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Aaron laughed. “Pretty much.”
I ran my finger along the perspiration of the water bottle. A part of me hoped that Aaron had a secret desire to be just like Mike again, to live in the city and simply have fun for a career. Selfishly, I imagined him owning a bar with Mike and being always close by, working at a place that wouldn’t erupt in scandal if we were ever officially together. “Do you still love your job?” I asked curiously. “Teaching?”
“Yes.” His answer came without hesitation, surprising me. “I can’t stand the town but the school and the students are better than I could ask for. They’re smart, they’re interested in learning, they make my job actually mean something.”
“That’s because you’re the teacher everyone hopes they get,” I laughed quietly. “Everyone’s heard of you by middle school. I remember when Jake was in eighth grade and their high school schedules came out, he said the first thing everyone did was scan the last names to look for ‘Cole.’ They have respect for you before they step into your classroom.”
Aaron smiled. “It took me probably five or six years to gain that respect, and trust me, I’ve been enjoying it thoroughly since. It definitely makes the job easier when the bell rings and everyone’s already seated and looking at me.”
I smirked playfully. “Not to detract from your teaching abilities, but it helps that you’re gorgeous.”
Aaron laughed. “Well. I like to believe that my lesson plans are just extraordinarily interesting. They definitely are to me.”
I laughed, my ears perking to the interesting mix of his regular voice and his teacher’s voice. “To be fair, if I didn’t have a massive crush on you, I still would’ve found your class interesting. It was nice listening someone who was actually interested in the books. Those tenured teachers just read straight from lesson plans, but you… you were a real nerd about it,” I said, giggling when he gave me a playful frown. “And I loved that.” I truly had. Athlete looks and nerd intellect was a winning combination in my book.
“Thank you, pretty sure.”
“It’s a compliment,” I assured him.
“I’ll take it as one,” Aaron grinned. “Whatever it takes to keep them interested. It’s any teacher’s dream to have students who actually look forward to the classroom.” His grin faded to a light smile. “On shitty days, I can at least feel connected to my dad still, wherever he is. If he had any wish bigger than living his dream life as a teacher, it was for me to do it.”
“Yeah.” I sat up, gathering my hair over my shoulder as I watched Aaron gaze out at the water, his mouth just faintly curved up at the ends.
As much as I knew he couldn’t stand the town, he did have a good thing going for him at the school. He was admired by all, students and faculty alike. Plus, he was living his father’s dream to a tee. I considered it, amazed that fulfilling a parent’s wishes could actually be a source of happiness for some.
I gazed at Aaron, my heart swelling. Suddenly, I wished I could’ve met his father, the man whose own passion had molded one of the kindest, most charismatic and intellectual people I’d ever met.
“You’re so fucking cute,” I couldn’t help saying, feeling the need to emphasize my thought with the profanity. He just was. I could see his love for his job emanating from the smile on his lips, and it made me smile too despite the fact that my heart felt so heavy. I should’ve known. There had to be something about his job that made having to hide any remnants of a personal life worth it. It sounded ridiculous, but I could understand it.
Even if it meant that there was little chance for us in the long run.
As I stared out at the ocean myself, I felt my own smile fading, though I faked one quickly as Aaron turned over to cup the back of my head and give me a soft kiss on the lips.
Enjoy yourself now, I reminded myself, swallowing the lump in my throat. You won’t have him for long.
CHAPTER 15
“Are you… okay?”
Adriana gave me a funny look as she reached for the bottle of Ketel in my hand, which was already a third empty. The Todos crew was getting ready for dinner at a Mediterranean bistro by the water and not so brilliantly, Adriana and I had decided to pre-game while getting ready in my bedroom as Aaron waited downstairs, already dressed and looking effortlessly gorgeous in a crisp white button up. He’d pulled me in for a kiss before letting me back upstairs to get dressed and all it had taken was the simple smell of fresh bar soap on his skin to drive me completely wild. If anything, his scent had been the pre-game to my pre-gaming.
But at some point, while taking entir
ely too long to pick between a black dress and a white dress, my jovial pre-gaming had taken a turn and become some weird, vaguely sad and slightly bitter drink-a-thon.
Adriana chewed on the emerald string of her bikini top as she observed me. “You’re not okay,” she concluded, watching as my body went from a halfhearted crouch over my tote bag to a bleak crumple into the corner of the room, my wet swimsuit leaving imprints on the floor and wall. I laughed at myself.
“Sorry. I don’t know what’s going on.” I stuck my tongue out to play the mood off. Because I knew well what was going on. I was upset about Aaron, about the quiet resolution I’d come to — that I should probably stop seeing him soon, for his own good. The sooner I stopped, the less horrible I’d feel and the better chance he had to be forgotten by Ben. We could pretend we never happened. I had yet to completely make up my mind about the decision, but I was fairly sure of it. Fairly sure that I needed to disappear from Aaron’s life in order to save his neck. You’re doing it for him.
That was what I told myself. And it was quietly depressing me but I didn’t feel like getting into it, especially not with Adriana fairly tipsy as well. After taking a giant swig from the bottle, she pointed the neck at me. “Nina, whatever it is, think of it this way: you’re in the Hamptons right now with probably the hottest guy either of us has ever seen in real life… I mean, he makes fuckin’ Harry look like… a… I don’t know. A less hot guy.”
“I liked that analogy, that was a good one.”
“Thank you.” Adriana blew me a kiss and flicked her sun-streaked hair behind her back. “So… whatever’s,” she waved her hand in the air semi-mockingly, “going on in your head? Just forget about it and live right now, in this very moment. Think about all those months or years, even, that you were just holed up in Ben’s depressing apartment, hating him, hating your life, wishing you could be just anywhere else having fun with people you actually loved. And look at where you are right now. You’re in an amazing house that’s a six minute drive to the Atlantic Ocean with your best friends in the whole world, the hands down hottest guy on this planet and to top it all off, you look fucking good, babe.” Taking both my hands, Adriana pulled me up from the floor, that wide, infectious smile of hers spreading her full lips. “Girl, you are the quintessential twenty-one-year-old right now. Young, fun, beautiful and surrounded by people who are in love with you.” She planted a pillowy kiss on my cheek. “Myself included. So why waste this moment? Don’t think about anything but the fact that at this very second, you could either be bummed over something that you have no control over right now, or you can be in pure fucking heaven, having the time of your life. You’re just letting something from the past or the future get in the way of right now, and you shouldn’t.”
Her hazel eyes gleamed at me when she finished her speech, waiting for me to react, to agree. Silent, I stared at her, wondering if I was drunk or if she had somehow known exactly how to appeal to my mood at that very second. I blinked.
“Thank you.” I felt the tiny smile touching my lips. “I needed that,” I murmured, reminding myself that despite my new resolution, I did still had two nights left with Aaron. And if there was any reason to truly enjoy every last second and inch of him, it was the fact that I didn’t plan on seeing him ever again once I got back to the city. Sure, it was depressing, but not if I lived “in the now” as Adriana so brilliantly suggested.
