Chapter Nineteen

For anyone witnessing my foolish attempts at reaching the bedroom, it would have been pretty obvious that I was about to face-plant on the floor. And they wouldn’t be wrong. It was a wonder I was able to move at all, considering my feet barely lifted off the ground with all the dragging they had been carrying out.

Ironically, and contrary to the story my body told, I didn’t think I had ever felt more awake than I did as I crossed the threshold of that door.

My head was working at full speed. Processing everything Aaron had told me about his past. I kept spinning and turning even the tiniest pieces of information until I was completely sure I had them pinned down securely so they wouldn’t flee my memory.

Never mind that my legs wobbled with every step I took and exhaustion throbbed through my body. Aaron’s confession—because it had felt like he was unveiling something he had kept guarded and locked away from sight—had created a little riot in my head.

And my chest. Definitely my chest too. The organ that resided there had constricted and squeezed, and I was still trying to come to terms with the fact that I wasn’t supposed to feel that way. Or to act on it. A part of me missed being drunk or tipsy enough not to care, but after all the water Aaron had insisted on me gulping down and the fact that I hadn’t touched a drink after we went back inside the infamous bar, I didn’t have the luxury of that excuse anymore. It was past five in the morning, and the effect of the alcohol had faded to a very low buzz that indicated tomorrow wasn’t going to be much fun.

I didn’t realize I had been standing in the middle of the bedroom, staring into empty space, until Aaron closed the door behind him. When I turned, my gaze immediately fell on the glass of water in his hand.

I watched him walk to the nightstand, where I had placed a few of my things, and set the glass there.

“That for me?” I knew the answer, but the small gesture turned something inside of me to mush. Just like every time he had watched after me tonight. It just … didn’t feel all that small anymore. “If you keep taking care of me this fiercely, it’s going to be really hard to go back to real life.”

Perhaps I shouldn’t have said that, shouldn’t have phrased it that way, but after everything that had happened tonight, the careful grip I tried to maintain around Aaron seemed to be loosening.

Aaron nodded, his expression turning somewhat more serious. But he didn’t comment on what I had said. Instead, he unbuttoned the top of his shirt and then changed his mind and started fumbling with the wristband of his watch.

Feeling my legs wobble—for all the wrong reasons—I walked to the edge of the bed and sat on top of the simple and silky comforter. Stopping my body from melting into it right away, I exhaled tiredly, releasing some of the tension in my shoulders. But before I could completely relax, my spine stiffened with a realization.

The bed.

We would be sharing this very same bed tonight.

That fact had somehow fled my mind until now. And its return did strange things to my belly. Things that were not strange in a funny way, but in a rather exciting way. Things that heated my skin.

Well, if I was feeling this way and we hadn’t even gotten into bed yet, I couldn’t even begin to imagine what would happen when I found myself tucked under the same comforter as Aaron. His large body and my much smaller one sharing and crowding the modest space the mattress offered.

And I … shit.

In an attempt to distract myself, I occupied my hands, taking the flats off my hurting feet. Once I was done with that, I rubbed my temples, telling myself to chill the heck out because this was okay. We were adults. About to share a bed. So?

“How bad is it?” Aaron asked from where he stood still at the other end of the bed.

I chuckled, but it came closer to the sound that someone who was choking would make. “Well”—I cleared my throat—“I feel like I was run over by a stampede of very angry and very heavy antelopes that were in a rush to get somewhere.”

Aaron appeared in my field of vision, coming to a stop in front of me. “Are you referencing Mufasa’s death?”

My fingers stopped working, hovering above my temples. “You like The Lion King?”

“Of course.”

“Any other Disney movies?” I was tempting my luck here.

Aaron’s expression remained serious. “All of them.”

Shit. “Even Frozen? Tangled? The Princess Frog?” I asked, and he nodded.

“I love animated movies. They take my mind off things.” He dipped his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “Disney, Pixar … I’m a big fan.”

This was too much. First, he’d opened up about his childhood earlier today, and now, this. I wanted to ask how and why, but there was a more pressing issue. “What’s your favorite?”

Please don’t say the one that will send my heart into cardiac arrest. Please don’t say it.

“Up.”

Fuck. He had said it. My heart struggled there for a moment. And that little spot that had been softening throughout the night got a little bigger.

“Oh.” The word breathily left my lips. It was all I managed.

My eyes closed, and my fingers resumed massaging my temples. Although maybe I should have been massaging my chest.

“That bad, huh?” He seemed to be gauging something when I looked back at him. My sobriety most likely.

“Don’t worry.” I waved my hand. “I’m okay. I’m not drunk by now. I promise I won’t puke all over you tonight.”

That didn’t earn me much of an answer, making me cringe over my choice of words.

Without further comment, Aaron disappeared in the tiny en suite bathroom, leaving me to deal with my awkwardness and thoughts.

Which mainly centered around Aaron—watching animation movies in the privacy of his home, particularly Up and perhaps finding a kindred spirit in Carl—and the damn bed again.

I stood up slowly.

My gaze followed the geometric pattern that crisscrossed the comforter, all the way to where the pillows lay. Our heads will be there, only a few inches apart. Everything I was feeling was slowly replaced by a weird mix of anticipation and something … new.

I needed to keep my cool. It was just a bed. We were two adults who could sleep next to each other. We were … friends now? No, I didn’t think we were. But we were not just colleagues either. Even forgetting about the fact that he’d soon be my boss, I didn’t think we only qualified as two people who worked together, argued on a regular basis, and struggled to tolerate each other for more than ten minutes. Our deal—this love deception game we were playing—had pushed us out of that meticulously labeled area we had been in. Shoved us right into a completely new and uncharted territory. And now, we were more than whatever we had been. We were …

We were about to share a bed. That was the only thing I knew for sure.

That, and the fact that I needed to stop overthinking it. What I needed to be was … unaffected. Yeah. If we were going to share a bed, I needed to stop behaving like it was a big deal. Even if it was. Because it motherfreaking was. Aaron had been showing me just how much with his soft but unwinding touches and these little pieces of himself that were just as provoking.

What had Rosie told me once?

“Set your goal free into the universe. Visualize it.”

That was exactly what I needed to do.

So, I visualized myself as impassive. Unconcerned. Unimpressed. I was a block of ice in the middle of a blizzard. I’d stand solidly. Immovable and cold and calm.

Yeah.

Walking to the closet with that on mind, I pulled out my pajamas, which consisted of shorts and an old T-shirt with Science Rocks in bold yellow letters. A part of me regretted not putting more thought into it now that the room arrangement situation had changed. Another much smaller part thought that Aaron would appreciate the message in the shirt. That maybe he would give me one of those lopsided smirks that—