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He looked down at his clothes again and stammered, “I can’t wear this stuff in front of you…especially my swimsuits. I’d expected to be alone on this trip, Eli; not surrounded by people who know me—people I’ll see after my feet hit dry land again. I feel like a fool.”
Hmmm…how in the world Ari could ever feel like a fool in those swim trunks was beyond my comprehension. He looked hotter than a fucking runway model in Milan. “Well, you look like a gorgeous motherfucker. It’ll be a miracle if I don’t get into a fight with some handsy, hairy guy in the first thirty minutes we are on deck,” I answered, referring to the shaved gorilla that had tried to hit on him yesterday. Watching that shitshow had nearly killed me.
He fought back a grin and said, “You’re just saying that.”
“I don’t do that, Ari—lie about important things.” Well, that was a lie, but Ari didn’t need to know it. I could change for him. I would change for him. “If I say you look hot, you look hot.”
Ari stared at me for several long, intimidating seconds. He’d always been able to do that—unnerve me with his soul-searching eyes. He was normally skittish and wouldn’t look people in the eyes, but when he did…damn, he could see straight into the darkest corners of your mind.
Finally, he whispered, “Are you back to hurt me, Eli? Are you only doing all this to…to…punish me for lying to you? Is that why you’re here?” He drew in a deep breath and said, “I know it was wrong to lie. I shouldn’t have done it. I’d take it back if I could.” He frowned and stopped talking. Then said, “No…I wouldn’t take it back. Even knowing how wrong it was, I’d do it again. I wanted you that badly, Eli, and I knew that once you found out how old I was, you’d leave me.”
And there he was, right in front of me—the Ari I’d fallen in love with years ago. The Ari that was vulnerable, yet unafraid of showing me everything. The Ari that kept most of himself hidden from everyone else but gave it all to me. The Ari that still owned my heart.
I’d planned on having this discussion—not in the buffet dining room with strangers surrounding us, but I would follow Ari’s lead, like I always did. “What you did was wrong and dangerous, Ari. Bad things could have happened if the lie hadn’t been revealed when it was. No, bad things would have happened. I wanted them to happen. Intended for them to happen. Hell, Ari, touching you was the only damn thing I thought about back in those days. What we shared, while beautiful and innocent in my eyes, could have led to the destruction of my future.”
His bottom lip pouted again. “But having said that, the past is in the past. Nothing happened. What I don’t understand is how you could ever think I’d come back to hurt you, Ari. I loved you more than I loved myself. I left you to protect both of us, not just me. You were too young and deserved time to explore life and have some fun. I was ready to look at fucking house plans and start naming pets. It would have been impossible for me to stay near you and not touch you…so I had to leave. It wasn’t to hurt you or punish you, Ari. It was only to keep us safe.”
Two tables down, a group of men were listening to every word. No, this definitely wasn’t the perfect setting for what needed to be said between me and Ari. It seemed, though, that I couldn’t stop talking once I’d started—once it seemed like I had his undivided attention for the first time in years. “The night of Baker and Seth’s collaring ceremony, you asked me why I was back, and I thought I made my intentions pretty damn clear. Maybe I didn’t, so allow me to clarify—you’re mine, Ari. You were mine years ago and you are now…until you tell me you’re not. Just…just give us a chance before you say those words, okay? I think we both deserve that much.”
There…the ball was definitely in his court.*****AriI guessed that one of my countless flaws was that I said exactly what was on my mind, without properly considering the consequences. I’d spent my entire life doing it—like lying about my age the first time Eli had asked me. I hadn’t hesitated, just plopped it out there like if I said it with enough conviction, I could somehow make it true. Unfortunately, my lie, regardless of how much I’d wished it to be the truth, had ended up being exactly what it was—a lie.
I’d known it would end badly, that there wasn’t an appropriate reason for me to put Eli in such a precarious position, but I’d also never wanted anything so damned badly in my life…so I’d lied. That lie, spoken in haste but with conviction, had led to some of the happiest days of my life but also the worst days of my life. Losing Eli had nearly killed me. He’d been there one minute and then gone the next.
