The End Is Only the Beginning

07. Dirty Little Secret

          07. Dirty Little Secret

One kissed turned into two, turned into three, turned into twenty.

It had been two days since Aaron had asked me if he could kiss me.

We'd spent each waking moment with one another since then, exchanging kisses and compliments under the Florida sun. I didn't want the summer to end. The only thing that got me through it was knowing that we had made memories that would last a lifetime.

"Hey," I spoke up, my voice croaky due to lack of use. "I think we should take some photos."

Aaron looked at me, raising one eyebrow. He had been scrawling in his notebook like always, and I had been trying to patch up an exposed piece of foam on my surfboard. "You want to take a photo?" Aaron asked, "and what would you like to do with this photo?"

"Obviously store it away, and then when you go home I can use it instead of my imagination." I winked at Aaron, and he blushed.

"You're an ass, Caleb."

"I'm not the one refusing to take a photo," I teased, dropping my surfboard and shuffling across the sand and towards Aaron. "C'mon, just one pic? It'll be cute, and I need something to look back at for when I want to remember this summer," I continued, attempting my best puppy-dog eyes.

Aaron rolled his eyes, "you're a child, but fine."

I beamed at my success, grabbing my phone from where it lay on top of Aaron's discarded shirt; he rarely wore shirts recently, not that I'm complaining. Aaron leant back in the sand, propping himself up on his arms as I leaned into him. I unlocked my phone and opened the camera, pointing it towards our smiling faces.

"Say 'Caleb's the best person ever'!" I called, taking the picture as Aaron laughed.

He shook his head as we both looked at the image. Aaron's eyes shone like the sun, he looked breathtakingly beautiful. "Is that good enough for you?" he asked, faking irritation; I had caught the smile that spread on his lips when he first saw our picture.

"Nope, we need more."

Aaron was going to protest so I cut him off with a swift kiss on the lips, instantly silencing him. At the same time I took another photo. I was going to take so many more photos like this before the summer was up.

--

It was strange. Kasim was the person to bring up Marie and our date on Thursday at lunch.

"So, how did it go?" he asked, waggling his eyebrows in my direction.

Aaron had also decided to join us again, meaning that he was now staring at me along with Kasim, Noelle, and Lindy. "How did what go?" I asked in response.

"Don't play dumb with me, Cay! How did your date with Marie go?"

"Oh shit, I almost forgot about that," Noelle put in.

"It was nice," I answered coolly.

That same look of disgust spread on Aaron's face again, and like I had done all of the other times, I decided to ignore it. I instead distracted myself by opening a can of Diet Cola and taking a long sip; why did it matter to Aaron anyway?

"It was nice?" Noelle repeated, frowning. "What's that supposed to mean? Nice as in she'd be friends with your mom, or nice as in you'd want to go out with her again?"

I shrugged, "she asked me if I wanted to go out with her again, so I guess that's something," I added.

"And what did you say?" Kasim asked.