Crap. “I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want that to be the only thing you see when you look at me.”
“What do you see when you look at me?” Aaron asked, his blond brows high and daring her to fib again.
“Your eyes first, then your lips, hair, tattoos, muscles, height. In that order.”
Aaron flicked his fingers at her. “Eyes, lips, tits, soft skin, hair, vanilla scent, ass, tits again, then your scar. You telling me about it won’t change the order. Your eyes have me first regardless.”
Alana studied him carefully, but he didn’t seem to be the type to bullshit. “Lissa is my twin sister, and she was born perfect. Perfect skin tone, perfect lips, thinner, shorter. The cleft lip is genetic, from my mom, and they knew before I was even born that I had it. I looked…wrong…in the ultrasounds. So Lissa was the beautiful one, and I was the one who needed all the surgeries to look like this.” She gestured to her face. “I got bullied in school, and I didn’t want to be in photos when I was a kid. In high school, I figured out I had to use my personality to gain friends, where Lissa just naturally made them. I love her, and I know she sometimes hates being the ‘okay’ twin. She found her husband Todd and married him right out of college, and they have three beautiful girls, but I’m still here, stuck in a rut, spinning my wheels and thinking if I’d have loved myself earlier, maybe I could’ve let someone else love me, too. I get scared that I missed my window. It’s part of the reason I’m moving. Lissa lives in Asheville, and I’ve never been away from her. I never had space to see if I could be okay on my own. She’s busy with her life, but she still wants me here. It’s like that for most twins, wanting to stay close. I’m her safety blanket, but sometimes I don’t want to be. I just want to be Alana.” Heat rushed into her cheeks. Appalled at all she’d just exposed, she took a long gulp of her coffee and looked everywhere but Aaron.
Aaron leaned forward and ran a hand through his hair, loosening it to flop over to the side and into his face. “I was a firefighter in Breckenridge with my dad’s crew. Firefighting is a family thing. Sooo…I didn’t know my dad until I was five, and he didn’t know about me. Him and my mom had this one-night stand, and then I came along as a result. My bear was out of control when I was a cub, clawing my mom, and I was on the fast track to biting her and Changing her on accident. So she brought me to my dad, and the Breck Crew, for guidance. And she and my dad fell head over heels for each other so we stayed. But for some stupid reason, because I’d missed out on my first five years with my family and my cousins, I had this urge to prove that I was good enough to be in the Breck Crew. That I was good enough to be Cody Keller’s son. I have two younger sisters, and they just accepted their place in the crew right away. From day one, they were Breck Crew. I worked my way through Fire Academy and through all the paramedic classes and certifications because I thought if I was good enough at the family business, it would prove I’m good enough to be my father’s son. But the longer I do this, the more I see the differences in my bear and my family’s animals. My dad and uncles are so in control all the time. And with me…I’m fighting to look normal on the outside every minute of the job. So, you see, I know about not feeling like you belong, Alana.” He lifted his earnest, sky blue eyes to hers. “But from the outside looking in? You look like you have everything together. I understand the need to move away and start over and escape shadows, but…” He spun the mug slowly on the table and frowned.
“But what?” He’d been about to ask her to stay, right?
“I’d still like to be your friend until you leave.” He winced his lips up into a pained smile and leaned back, pulled his leg away from hers.
And there it was. The shutdown Aaron was probably famous for. Had anyone really broken through his hard exterior? He seemed like a man who kept everything close to the chest, protected. He’d given her a glimpse of his real self, a peek into the window of his soul, and then yanked the blinds closed. The shift felt like jumping into a cold swimming pool after an hour in the hot tub.
She wanted to call him out and beg him to say what he really meant, but his jaw clenched with stubbornness, and she knew she’d lost the moment. So she told him instead, “I’d like that.” Because being friends with Aaron was better than nothing at all.
Chapter Eight
“You’re a complete slob,” Aaron muttered as he picked up a pile of Alana’s clothes and set them on the chair in the corner of her room.
Alana giggled and pulled another box out of her closet. “Your insults don’t sting me, Keller. My kitchen is clean. I just like to try on clothes in the morning.”
“And you don’t put them back on the hanger as you go?”
Alana ripped the tape off the box labeled old shit. Maybe it was in here. Yes! With a grin, she rifled through the rolled posters until she found the one she wanted. “Swear not to make fun of me,” she demanded as she waved the thin roll in the air teasingly.
“Oh God, is that the poster of me?”
“It totally is! And now you’re standing in my room.” She puffed air out of her cheeks and murmured low, “Aaron Keller is in my bedroom.”
He chuckled low in his throat and snatched the rolled glossy paper out of her hand. He pulled the rubber band off and tucked it in his pocket, the neat-freak, and then unrolled it. He let off a bellowing, single laugh and gave her the strangest look. “Are these lipstick marks?” He turned it around and pointed to his fourteen-year-old smiling lips, and sure enough, it was stained in her favorite and only lipstick color she had experimented with in middle school.