Shine, Aaron Tveit [1]

eight.

chapter eight, hard borled egg.

      ROSE NEVER CARED FOR HER BIRTHDAY. However, her friends seemed to love the idea of celebrating for her 31st birthday. Surprisingly, Rose didn't put up much of a fight. Under one condition, she cooked for her friends. She was never one for going out. She much preferred a home-cooked meal. And her friends let her do that, under one condition. She had to invite Aaron.

Of course, Aaron being Aaron, he said yes with a smile on his face. If wasn't a happy smile, it was a smug smile, and Rose wanted nothing more than to slap it off his face.

Her plan was to just invite her close friends, of course that included: Kara, Marilyn, Scarlett, Ashely, Robyn, Amber, Ricky, Jeremy, Christian, and Aaron. She mainly invited Aaron because she didn't want Ricky to be alone, and of course, she was forced to. She was well aware that Jeremy and Christan had never met Ricky, but she was sure they would become fast friends. She was going to make a dinner for them and catch up, mainly because she hadn't gotten the chance to talk to most of them for a while.

Her friends all arrived while she was preparing, so of course, she was running late. They all let themselves in, with the acceptation of Ricky and Aaron.

They all gathered in her kitchen, talking as she was cooking. As time went on, most of them left the kitchen to go outside on her large balcony, since it was a nice August night.

Aaron, of course, did all he could to annoy Rose. Of course what he didn't know was that he just really wanted to be near her.

"So, Rosie, why'd you invite me?"

"Out of the kindness of my heart."

"You have one?" Aaron teased, grinning at the girl, causing her to roll her eyes. She chopped her vegetables aggressively, glaring at Aaron.

"Why don't you go bother someone else?"

"Because I love bothering you-" Aaron was cut off as he watched Rose make a mistake. The knife Rose was cutting with was large, and sharp. With one wrong move you could be left with a big gash. And that exactly what happened to Rose. She wasn't paying attention for one second, and she had cut her finger. The cut wasn't too deep, but it still hurt more than a normal cut.

Aaron quickly grabbed the knife out of her hand as he watched her hold it in pain, placing it down on the counter. He grabbed her arm, pulling her to the sink. He quickly turned on the cold water, and grabbed a towel down a cabinet he had seen her grab one from earlier on. He soaked it in the water, along with her finger. He carefully cleaned it, a worried look on his expression.

"It's fine, Aaron."

"You could have cut your finger off, Rosie. You need to be more careful-" he cut himself off, not liking the worried tone of his voice. "Just let me take care of you, please?"

Rose didn't protest. She rather liked the feeling of his hand holding onto her, but she'd never admit that out loud....or at all.

Aaron's worried face never faltered, even as he let his eyes flicker between Roses face and the cut. Though, neither of them drew attention to it.

The longer Aaron held her arm and her hand, the more her skin burned. She began to wonder how she could ever live without his touch....that was the loss of blood speaking, of course.

"Promise me you'll be careful? Okay?"

"Yeah, okay, I promise," Rose mumbled, not trusting her voice enough to speak at full volume.

"Do you have any band-aids?" Aaron asked once her cut was clean, finally releasing his hold on her.

"Um, no..."

"You just turned 31 and you don't keep band-aids in the house? Whatever, I have some in my car."

"Never told you my age. Um, Stalker-ish much?" Rose teased, watching him grab his keys from his coat.

"Public information when you're famous, Rosie," Aaron winked at her, leaving the apartment building. Almost immediately after Aaron left, the rest of the group came back in.

"Damn, what happened Rose?" Jeremy asked, gaining the attention of the rest of the group.

"Oh, just cut myself bad. It's fine."

"Only you could do that Rose," Christian teased, giving Rose the perfect moment to make fun of him.

"Okay, well at least I'm not going to be a Hard-Borled egg."

"That was low, you cruel human being," Christian acted hurt, causing the rest of the group to laugh. As the group joked with each other, Aaron came back to the apartment. Without a word he unwrapped the band-aid and placed it carefully on Roses finger. This action caused all of her friends to look at her with some form of smirk on their faces. Well, all except Jeremy and Christian, whose eyebrows were just simply raised.

The rest of the night there was this awkward tension between Aaron and Rose, but no one dared to speak of it. And truth be told, it wasn't even awkward. It just felt awkward due to the fact Aaron was never nice to Rose.

But that's what left the question hanging in the air. Why did Aaron care so much? It was just a cut, so, surly he shouldn't have been as worried as he was..right? It just didn't make sense, and honestly, Rose didn't know if she wanted it to make sense.

AUTHOR SPEAKS !
I had no clue how to make it clear that Christan was in fact Christian Borle....so I made the egg joke 🥰

Also.....next chapter will be up in literally a few minutes but ITS SO GOOD AJD IM SO READY FOR YOU GUYS TO READ IT !!!!