Wrong About the Guy(41)

We talked about the food for a while, but then Aaron fell silent. I looked up after a moment. He was studying my face seriously.

“What?” I said.

He put his plate on the counter and leaned toward me. “Ellie,” he said, and glanced around like he wanted to make sure we were alone. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you. There’s so much that I—” He stopped. Then he said, “I just want to get everything out in the open.” He stopped again and rubbed his head, like he was a little unsure of what to say next. Or whether he should talk at all.

Suddenly the last bite I’d taken felt all bunched up in my throat and I had to swallow hard to get it to go down. I already knew what Aaron was going to say. It was obvious. He was going to tell me that he liked me. And not just as a friend.

All of the attention he’d been paying me—even against Crystal’s orders—and the way he kept tucking my hand against his side and keeping me near him . . .

Aaron liked me. A lot.

And I liked him a lot.

But did I like him as much as he liked me? Or the way that he liked me?

My stomach lurched.

I just wasn’t ready for things to change between us. Not yet. I needed more time to figure out my own feelings. I had thought all of our flirting was friendship flirting. Like the jokes I made about our future marriage—I had always assumed he knew I was just being silly when I said stuff like that. But maybe he didn’t. Maybe he thought I felt the way he did.

And maybe I did but just didn’t know it. Could that happen? I didn’t feel shaky and excited when he was around, just happy to enjoy his company. Shouldn’t I be less comfortable with him? More starry-eyed? Or was that just in movies and books? I’d never felt that way about anyone. But maybe I wasn’t the kind of person who got that way—I never had crushes and most of my friends had them all the time.

My mind raced, while the smile on my face froze.

I didn’t want to be mean, but I desperately didn’t want Aaron to say something that would change things between us. Not yet. I needed to hold him off for a while, buy myself some time, and figure out how I felt.

I said, “What’s up?” as lightly as I could.

“We’ve gotten so close,” he said. “We basically think the same way about everything—”

“Well, not everything.” I cut him off with a forced laugh. “There’s that whole putting-fruit-on-frozen-yogurt thing that I still haven’t accepted about you.”

“Right,” he said. “I put fruit on mine and you put gummy worms on yours, and I’m the crazy one. Anyway—”

“Gummy worms are so much better. Just ask any eight-year-old you see. Well, any eight-year-old girl. Do little boys like sugar as much as little girls do? This is where not having a brother affects my knowledge. I mean, I do have a brother—duh—but he’s way too little. He doesn’t count. Plus he’s really weird about food. And doesn’t really talk.” I was chattering as fast as I could to keep him from saying more. His face kind of fell while I was talking; it was probably pretty obvious that I was trying to avoid having a serious conversation. “I’m really thirsty,” I said abruptly, and rose to my feet. “I told George to get me a Coke and then totally forgot about it. I’d better go back to the living room and make sure he’s not looking for me.”

“Okay,” Aaron said, and got up, too.

We abandoned our plates and moved back through the dining room. I threaded my arm in his, glancing up at him uncertainly. I couldn’t really acknowledge what had just happened because I hadn’t let him get far enough for us to talk about it openly. But I hoped the pressure of my arm told him that I understood what he had been trying to say, and that I did care about him—I just wasn’t ready for that kind of a talk yet.

It was a lot to try to squeeze into, well, a squeeze, but he smiled down at me without any noticeable resentment. Maybe he was relieved, too.

The Nussbaum brothers and Izzy were right where we had left them, but they had been joined by a tall, muscular guy dressed like Khal Drogo from Game of Thrones. He had the body for it, I’d give him that. Huge biceps.

“Hey!” I said to George. “You never brought me my drink!”

“I did bring you your drink,” he said irritably. “But you disappeared.”

“I’m still thirsty. Hint, hint.”

“Yeah, no,” he said.

“I’ll get it.” Aaron disentangled our arms and gave my hand a good-bye squeeze. I saw Jonathan and Izzy exchange a look and knew they were misreading the situation. “Diet Coke, right?”

“You might want to tie her down first,” George said. “She disappears.”

“I always want to tie her down,” Aaron said with a gallant leer, and left.

“That wasn’t what I meant,” George said to no one in particular.

“I’m Ricky,” said the artist formerly known as Khal Drogo, holding his hand out to me.

“Ellie.” I shook it.

“How do you know the Marquands?”

“My stepfather’s friends with them.”

“And who is your stepfather?”

It was a perfectly reasonable question; he had no way of knowing that it made my whole body tighten. “Luke Weston,” I said, and his eyes got suddenly wide, so I quickly said, “How do you know the Marquands?”