The-Spanish-Love-Deception-www.indianpdf

“Oh! They are here!” my cousin announced.
What? Who?
Then, she proceeded to link her arm with her mother’s, and they slipped
out of the kitchen together.
Aaron’s hand squeezed my arm gently, and I released all the air in my
lungs.
I was on edge after that. And I was going to ignore—no, forget—his
comment about marriage and kids and dogs because it was completely
irrelevant.
And I did as soon as his fingers trailed down to my wrist. The touch—the
caress—so featherlike, so brief, but so very powerful that it created a riot of
shivers to spread across my whole body.
“Relax,” he said in my ear. His fingers started moving in circles over the
skin of my wrist. The brush of his fingers was lazy, calming. “That’s it,” he
whispered as his fingertips kept flicking over my skin.
My shoulders gradually relaxed until my back settled completely against
his front.
Aaron’s chin rested on the top of my head, and then he said, “We’ve got
this.”
I wanted to believe him, to believe that we could fake date our way
through this improvised family reunion today and then tomorrow. But as I
finally surrendered and let my body fall into his, it felt like way more than
just that. I realized a part of me didn’t want to believe in just that. Because it
felt right to be in this kitchen, sitting on his lap, while he brushed his fingers
over the sensitive skin of my wrist as we endured my family’s inappropriate
antics.
We felt like a we, Aaron and I.
And when it was my mother’s head coming into view, followed by my
abuela, my tía, and Charo, that realization solidified somewhere in the
middle of my chest. Like a brick or a block of cement. Heavy, firm, and
really hard to ignore. But it was when Aaron briefly peeled himself off me—
just long enough to introduce himself to my abuela—that I felt the brick click
into place, inserting itself like a Tetris piece in a nook that had been waiting
to be filled. And by the time he returned his arm to my waist and my body to
his lap, just after he looked down and smiled that smile just for me, I knew
with certainty that I’d never be able to get that damn brick out of there.
It was there to stay.