Chapter 113
My palms started sweating. My sister was onto something. And I needed to start talking, give her
anything.
I downed the contents of my ss in one single gulp—exactly how tradition specified too.
“Fine, okay.” I ced my empty ss on the table. “All right, so the day Aaron and I met …” I started,
my eyes unconsciously jumping to Aaron’s face and finding him looking at me with a new kind of
interest. I returned my gaze to Isabel. “It was a cold and dark November 22—” I stopped myself, feeling
the need to exin why I remembered the date so urately. “I remember because it was the day of
my birthday, not because—” I stopped myself again. Then, I shook my head. I had barely started, and I
was doing an awful job already. This was why I should never, ever lie. “Anyway, it was November.”
Aaron’s hand brushed my back very softly. The touch unsettled me at first, but then it magically instilled
confidence in me. Just how he had done earlier that day. How he managed to do that, I couldn’t know.
But when he moved his fingers over the fabric of my thin blouse, right above my shoulder des, I felt
a little less like a fraud.
“But that isn’t important, I guess,” I continued, and I had to clear my voice lightly because it hade
out a little shaky. “When I first met Aaron, it was the day he was introduced as a new team leader by
our boss.”
Aaron’s touch turned loose and airy, and then it stopped altogether.
Trying to keep my head on the story and away from the dainty trail of goose bumps he’d left on my
skin, I continued, “He entered through that door, all cold confidence and determination. Lookingrger
than life with those long legs and broad shoulders, and I swear everybody in that meeting room fell into
silence. I could immediately tell he’d be that kind of man everybody … respected—forck of a better
word—without more than a word or two. Just by the way he looked around, assessing the situation. As
if he were looking for possible threats anding up with a way to eliminate them before they could
manifest. And even then, everyone seemed to be charmed by the new guy.”
I remembered perfectly how everyone had first gaped at the handsome and stern new addition and
then silently nodded in appreciation and awe. Me included at first. I’d never admit it, but back then, I
had gotten as far as thinking I could let that deep voice of his lure me to sleep every night, and I’d be
content for the rest of my days.
“So, yeah, every single one of my colleagues was pretty much enraptured. Not me though. I wasn’t
fooled that easily. All throughout Jeff’s and Aaron’s speeches, I kept thinking about how nervous he
must have been. I kept noticing his shoulders inching higher and his gaze growing … unsure. As if he
were holding himself from bolting out that door. So, I came to the conclusion that he wasn’t as
standoffish as he looked, standing there. He couldn’t be. It was just nerves. One couldn’t possibly give
off that vibe on purpose. It was his first day, and that was some intimidating shit. I thought he just
needed a little push in the right direction. A little friendly wee to fall into ce.”
And then I proceeded to do a very dumb and impulsive thing. Just how I always managed to do. “And I
couldn’t have been any more wrong.” I chuckled bitterly. “Maybe Aaron wasn’t nervous—I wouldn’t
know. But he didn’t need any kind of push. He was not looking for friends. And he certainly was aware
of what impression he was making.” I returned back to the present in that moment, and I was greeted
by three pairs of confused eyes. My throat dried out. “I mean, that obviously changed. Eventually,” I
added quickly in an unfortunately unconvincing way. “Because we are super in love, so yay!” Throwing
my arms in the air, I cheered, trying my best to get the control back, but the gesturended nowhere
near where I’d wanted it to.
Isabel’s face fell slightly, and right before her frown could fully form, Aaron surprised me bying to
my rescue.
“Catalina isn’t wrong. That day, I was a little nervous,” he confessed, and my head swirled in his
direction.
Aaron’s gaze was on my sister, which was good because we were in desperate need of some damage
control that required all his attention and charm. But also because I didn’t want him to see my
expression as I watched him. That trip down memoryne had left me a little too raw for hiding how I
really felt about that day.
“I didn’t have any ns or hopes of making friends, not during that first meeting and not any day after,”
he continued.
Well, that wasn’t a shock to me, not after almost two years of enduring the consequences of that
position.
“And I was plenty obvious about it. Thest thing I wanted was someone getting the wrong idea and
thinking I was there for anything that wasn’t doing the best job I could. And in my book, that is not
office. A little after five p.m.” He looked down at his hands, and his eyelids sheltered the blue in his
eyes for just a heartbeat.
For a reason I couldn’t exin, my heart raced in my chest at the memory. Embarrassment. It had to
be the physical reaction to reliving that embarrassing moment through Aaron’s words.
“Her cheeks were flushed, and there were some snowkes still clinging to her hair and coat. She was
carrying a gift bag with a ridiculous pattern of tiny party hats printed on it. As I took her in, I was certain
that she had gotten the wrong office, that she couldn’t possibly be there, carrying some kind of gift for
me. Maybe she was looking for the guy who had sat there before me.”
I watched his throat work as his words held his audience’s attention.
“And I was going to tell her, but I didn’t stand a chance. She started babbling some nonsense about
how cold New York was in winter and how irritating people turned when it snowed, how chaotic instead
of peaceful the city actually was. ‘As if it’s my fault that New Yorkers hate the snow,’ she said. ‘It’s like
the cold numbs their brains, and they turn stupid.’ ” Aaron smiled sheepishly. Very briefly, one moment
there and the next gone.
And I kept staring at his profile, eating up his words and how they sent me right back to that day.
At that point, my heart banged against my chest with growing urgency, as if it were a wild thing, asking
to be let out. Begging to ask all the questions taking shape in my head and threatening to do it itself if I
didn’t.
“She ced the bag on my desk and then told me to open it. But the cold must have numbed my brain,
too, because instead of doing that, I kept gawking at it. Petrified and … intrigued. Staring at it and not
having the slightest clue as to what to do with it.”
He had done that, and his reaction had made me panic and jump into crisis-control Lina. Which had
been my second mistake that day.
“When I didn’t reach for it, she shoved her hand into the bag and pulled the contents out herself.” Aaron
chuckled, but he wasn’tughing. Because the curt noise was almost sad.
I wasn’tughing either. I was too busy chewing on the fact that he remembered everything. All of it. In
detail. My chest filled with more questions.
“It was a mug. And it had a joke printed on it. It said, Engineers don’t cry. They build bridges and get
over it.”
Someoneughed then. Isabel or perhaps Gonzalo—I wasn’t sure. With all that crazy banging, my
heart had somehow moved up my throat and to my temples, so it was hard to focus on anything
besides its beating and Aaron’s voice.
“And you know what I did?” he continued, bitterness filling his tone. “Instead ofughing like I wanted
to, instead of looking up at her and saying something funny that would hopefully make her give me one
of those bright smiles I had somehow already seen her give so freely in the short day I had been
around her, I pushed it all down and set the mug on my desk. Then, I thanked her and asked her if
there was anything else she needed.”
I knew I shouldn’t feel embarrassed, but I was. Just as much as I had been back then, if not more. It
had been such a silly thing to do, and I had felt so tiny and dumb after he brushed it away so easily.
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