Dear Aaron(94)

He blinked. “Yeah, it’s fine.” Aaron stirred his spoon into the oatmeal, giving me a side look I couldn’t miss. “Did you give her my social too?”

My face flamed up for what must have been the thousandth time since I’d met him two days ago. I wanted to lie, I really did. But I had promised him I wouldn’t, and I didn’t want to go back on my word. So I told him the truth, even though I pretended my oatmeal was the most interesting thing on the planet. “I wrote it down on a piece of paper and stuck it under my bed.”

There was a pause. Then, “How would anyone know to look there for it?”

I gave him another side look and pretended I cleared my throat because there was something there and not because I was ashamed I’d done what any other sensible woman would have done. “I left a note with my stepdad with instructions, just in case something happened,” I practically whispered. “He’s the most trustworthy one in the whole house.”

Aaron didn’t say anything.

He didn’t say anything for so long I slid a look at him.

But when I did, his pinched eyes and equally pinched mouth were the first things that I focused on. Followed by that was the fact that his shoulders and upper body were shaking just a little, just a little, little, little, so little that I hadn’t been able to sense it sitting next to him. After a moment, his right hand reached up toward his face and he slapped the palm of his hand over his eyes as he said very, very slowly, “What did the instructions say?”

Blushing for the fifty-first time, I admitted it. “That if I go missing to try and contact you first. I put your name and number on there, and your dad’s PO box. I also wrote where they can find your social and Max’s address,” I muttered, feeling so ashamed with myself but also proud that I expected the worst and that’s what a smart girl would do. “Then I wrote that no one better take my things until I’ve been missing at least two years, after that they’re allowed to give up hope finding me.”

He said nothing. Not a single thing, and it only made me want to go searching for my black hole again.

“I’m sorry. It wasn’t like I was expecting you to be a serial killer or a sex trafficker or anything, but you can’t be too careful, you know what I mean? Imagine—” I had to clear my throat again before I could get the words out “—imagine if I was your sister. You’d tell me to do the same thing, wouldn’t you?”

One deep brown eye opened and looked at me, his beautiful, handsome face slightly pink. Aaron nodded, just a little, just enough to notice. But it was his dimple that caught my eye. “I’m not giving you shit over it. That’s good you did that,” he managed to get out with that cute dent still out and about.

“Okay,” I mumbled back at him, still embarrassed that I’d practically admitted that I didn’t trust him enough, like those wives who thought their husbands were going to kill them and left letters behind pointing fingers at them. “I do trust you though. I think if someone tried to take me, you’d at least fight them for me a little…” I watched his face for a moment before narrowing my eyes. “Wouldn’t you?”

That had his other eye popping open, his cheeks still slightly pink, but everything else about him completely alert. “You know I would.”

Why that pleased me so much, I wasn’t going to overanalyze.

“If someone tried to take you, I know aikido, some jiu-jitsu, and kickboxing,” I offered him up. “But my dentist says I have really strong teeth, so I’d be better off trying to bite someone’s finger or ear off instead.”

Aaron’s eyebrows climbed up his forehead almost comically. “Like a little Chihuahua,” he suggested, the spoon going into his mouth with a sly grin.

I winked at him, immediately regretting it. I didn’t want it to come across like I was flirting. “I was thinking more of a piranha. I’ve only had one filling in my entire life,” I told him, wishing each word coming out of my mouth wasn’t coming out of it.

If he thought I was being awkward or a flirt, he didn’t make it known. “Or a raptor.”

“A lion.”

“A tiger.”

“Did you know a jaguar has twice the strength in its bite than a tiger does?”

Aaron frowned as he took another bite of his oatmeal. “No shit?”

“No. Two thousand pounds per square inch. They’re the only big cat that kills their prey by biting its head, through bone and everything. A tiger bites the neck of whatever animal they’re eating to cut their air and blood flow off. Crazy, huh?”

He looked impressed. “I had no idea.”

I nodded. “Not a lot of people do.”

“Is there anything that bites harder than they do?”

“Crocodiles. The really big ones. I’m pretty sure they have about 4000 or 5000 psi bites.” For the fifty-second time, I shrugged. “I like watching the Animal Channel and Discovery,” I said, making it sound like an apology.

Aaron gave me that soft smile that made me feel like my insides were on fire. Then he winked. “I don’t know much about crocodiles, but I know all about alligators,” he offered. “Did you know there are only two species left in the world?”

“There are?”

“American alligator and the Asian alligator. More than a fifth of all of them live in Florida.”