Page 28 of From Square One

He sees through my thinly veiled concealment of the truth and offers a small smile that twists my stomach into knots. His canines are sharper than most. More and more, he’s beginning to resemble a Labrador. “You look tired, Riley,” he whispers. His other hand shifts through the crystal water, and a shiver rakes my body when it spreads over the curve of my waist, tugging, guiding me closer until our chests are inches from grazing. “Please don’t feel like you have to downplay your pain. The sore joints, the cold hands and feet, the headaches, the exhaustion. I promise I’m the last person you have to hide from.”

I stare at Aaron in disbelief, my lips parted. With every word, I feel the pain of existence resurfacing. An acknowledgment I suffocate by busying myself with other thoughts and tasks.

It hurts.

Obviously. That’s the thing about chronic pain. Even when it’s quiet, subdued, it’s always there. Iron supplements and special dieting don’t dissolve anemia’s symptoms—they only lessen the severity. My best days are normal people’s okay days.

“I don’t…” I swallow the hitch in my voice. “I don’t see why it matters. Why do you need to know the exact degree of my pain?”

Water glimmers in his soft curled tips and midnight-black lashes. His palm is still fastened to my waist, his pinkie scraping the elastic of my swimsuit, stimulating enough that I hardly feel his other hand massaging my cheekbone. “It helps to know for several reasons,” he says. “I watch you constantly push through your own boundaries for others. If you’re having a bad day, you’d rather suffer through it than inconvenience people by shifting plans around. Knowing where you’re at helps me adapt. Like, sometimes it’s better to spend the day resting in bed rather than going out.”

Aaron presses a lingering kiss to my forehead. I’m too stunned to have the visceral reaction I know I should give him.

“And sometimes,” he says, “I just want to know because I care.”

My lip is trembling, so I try to gnaw it away. What could I possibly have to offer Aaron Beckham, who could nab anyone off the street and woo them with a wink and playful grin? With all my restrictions and unpredictable pain levels and stubborn attitude…

“I’m too much effort,” I say, and the frailty in my voice brings salty tears to my eyes. “There are so many people who don’t have inconvenient conditions…people who have energy and exciting personalities and unbroken bodies…”

“Riley.” His word comes with quiet breathiness, like he didn’t mean to voice it. “You have no idea how effortless it is to love you.”

I bite harder on my lip. Aaron draws my navel against his, and my palm reluctantly leaves the pool railing so I can flatten it on his solid chest, just in case I want to push. His other hand catches the crook of my knee and props it around his hip—a way to keep me elevated above the water. He’s luring me in, literally, just like he presumably did the first time around. Not only with his touch, but his soothing words. I can’t fall for it again.

But he keeps talking, and my antsy thoughts go numb.

“Your body is easily aggravated, but you’re not broken,” he tells me, his hand sliding from my hip to the small of my back, where it roots itself to support my weight. “Sure, there are billions of people who aren’t anemic celiacs. But none of them are you.”

I stare stubbornly at his dripping collarbone, but he bumps his forehead against mine.

“Other people don’t glare at me like you do,” he says. “Other people don’t call me a jerk and then immediately apologize. Other people don’t accidentally fall asleep during hand massages. Other people don’t turn the color of cherries when I compliment them. Other people don’t hiss like a cat when I flick them, or feel guilty for swearing, or sleep in leopard-print flannel pajamas and matching socks. Other people aren’t Riley Wilson. Do you get it now?”

The water is so thick in my eyes that his very image is swimming. My next breath shudders. I’ve always assumed that I’ve been a recurring burden on my family my entire life. Aaron is making me feel like…like I’m…

Worth it.

“Sorry,” I breathe.

Aaron’s palm leaves my back so he can frame my face and draw it up. “Why are you apologizing?” he asks, pressing a kiss to my cheek.

“I don’t…I’m sorry…” I hear a choked noise in my throat, which I try unsuccessfully to swallow. I don’t need to cry, so I won’t.

“Why?” he asks again, still low and gentle, moving between each cheekbone and pausing to kiss the bridge of my nose whenever he passes over it.

“B-because I just feel like…” I don’t know what I’m blathering about or apologizing for, only that it’s my defense mechanism whenever I feel cornered. I can’t handle the tenderness with which he caresses my face, and my hand nudges his chest back. “Stop…Please stop kissing me like that…”

“Why?” His cool breath unfurls against my upper lip. I squeeze my eyes shut to seal the incoming waterworks. His bare skin pressed flush with mine beneath the water is disorienting. I don’t remember my other leg joining the first on his opposing hip, but I’m sitting fully on his waist now, ankles crossed at his back, like my body knew it would be more comfortable here. I’m pushing at him with one hand because I need distance before I do something I’ll regret. But my legs are locked around him, hugging stubbornly.

“How can I hate someone who kisses me like that?” I whisper.

Aaron smiles with a warmth that radiates. I know because I can feel it despite my closed eyes. “You don’t know how to hate, Riley,” he says. “Even when you have every reason to.”

I peek through one eye. He winks in greeting.

“My legs hurt,” I mumble.

Aaron’s brows rise in surprise. Then he nods thoughtfully, his other arm joining the first around my waist to hug me to him. “Tell me more,” he encourages.

“My knees are sore. My shins. My knuckles. My neck and head are throbbing, but it’s background pain, so it’s not that bad.” Every word drains the remaining energy out of me. My eyes droop and the grip of my legs around his waist slackens as I acknowledge it.