The message from Matt read, "Nothing to say?"
Lifting her eyebrows, she wondered what exactly he had said before.
Then she realized all she had to do was text back that she didn't get it, and Matt would resend whatever text message he had sent.
"Is it another booty call?" he asked.
She raised startled eyes at the way he said "another," because that implied the first message…
"Do you want to know what it said?" Aaron asked quietly, as if reading her mind.
She did then more than ever before, but she raised her chin and said primly, "No."
He took a step closer to her, and even though she meant to be stubborn, she felt some of her righteous indignation slip under the intensity of his stare as he took another small step closer. Aaron was standing too close, and for a split second she forgot they were in a room full of people and she thought if she didn't know he hated her, she would think…
"Are you sure?" he whispered.
Swallowing, she held his gaze, but that meant looking up at him because of the close proximity of their bodies. "I'm positive," she said.
His gaze dropped from her eyes, and once more they lingered around her lips for a minute, then they resumed their journey and traveled to her shoulders, down her arms to her waist…
"Why do you make it so easy to forget?" he asked so absently that she wasn't entirely sure he meant to say it aloud. "You're the one person in the world who should be a constant reminder…"
Her stubborn anger slipped all the way then, and her chin slipped about a centimeter.
He reached out and tucked her hair behind her ear one more time, smiling a little dryly as he told her, "You should have put the earrings in."
"Why?" she asked quietly.
"Because then I wouldn't want to kiss you right now."
If she thought her expression slipped before, she thought wrong.
Her jaw dropped open several inches and she gaped at him wordlessly.
Aaron sighed, his lips curving up just slightly as he said, "See, I told you to go home. If you would have gone home, I wouldn't have just said that to you."
It made no sense, she thought a bit dizzily, but all of a sudden his words about her being dense came floating back into her conscious.
"Why do you want to kiss me?" she whispered.
"Why aren't you wearing the earrings?" he countered.
"Why am I dense?" she asked.
"Why did you let me erase Matt's text?"
Why were they playing 20 Questions?
All of a sudden, she heard laughter from the kitchen and the party came floating back into her consciousness, so she took a step back, remembering Leigh and feeling instantly guilty.
"I… should go back to the apartment," she stated.
"Yes, you should," he said in agreement.
As much as she told herself she needed to put one foot in front of the other and walk right out the door, there was something else pulling her to stay, to be near Aaron while he was being…
But she abruptly cut that thought off when she thought of Leigh, of the fact that even though he disapproved of his brother cheating, it was okay for him to want to kiss other girls at his own girlfriend's party.