The Spanish Love Deception by Elena Armas (novels for students .TXT) 📕

begin to imagine what would happen when I found myself tucked under the same comforter as Aaron. His large body and my much smaller one sharing and crowding the modest space the mattress offered.

And I … shit.

In an attempt to distract myself, I occupied my hands, taking the flats off my hurting feet. Once I was done with that, I rubbed my temples, telling myself to chill the heck out because this was okay. We were adults. About to share a bed. So?

“How bad is it?” Aaron asked from where he stood still at the other end of the bed.

I chuckled, but it came closer to the sound that someone who was choking would make. “Well”—I cleared my throat—“I feel like I was run over by a stampede of very angry and very heavy antelopes that were in a rush to get somewhere.”

Aaron appeared in my field of vision, coming to a stop in front of me. “Are you referencing Mufasa’s death?”

My fingers stopped working, hovering above my temples. “You like The Lion King?”

“Of course.”

“Any other Disney movies?” I was tempting my luck here.

Aaron’s expression remained serious. “All of them.”

Shit. “Even Frozen? Tangled? The Princess Frog?” I asked, and he nodded.

“I love animated movies. They take my mind off things.” He dipped his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “Disney, Pixar … I’m a big fan.”

This was too much. First, he’d opened up about his childhood earlier today, and now, this. I wanted to ask how and why, but there was a more pressing issue. “What’s your favorite?”

Please don’t say the one that will send my heart into cardiac arrest. Please don’t say it.

“Up.”

Fuck. He had said it. My heart struggled there for a moment. And that little spot that had been softening throughout the night got a little bigger.

“Oh.” The word breathily left my lips. It was all I managed.

My eyes closed, and my fingers resumed massaging my temples. Although maybe I should have been massaging my chest.

“That bad, huh?” He seemed to be gauging something when I looked back at him. My sobriety most likely.

“Don’t worry.” I waved my hand. “I’m okay. I’m not drunk by now. I promise I won’t puke all over you tonight.”

That didn’t earn me much of an answer, making me cringe over my choice of words.

Without further comment, Aaron disappeared in the tiny en suite bathroom, leaving me to deal with my awkwardness and thoughts.

Which mainly centered around Aaron—watching animation movies in the privacy of his home, particularly Up and perhaps finding a kindred spirit in Carl—and the damn bed again.

I stood up slowly.

My gaze followed the geometric pattern that crisscrossed the comforter, all the way to where the pillows lay. Our heads will be there, only a few inches apart. Everything I was feeling was slowly replaced by a weird mix of anticipation and something … new.

I needed to keep my cool. It was just a bed. We were two adults who could sleep next to each other. We were … friends now? No, I didn’t think we were. But we were not just colleagues either. Even forgetting about the fact that he’d soon be my boss, I didn’t think we only qualified as two people who worked together, argued on a regular basis, and struggled to tolerate each other for more than ten minutes. Our deal—this love deception game we were playing—had pushed us out of that meticulously labeled area we had been in. Shoved us right into a completely new and uncharted territory. And now, we were more than whatever we had been. We were …

We were about to share a bed. That was the only thing I knew for sure.

That, and the fact that I needed to stop overthinking it. What I needed to be was … unaffected. Yeah. If we were going to share a bed, I needed to stop behaving like it was a big deal. Even if it was. Because it motherfreaking was. Aaron had been showing me just how much with his soft but unwinding touches and these little pieces of himself that were just as provoking.

What had Rosie told me once?

“Set your goal free into the universe. Visualize it.”

That was exactly what I needed to do.

So, I visualized myself as impassive. Unconcerned. Unimpressed. I was a block of ice in the middle of a blizzard. I’d stand solidly. Immovable and cold and calm.

Yeah.

Walking to the closet with that on mind, I pulled out my pajamas, which consisted of shorts and an old T-shirt with Science Rocks in bold yellow letters. A part of me regretted not putting more thought into it now that the room arrangement situation had changed. Another much smaller part thought that Aaron would appreciate the message in the shirt. That maybe he would give me one of those lopsided smirks that—

No. Those were not thoughts a block of ice would have.

Aaron walked out of the bathroom in silence, still dressed in his button-down, which now had two new undone buttons—which, I reminded myself, did not affect me—and headed directly to his side of the closet. Returning the silence, I slipped in the bathroom, so I could change and wash up.

Once done with that and clad in my jammies, I filled my lungs with a deep and hopefully energizing breath and returned to the bedroom.

I didn’t know what I had expected to find, but I was surely not prepared for the sight of Aaron in only a pair of sleeping pants. They hung low on his hips—so low that I could see the waistband of his underwear—and they were a dark shade of gray that complemented his skin.

My gaze trailed up, and there it was. That glorious chest that I had witnessed shining under the sun with droplets of sweat that—

Jesus, no, no, no.

I needed to stop gawking. Eating him with my eyes as if I had never seen a naked chest before. It couldn’t be healthy. Good for my mental health.

Turning away from him a little too briskly, I