The Wall of Winnipeg and Me: A Novel

The next day, my phone rang in the late afternoon.

Aiden flashed across the screen. He’d called me twice before, and that had been when he’d been standing outside my door back at my apartment and to bail on me.

I hit the ‘answer’ button. “Hello?”

“Vanessa.” He didn’t ask if it was me; he just sort of said my name, as if demanding it to be.

“Yes?”

“My car won’t start,” he said in a tone that sounded accusatory, but couldn’t have been. What did he think? That I went and booby-trapped his starter? If I hadn’t done it when he used to piss me off, why would I do it now when he hadn’t recently?

“Is your battery dead?” I asked, confused. He had leased it brand new only a year ago, there was no way it needed a new battery so soon.

He muttered something under his breath, his tone abrupt. “I’ve already taken care of it. There’s a tow truck on its way.”

Uh. “Okay. What do you need then?”

“Can you pick me up?” he just went right out and asked.

I blinked, surprised that he was calling me and not taking a cab. “Oh. Sure. Where are you?”

“I’m at the main building. Where the team trains,” he replied, fully aware that I knew what place he was referring to. I’d been there a few times in the past. “I need to go pick up some papers from the immigration lawyer’s office today, too.”

Eyeing the thunderstorm going on outside through one of the windows in my room, I sighed. I hated driving in the rain, but he rarely asked for any favors… unless they were major, life-changing ones. Whomp, whomp. “Sure. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

He grunted out a “Thank you” that was as forced as it sounded and hung up.

Some things never changed, did they? I smirked, saved my work, grabbed my purse, and headed downstairs to nab my keys. In a little more than no time, I made it to the facility I wasn’t sure I’d ever come back to and showed the old pass Aiden had gotten me to get in through the security gate.

My phone’s ringtone going off scared the hell out of me as I steered my car toward the correct building and parking lot. Half expecting it to be Aiden, I was surprised when Diana’s name flashed across the screen.

“Her—”

“How could you not tell me?” the familiar voice on the other end of the line yelled.

Shit. “Hello to you too.”

“Don’t you ‘hello to you too,’ cabrona.”

Okay. She’d gone with cabrona. That was how pissed off she was. Fair enough.

“Do you want to know how I found out?” I didn’t, but she didn’t bother waiting for me to confirm an answer she should know. “Rodrigo told me!”

I winced.

As if I hadn’t heard her the first time, she yelled again. “Rodrigo!”

I wasn’t going to apologize. I knew it would just make it worse. I was aware of how things worked with her. At this point, the only thing to do that wouldn’t piss her off more was to man-up to what I’d done and let her ream me.

“You got married and you didn’t tell me!”

I stayed quiet and kept an eye out on the building to make sure Aiden wasn’t appearing.

“It’s because you think I’d tell everyone, isn’t it?”

That was definitely the wrong question to answer. So I kept my mouth shut.

“You don’t love me anymore? Is that it? Am I old news?”

Still, I kept my mouth closed.

“I can’t believe you!” She let out a shriek that seemed to echo. Knowing her, she was more than likely in her car. “I’m going to punch you in the cooch.”

At that, my silence ended. “I’d like to see you try.” She hadn’t grown up with my sisters. I knew how to fight a girl.

At least better than she did.

“No! Don’t talk to me right now,” she insisted. “You didn’t tell me you got married. You’re on probation, and I need to get back to work. I’m on my lunch break. If you want to get back on my good side this year, I’d like some of those chocolate-dipped strawberries.”

That had me snorting. She was out of her damn mind.

“You owe me.” With that, she hung up as I pulled into the parking lot I was looking for. I let my forehead drop onto the steering wheel. That had gone better and worse than I’d imagined it would, but I was a little relieved it was out in the open, finally.

I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel as I looked around the empty lot. I wavered on getting out when a giant lightning bolt painted a jagged streak across the rainy lavender-gray sky. Minutes passed and still he didn’t come out of the Three Hundreds’ building.

Damn it. Before I could talk myself out of it, I jumped out of the car, cursing at myself for not carrying an umbrella for about the billionth time and for not having waterproof shoes, and ran through the parking lot, straight through the double doors. As I stomped my feet on the mat, I looked around the lobby for the big guy. A woman behind the front desk raised her eyebrows at me curiously. “Can I help you with something?” she asked.

“Have you seen Aiden?”

“Aiden?”

Were there really that many Aidens? “Graves.”

“Can I ask what you need him for?”

I bit the inside of my cheek and smiled at the woman who didn’t know me and, therefore, didn’t have an idea that I knew Aiden. “I’m here to pick him up.”

It was obvious she didn’t know what to make of me. I didn’t exactly look like pro-football player girlfriend material in that moment, much less anything else. I’d opted not to put on any makeup since I hadn’t planned on leaving the house. Or real pants. Or even a shirt with the sleeves intact. I had cut-off shorts and a baggy T-shirt with sleeves that I’d taken scissors to. Plus the rain outside hadn’t done my hair any justice. It looked like a cloud of teal.

Then there was the whole we-don’t-look-anything-alike thing going on, so there was no way we could pass as siblings. Just as I opened my mouth, the doors that connected the front area with the rest of the training facility swung open. The man I was looking for came out with his bag over his shoulder, imposing, massive, and sweaty. Definitely surly too, which really only meant he looked the way he always did.

I couldn’t help but crack a little smile at his grumpiness. “Ready?”

He did his form of a nod, a tip of his chin.

I could feel the receptionist’s eyes on us as he approached, but I was too busy taking in Grumpy Pants to bother looking at anyone else. Those brown eyes shifted to me for a second, and that time, I smirked uncontrollably.

He glared down at me. “What are you smiling at?”

I shrugged my shoulders and shook my head, trying to give him an innocent look. “Oh, nothing, sunshine.”

He mouthed ‘sunshine’ as his gaze strayed to the ceiling.

We ran out of the building side by side toward my car. Throwing the doors open, I pretty much jumped inside and shivered, turning the car and the heater on. Aiden slid in a lot more gracefully than I had, wet but not nearly as soaked.

He eyed me as he buckled in, and I slanted him a look. “What?”

With a shake of his head, he unzipped his duffel, which was sitting on his lap, and pulled out that infamous off-black hoodie he always wore. Then he held it out.

All I could do was stare at it for a second. His beloved, no-name brand, extra-extra-large hoodie. He was offering it to me.

When I first started working for Aiden, I remembered him specifically giving me instructions on how he wanted it washed and dried. On gentle and hung to dry. He loved that thing. He could own a thousand just like it, but he didn’t. He had one black hoodie that he wore all the time and a blue one he occasionally donned.

“For me?” I asked like an idiot.

He shook it, rolling his eyes. “Yes for you. Put it on before you get sick. I would rather not have to take care of you if you get pneumonia.”

Yeah, I was going to ignore his put-out tone and focus on the ‘rather not’ as I took it from him and slipped it on without another word. His hoodie was like holding a gold medal in my hands. Like being given something cherished, a family relic. Aiden’s precious.

I couldn’t help but glance at him out of the corner of my eye from time to time as I drove. The radio wasn’t on and it was one thing for us to eat at the counter together quietly but a totally different thing for us to be in the car not saying a word. “Did they tell you what was wrong with your car?” I made myself ask.

“The driver thought it was something with the computer.”

That made sense. I gripped the steering wheel a little tighter as more lightning filled the horizon. “Has your training been going okay?”

“Fine.”

“Please tell me more,” I snickered. “At least you’ve won all your games so far.”

“Barely,” he said in a thin tone that seemed sandwiched between frustration and anger.

I’d seen a short segment just yesterday about this superstar the Three Hundreds had played against a few days ago, and I’d been amazed. “That guy from Green Bay was huge.”

I could feel the insulted expression he was shooting my way even though I was facing forward. “He isn’t that big,” he corrected me with a huff.

He was though. I’d seen pictures of the guy the Three Hundreds were playing against, and I’d seen him on television. The guy was six foot five and just shy of three hundred pounds; he was definitely stockier than Aiden and I could tell those extra pounds weren’t pure muscle, but big was big. I kept my mouth shut though and didn’t insist he was wrong. I could pretend his opponent hadn’t been the size of Delaware. Sure.

“Well, your team won.”

Aiden shifted around in his seat. “I could have played better.”

What could I say to that? I’d sat through enough interviews with people fawning all over him to know that Aiden soaked up every single one of his imperfections and every mistake he’d ever committed. It was stupid and wonderful how much he expected of himself. Nothing was ever good enough. He had so much to improve on, according to him.

“Oh, Aiden.”

“What?”

“You’re the best in the country—and I’m not just saying that to be nice—and it means nothing to you.”

He made a dismissive noise, those long fingers resting on his knee kind of flicked up in a dismissive gesture. “I want to be remembered years from now. I have to win a championship for that.”

Something about his tone pecked at my brain, at that part of me that had stayed up for years to quit my day job one day. “Then you’ll be happy?” I asked carefully.

“Maybe.”

I wasn’t sure what it was about his ‘maybe’ that chewed up my insides. “You’ve won Defensive Player of the Year three years out of eight, big guy. I don’t think anyone will ever forget you. I’m just saying. You should be proud of yourself. You’ve worked hard for it.”

He didn’t agree or disagree, but when I turned to look at the passenger side mirror, he was facing out the window with what amounted to about the most thoughtful expression I’d ever seen.

Maybe.

On the other hand, I might have been imagining it.

My phone started ringing loudly from its spot where I’d left it in the cup holder. I glanced at it, but the screen was faced down, and I couldn’t get a good look without grabbing it, which I sure as hell wasn’t going to do, especially not when the rain started slapping the windshield more forcefully. As quickly as the ringing came on, it went out.

Then it started all over again.

“Are you going to answer that?” Aiden asked.

“I don’t like to talk on the phone when I’m driving,” I explained, just as the phone stopped ringing.

He hummed.

Then it started once more.

With a sigh, he grabbed it and looked at the screen. “It’s your mom.”

Oh shit. “Don’t—”

“Hello?” the big guy answered, putting the phone to his face. “She’s busy.” I turned my head to see his lower lip slightly jutting out. “I’ll make sure to let her know.” By the amount of anger in his enunciation, that was the last thing he was planning on doing.

How about that. Before I could thank him for his phone answering skills, he touched my phone’s screen and set it back into the cup holder. Wariness wiggled around in my belly and I cleared my throat. “My best friend finally found out we got married.”

“I thought you told her.”

“She knew we were going to do it, but I didn’t tell her we actually did. She said her brother told her, so I wonder how he found out.”

“She didn’t tell you?”

Thinking about how the conversation had gone again, I smirked at myself. “No. She was too busy yelling.”

Aiden made a thoughtful yet absent sound.

“That might be why my mom called. I’m usually the one who calls her.” Except for when she’d called in the wake of my failed trip to El Paso. Just thinking about it made me mad all over again. Maybe I’d wait to call her back… next month. I shook the bitter thought off. “Where’s your lawyer’s office at?”

Thirty minutes later, I pulled my Explorer into the multi-level covered parking lot adjacent to a tall professional office building.

“I’ll wait here,” I said, turning off the engine.

Aiden shook his head as he opened the car door. “Come with me.”

I eyed my legs and then shook my own head. “I’m not really dressed…”

The big guy didn’t even take in anything other than my face. “You always look fine. Come on.”

He didn’t wait for me to argue. He just shut the door on me.

I growled under my breath and got out, tugging my damp bottoms down and realizing that Aiden’s hoodie was actually so long it went over my shorts… Great.

With a resigned sigh, I found Aiden waiting for me off to the side. At least he had the decency not to mock me for how much of a mess I looked. Thunder and lightning shook the walking bridge we had to take to cross over from the lot to the building, and I might have walked a little faster than usual. Aiden had barely opened the door for me when the lights inside the building went in and out for a second.

The lights in the hallway flickered twice more as we walked to the elevator bank. Then they blinked again just as the big guy pressed the button to go up.

I paused, taking in the deserted hallway. “Should we take the stairs?”

He gave me a side look that said what he was thinking—you’re an idiot, Vanessa. Instead, he verbally went with, “I’m too tired.”

Oh. Huh. “Okay.”

Before I could think too much more about the consequences of riding around in an elevator during a storm, the doors slid open. A couple was already inside, and they shuffled over into the corner to give us room when we entered. I didn’t miss the way the man’s eyes widened as Aiden backed against the opposite corner where they were, across from the doors. I put my back against the wall closest to him. “What floor, big guy?”

“Six.”

Pressing the button, the lights blinked again as the doors shut. Wariness made my stomach churn as the elevator eased its way upward. The lights flashed one more time before the elevator jerked, stopping, plunging us into total darkness.

One, two, three, four—

Holy shit.

Holy freaking shit.

I tried to blink as the other woman in the elevator squealed, and her partner asked, “What the hell?”

There wasn’t even an emergency light on.

It was pitch black.

Shouldn’t there have been a backup light?

Panic instantly seized my throat. Okay, it gripped my entire body, stringing every muscle so tight it hurt. In the time it took me to suck in a breath, my body began shaking. I made myself squeeze my eyes closed, ignoring the couple whispering in the corner.

Okay. Okay.

Everything was okay.

Everything would be okay, I told myself.

I was fine.

It was just a little outage because of the storm; big buildings like this had backup generators that would kick in in no time.

Didn’t they?

I started patting the wall next to me to find the buttons on the panel, easing my touch around until I felt a small gap in the metal, feeling around the perimeter of it. It was rectangle-shaped, where I figured an emergency phone had to be. Elevators had emergency lines… I thought. The latch opened easily, and I grabbed the small phone from inside. I couldn’t see a single thing, and as I touched around, there wasn’t any pad of any sort to call out. There wasn’t even a dial tone. The elevator wasn’t moving. The lights weren’t coming back on.

I held the phone against my ear, but there was no noise of any sort on the other end.

The power was completely out. The power had to be out.

My stomach seemed to drop to my knees.

It was so dark I couldn’t see my fingers when I brought them up close to my face. I could hear my breathing getting louder by the second, feel my chest start to puff in quick, restless breaths that I hadn’t experienced in a long time.

But the hum I was expecting, the one that signaled the power coming back on, didn’t make its appearance after another minute. It didn’t come back on after three or four minutes either, and the fear I’d been trying to ignore seized me in its rude, greedy grip even tighter.

“Vanessa?”

Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t breathe.

I couldn’t think.

“Vanessa,” came Aiden’s voice again, whispered, strict and tight in the small space. “What the hell are you doing?”

I squeezed my eyes closed tighter, fighting it, fighting it, fighting it. “Nothing,” I think I managed to wheeze out.

Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. Chill out. Everything is fine. Everything is fine. You’re just in an elevator. You’re okay.

I wasn’t okay. I wasn’t anywhere near being okay.

I had asthma. Since when did I have asthma?

A hand touched my shoulder just as I blindly replaced the phone where it was and moved my hands down my stomach and thighs until I was hunched over, gripping my knees for dear life.

Think, Vanessa. Think.

“You’re Aiden Graves, aren’t you?” the male voice speaking sounded like a hum in the background.

“Yes,” Aiden bit back in his familiar low grumble, his tone not inviting another remark. The hand on my shoulder tightened as I fought back a gasp for air. “Vanessa,” he repeated my name.

Breathe, breathe, breathe.

But I couldn’t. I was panicking. I squeezed my knees harder with my palms and somehow managed to suck in a rabid breath.

Think.

I was fine. The elevator wasn’t that small. The lights were going to come back on eventually. I gasped sharply through my mouth.

“Sit down,” Aiden hissed, the one hand on my shoulder putting enough pressure that I didn’t bother picking a fight as I sank to my knees.

My keys! I slapped my hands around the pocket of Aiden’s hoodie, and finally found the hard lump I was looking for in the right pocket. I yanked my keys out and latched on to the slick, metallic tube I’d had on my keychain forever. The small button on the back clicked into place… and nothing.

It wasn’t working.

My phone! I started patting around my pockets when I remembered watching Aiden set my phone into the cup holder in my car. Cold dread sucked me in.

“Calm down,” Aiden demanded in the dark.

You’re okay. You’re okay. You’re okay. You’re in an elevator. You’re okay, I reminded myself.

“Vanessa.” I sensed the radiant heat of his body against my knees. “You’re fine,” he stated over my wild pants.

I was too riled up to be embarrassed that I couldn’t seem to breathe. I definitely couldn’t open my mouth to talk either, much less get all bent out of shape for him bossing me around.

Another hand joined the first and curled big and consuming over my shoulders. “You’re all right,” Aiden’s low, gravelly voice murmured in the dark elevator.

“What’s wrong with her?” the unfamiliar male voice on the other side of the elevator asked. “Is she okay?”

“Take a deep breath.” Thumbs kneaded my shoulders, ignoring the question from the stranger. “Breathe.”

Breathe? I tried, but it came in and out as mostly a choke.

“Through your nose… come on. In. Out through your mouth. Calm down.” Those big thumbs made small, almost angry circles over me. “Slow breath. Slow. In your nose, out of your mouth.” If this had been any other situation, I would have been surprised by how calm and cool his tone was. How gentle and unrushed. How very unlike the person who had just been snapping at me when he first realized something was wrong.

“You’re fine,” Aiden commanded with a squeeze of the mitts he called hands. “Calm down. You got it,” he coached me through the next ragged breath. “I’m right here.” His breath washed over my cheek as his palms cupped my upper arms. “I’m not going anywhere without you.” He squeezed, his words ringing through my ears. “You’re not alone.”

I was fine. I was fine.

It took a few wild inhales to really get a good breath in that didn’t seem like I was struggling not to drown. As soon as I could, I shifted off my stinging knees to sit on my butt, dragging my legs up to my chest.

“Breathe, breathe, breathe,” Aiden commanded.

I couldn’t make myself open my eyes, but it was all right. I was still shaking, but I could live with that as long as I could get oxygen into my lungs. In my nose, out of my mouth like the big guy had said. My breaths were sharper than they should have been, but there they were.

“You got it?” Aiden began moving around, his knee hitting my foot as I sensed him sit next to me.

“Yes,” I puffed out, putting my forehead on my knees.

I was okay. I was okay.

My body gave a near violent shake that said otherwise.

I was fine. I was fine. One breath in, one breath out. I clenched my eyes closed. I wasn’t alone. As if to make sure, my hand crept over my lap and down my thigh until I brushed the side of Aiden’s hip. My fingers touched the hem of his shirt, and I pinched the thin material between my fingertips.

I wasn’t alone. I was fine. I shuddered out a breath as my biceps spasmed.

“Better?”

“Little bit,” I muttered, rubbing my fingertips over the sewn hem of his shirt. Stop being a baby. You’re not dying. You’re okay. I made myself open my eyes and raised my head until it dropped back to the wall behind me. I couldn’t see a single thing, but I was okay.

I was all right.

One deep exhale out, and I was breathing out of my mouth, calm, calm, calmer. By that point, the other couple in the elevator had resorted to whispering so low I couldn’t bother to understand what was being said. Aiden, on the other hand, was familiarly silent, his deep, even breathing telling me he wasn’t at all affected by whatever the hell was going on with the weather and the elevator.

Then again, if I weren’t so terrified of the dark and small spaces, none of this crap would be a big deal either. It wasn’t like we’d be stuck inside forever, and it wasn’t like the elevator would suddenly plummet and we’d all die.

I hoped.

The elevator gave a sharp jerk and the woman screamed as the lights in the ceiling flashed bright for one precious second before going out once again.

Fuck this.

With skills I didn’t even know I possessed, I was up, sliding over Aiden’s knee, and in his lap so fast I had no idea I’d even done it, because if I’d thought about it, there was no way in hell I would have done it. No fucking way. But the fact was, I had.

I was in Aiden’s lap. He was cross-legged on either side of me, each of his muscular thighs cocooning my hips, his chin just behind my ear. I shivered.

Behind me, Aiden straightened; under my butt, his thighs tightened and strained.

It was then that I felt embarrassed. “I’m sorry,” I apologized, already lifting up to lunge off him.

“Shut up,” he said as his hands landed on my bare knees, shoving me back down onto him; my back hit the solid wall of his chest and it was right then I realized his shirt was soggy from the rain. I didn’t care. Under me, his legs relaxed, my bottom settling on top of his feet.

It was like sitting on a beanbag. A big, firm, slightly wet beanbag that breathed… and had two hands cupping my naked kneecaps. Immediately and pathetically, I let out a long, deep breath and relaxed in the cocoon of Aiden. One of his thumbs rubbed the sensitive skin on the inside of my knee, just a quick circle-shaped brush that had me letting out another sigh.

The big guy hummed into the shell of my ear, his breath warm and way too comforting. “You want to tell me what that was about?” he asked in a whisper.

“Not really,” I mumbled, clasping my hands in my lap.

He made a tiny scoffing sound but didn’t say anything for a moment until… “You’re sitting on me. I think you owe me.”

I tried to lunge up again, even though I really didn’t want to, but those huge hands clamped down even tighter, that time with his fingers spread wide, covering my kneecaps and part of my thighs.

“Stop it. I’m teasing you,” he commented.

Teasing me? Aiden? Letting my head droop forward, I kept my eyes closed and let a rattled sigh out. “I’m scared of the dark.” Like that wasn’t completely obvious.

He didn’t even let out a single breath. “Yeah, I got that. I would have given you my phone to use as a flashlight but the battery went dead after I talked to you.”

“Oh. Thanks anyway.” I made myself let out another deep breath. “I’m really scared of the dark, like the dark in here when I can’t see anything. I have been since I was a kid,” I explained tensely.

“Why?” he cut in.

“Why what?”

He made that exasperated noise of his. “Why are you scared of the dark?”

I wanted to ask if he really wanted to know, but of course he damn well did. I didn’t necessarily want to tell him—nor had I ever wanted to tell anyone—but he had a point. I was a twenty-six-year-old sitting on his lap after I’d been on the verge of having a panic attack because the lights had gone out. I guess I sort of owed him.

“It’s stupid. I know it’s stupid. Okay? When I was five, my sisters” —though I’m pretty sure I would now blame Susie as being the main mastermind behind the incident— “locked me in a closet.”

“That’s why you’re scared?” he had the nerve to scoff before I continued.

“With the lights off for two days,” I finished up.

Aiden’s voice didn’t just react, it seemed like his entire body did too. Inch by inch, what felt like from his toes and up, went rock solid. “Without food or water?”

The fact that he thought about that small detail didn’t escape me. That was the shitty part. At least now, I thought that was the shitty part of the story. “They left me water and candy bars. Chips.” Those bitches, even at seven, eight, and nine, had already been vicious by then. They had planned it. Planned on locking me in there because they didn’t want to watch over me while our mom was gone. They hadn’t wanted to play with me, for God’s sake. They had taunted through the door before leaving me.

I shivered even though I really would rather not have.

“Where was your mother?” he asked in that creepy, calm tone.

I wasn’t sure what it was about all these memories I’d shoved aside for so long suddenly coming back that made me feel like a raw, open wound. I couldn’t control the long breath I let out. “I think she was dating someone back then. It might have been my little brother’s dad. I don’t remember that well. He was in and out of our lives for a few years. All I know for sure was that she wasn’t at home then.” Sometimes she’d disappear for a few days at a time, but that was my burden to bear.

“Who let you out?”

“They did.” They unlocked the door and made fun of me for being a baby and peeing on myself. It had taken me an hour to get myself to crawl out of there.

“What happened after that?” He was still talking in that effortless, patient voice that screamed ‘wrong’ at the top of its lungs.

Shame and anger made me shake. “Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“No.”

“Did you tell your mom?”

“Of course I told my mom. It was her closet they put me in. I’d peed in there. She had to get the carpet replaced because it smelled so bad.” I’d smelled so bad. My hands had been so messed up from banging on the door, and my voice so hoarse from screaming at them to let me out… or to at least turn on the closet light… or if they couldn’t turn on the closet light to turn on the bedroom light… to no avail. I never knew for sure what they’d done in those two days I was in there, and frankly, I didn’t care at all.

I didn’t. Because kids that young shouldn’t have been left alone to begin with.

His chest started puffing against my back as if his breathing was difficult. “She did nothing to your sisters?”

I wanted to crawl into myself. The tone he was using raked at my nerves, pulling the sides of the stab wound called my childhood wide open for inspection. It made me feel small. “No. She yelled at them, but that was it. I mean, she stayed home for a month or two afterward” —that was one of the times I remembered her being mostly sober— “and I slept with her every night. After that, I moved my things and shared a room with my little brother.” I’d started locking the bedroom door after that as well.

The fingertips on my knees kneaded for a second, but I bet my life it was a subconscious gesture, mostly because his labored breathing hadn’t gone anywhere.

“I have to sleep with a light on,” I admitted to him, feeling his chest huff behind me. Dumb, dumb, dumb. “I don’t know why I just told you that. Don’t make fun of me.”

There was a pause. A hesitation before, “I won’t,” he promised effortlessly. “I wondered why you had so many at your apartment and in your room.”

I knew he’d noticed. “Please don’t tell Zac. I wouldn’t hold it passed him to hide under the bed when I’m sleeping to try and scare the crap out of me.”

“I won’t.” His palms shaped my knees. The insides of his arms seemed to frame my shoulders and arms. His breathing was low but not so steady against my ear. “It isn’t stupid that you’re scared. You shouldn’t be embarrassed. It’s everyone else who should be ashamed of themselves.”

The only way I managed to answer was with a nod that I wasn’t sure he knew of or not. Another rattling breath made its way out of my chest like a gust and I touched a patch of skin somewhere around his knee as I kept my eyes closed. “Thank you for helping me calm down, big guy. I haven’t lost it like that in forever.”

“Don’t worry about it,” was all he muttered in return.

I kept my hand on his leg, my fingertips against the coarse dark hairs that covered his legs. My breathing sounded too loud, my heart was still beating a little weird, while Aiden’s was soft and barely audible. I focused on the in and the out of my lungs.

The other woman in the elevator mumbled, “This sucks.”

It did. It really did.

The silence ate up the minutes, and I let my back loosen, the top of it touching Aiden’s pectorals. The insides of his upper arms cradled me. His breathing was so even it made me sleepy.

The elevator gave a jerk that had me opening my eyes in reaction as the lighting flickered twice and stayed on. The woman on the other side squealed, but I couldn’t even be remotely scared. I only cared about the lighting.

And it was right then, not being plunged in the dark, that I finally witnessed with my own two eyes the sight of me sitting on Aiden. Two long, muscular legs circled me, so long that the knees jutted out way passed where mine ended. Two heavily muscled triceps popped on either side of my arms, playing my bodyguards. But it was the big hands on me, the wrists propped up so effortlessly on my thighs, that made something in me react.

He was hugging me. For all intents and purposes, Aiden was hugging me. Surrounding me.

Tilting my head back, I swallowed that thing making its way from my stomach to my throat, and prepared a nervous, slightly shy smile over my shoulder. Except when my gaze landed on Aiden’s face, it was so serious… so damn serious. It wiped the expression right off my mouth.

The elevator gave another jerk and almost immediately, the phone on the wall began ringing.

With a light tap to my knee, Aiden picked me up and moved me off to the side, as if my weight was nothing to him—and it definitely wasn’t nothing. He got to his feet and reached toward the wall, picking the phone off the cradle. His gaze drifted over me in the process, those ultra-sober features making me feel like I’d done something wrong all of a sudden. “Yes… It’s about time… Yes.” Just like that, he hung up, probably in the middle of the conversation. “It’ll be about fifteen minutes.”

Drawing my legs up to my chest, I wrapped my arms around them and nodded at his comment. He didn’t sit back down; instead, Aiden leaned against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest. One ankle went over the other.

Not ten minutes later, a loud noise pierced through the elevator, and the next thing I knew, it began its ascent again. When the doors finally opened, two building employees were standing there, asking if we were fine, but Aiden walked right passed them as if they weren’t there.

“Are you okay?” one of the employees asked.

Was I okay? I hadn’t been, but I wasn’t going to say anything. Mostly, I was a little bit embarrassed I’d freaked out and uncertain what the hell the look on Aiden’s face had been about when the lights had come back on.

“Are you coming?” the big guy asked from where he was waiting.

There was the man I knew. “Hold your horses, sunshine. I’m coming.”

His lips moved in a way that told me he wasn’t particularly fond of ‘sunshine,’ but most importantly, he knew I didn’t care that he hated it. “Let’s go. He’s paid by the hour and we’re already late.”

It didn’t take long to find what we were looking for. A hardwood-framed glass door with etchings on the front and a plaque on the wall right next to it, deemed that this was the lawyer’s office.

Sleek, beautiful, hardwood furniture in warm shades of brown and green welcomed us. It hit me again right then that I looked like a fifteen-year-old hoochie mama in a giant-sized sweater that made it seem as if I didn’t have any clothes on underneath. Aiden didn’t look much better; his T-shirt was clingy, he had on long, black shorts that went past his knees, and he was in running shoes. The difference was, he didn’t give a single crap what he looked like.

Directly in front of the doors, an older woman behind a desk smiled over at us. “Can I help you?” she asked.

“Yes. We had an appointment with Jackson. I’m the one who called to say I was running late,” Aiden explained.

That changed everything. “Oh, Mr. Graves. Right. One moment please. The lighting issue pushed his meeting late.”

The lighting issue. Aiden and I looked at each other.

I couldn’t freaking help it, especially now that we were out of the elevator of terror, I snickered and let the uncontrollable smile take over.

Those underused corners of his mouth tipped up just a little—just a freaking little—but it was what it was. He’d smiled. He’d fucking smiled at me. Again. And it was just as magnificent as it had been the first time.

When we took a seat to wait, he turned that big body to the side and pinned me in place. “What’s that look on your face for?”

I reached up and touched the sides of my mouth and cheeks, finding that, yeah, I was mooning. Not smiling. I was mooning.

He’d smiled at me. Was there any other way in the world to react?

“No reason.”

His lids dropped low. “You look like you’re on drugs.”

That wiped my not-smile off my face. “I like your smile. That’s all.”

The big guy shot me a sour look. “You make me feel like a Grinch.”

“I don’t mean to. It’s a nice smile. You should do it more often.”

The grumpy expression on his face didn’t assure me of anything. Eventually, when I sat up straight, he draped his arm over the back of my chair. Waiting until the woman at the desk was on the phone, I whispered, “What exactly are we doing here?”

“He wants to go over some information with me,” he explained.

Couldn’t the lawyer just have e-mailed it to us, I wondered, but kept my question to myself. “So I can’t wait here?”

“No.”

I fidgeted and lowered my voice even more. “The lawyer thinks this is real, doesn’t he?”

“It’s fraud otherwise.”

Damn. I slunk in my seat, the bare heat of his forearm grazing the top of my neck. That damn word sent fear coursing through my spine. I didn’t want to go to prison.

As if he was reading my mind, Aiden whispered, “Nothing is going to happen. No one’s going to believe this isn’t real.”

I didn’t know where he got his confidence from, but I needed to find some.

Luckily it didn’t take too long for the door leading from the waiting room to the office to open. A couple came out, too busy speaking in a language that sounded like German to pay attention to us.

It was show time apparently.

The second after we stood up, the receptionist waved us forward. I slipped my hand into Aiden’s and gave it a faint squeeze.

He squeezed mine right back.