

“Yeah, we came last spring before Hall shipped out,” she said.

I hadn’t known that. Had I? I couldn’t remember him mentioning if this was his first time in Port Saint Joe, the town closest to the strip of peninsula called Cape San Blas, where we were staying, or not. Either way, it wasn’t like it was any of my business to know where he’d gone before we’d met.

Even though I might have wanted to know everything.

“Do you have a boyfriend?”

I froze at the random question that came from my right, from the younger girl whose face was suddenly red like she couldn’t believe she’d asked that. I guess I was too, a little. I’d never heard anyone just… ask that kind of question like that before.

“Ahh…” I trailed off, knowing the answer but….

She must have realized what the heck had come out of her mouth because she started stuttering, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I don’t have a filter—”

“It’s okay—”

Mindy waved me off. “That’s so rude. I’ve just been wondering because Max said that Aaron said you weren’t his girlfriend—”

Why that felt like a sock to my stomach, I had no idea. It wasn’t like I didn’t know that. It wasn’t like he didn’t know I wasn’t his girlfriend either.

“—and my mom always says guys and girls can’t be friends, and I’m just trying to figure out why you would come if you aren’t together, and oh my God, I’m still talking. I’m sorry,” the girl, who couldn’t have been older than eighteen, rambled on in the same breath.

I could only look at her.

“Jesus Christ, Mindy,” that was Aaron from the front seat, glancing over his shoulder with a shake of his head.

“It’s okay,” I tried to butt in, even though I was positive my face was red. “I would probably wonder too.” I just wouldn’t ask outright something like that. It was one thing for everyone I knew and had known for years to know my miss after miss in the relationship business, but for this girl I barely knew to ask, was a little bit depressing. The whole world was aware that there was something strange about Aaron inviting me to come. There was no hiding it. There was no pretending like he saw me as something more than a… than a… relative. Ugh. But I told her the truth. “No” and my face definitely turned red, if it hadn’t already been.

“You just broke up with one?”

“No,” I repeated myself. “I just haven’t had one… in a while. Aaron is just my,” I almost choked on the word but managed to get it out with a little bit of fake nonchalance behind it, “friend. One of my favorite friends.”

And there were my two lies before I even knew I was going there.

I was not going to look at Aaron. Nope. Not then.

I forced a smile on my face and asked the girl another question before she could throw a new one out that I didn’t know what to do with, “Do you have a boyfriend?”

The way she shook her head quickly, like she was disgusted. “Oh no. I don’t have time for dumbasses.”

I couldn’t help but grin even as I faced forward again.

And it was Brittany beside me who chimed in with, “It takes a while to find one that isn’t a dumbass, but there’re a few out there.”

I’m not sure why I glanced up at the rearview mirror again but I couldn’t help but smile, especially not when Aaron’s gaze flicked to mine. The way his eyebrows moved said he was probably smiling.

“How long did it take you, Brit?” the younger girl asked.

The woman beside me made a thoughtful noise as Des turned in his seat to shoot her a look that wasn’t meant for me to see. I wondered how long they’d been together. “Twenty-eight years.”

From up front, I heard Des, the man with the green eyes, mutter, “Damn right” under his breath.

“Don’t rush it, Mindy. He—whoever—you want is out there somewhere. You’re still a baby, have fun and don’t worry about relationships. I wish I could go back and skip some of the guys I dated when I was your age, believe me,” was Brittany’s advice.