So I do.
Aiden’s eyes jump to me, and then back to Ryker. “I don’t know.”
“Sweetie—”
Ryker shakes his head and steps forward, sets his hand on Aiden’s shoulder and gives it a squeeze. “What the fuck did he say? You can tell us. You’re not in trouble.”
“He said shit about Aunt Wills.”
My heart stutters to a stop. “What? Me? Why?”
“And we don’t disrespect her,” he continues, watching Ryker closely, and I’m quite sure I’m about to have a stroke. “I told him to shut it, and he wouldn’t. So I shut it for him.”
“Good.” Ryker nods, then turns to me and skims his hand from my shoulder to my fingers, and then holds on. “It doesn’t matter what the kid said—he had your name in his mouth, and your boy was having none of it.”
Without thinking twice, I hug Aiden. I just wrap my arms around his middle and squeeze him. It takes a few seconds, but then his arms come around me, and he pats my back awkwardly.
“I’m not in trouble?” he asks.
“No, you’re not in trouble for the reason behind it. But you need to learn to walk away. You were in a public place, where people could have been hurt, Aiden. We need to talk about self-control. Not to mention, you should have told me what happened when I asked you. Don’t be that kid that only opens up to men, Aiden. I raised you better than that.”
I open my eyes and see Ryker grinning at us, but I’m suddenly so damn tired. I haven’t been sleeping well because I’m afraid I’ll miss my alarm. Driving four hours a day is exhausting, and I’m worried about Aiden, and I have so much of my own work to do. I’m overwhelmed.
Suddenly, I can’t take it anymore, and I bury my face in Aiden’s chest and start to cry.
“Whoa, don’t cry.” He pats my back a little harder, as if that will help. “I don’t ... you don’t ...help.”
Ryker pries my hands apart from around Aiden, and then I’m in his arms, and he’s holding me close, kissing the top of my head.
“Hey, it’s okay. You’re both fine.”
“I know.” I swipe at my tears. “It’s just been a really crappy week, and I can’t sleep well, and I’mso tired.”
“I told you to just let me stay at the bunkhouse,” Aiden says, his voice almost desperate. “I’ll be fine out here. Honest, Aunt Wills, I don’t mind at all.”
I shake my head. “No. You need to be where I am at night.”
“Okay, take a breath.” Ryker frames my face in his hands and rubs my tears away with his thumbs. “Deep breath for me, Willow.”
Willow.He hardly ever calls me by my full name. It’s always Wills or Trouble.
I follow his directions, and when I’ve calmed down a bit, he surprises me.
“I wantbothof you to move out here.”
I shake my head. “I would love to spend the summer here, I really would, but I have a job, and I can’t work just anywhere. I need my booth and my equipment. I need my soundproofed room, Ry.”
“It’s time I showed you the project I’ve been working on since you came out here a few weeks ago and asked if I would give Aiden a job.” He kisses my forehead so softly that it boggles my mind, and then he laces his fingers with mine and gestures for us to follow him. “Come on, both of you.”
He leads us upstairs and toward the back of the huge farmhouse. This area of the house is mostly guest rooms with en suite bathrooms, but he converted one of the rooms into his own office, and then the next door he opens is at the end of the hall. He flips on a light, and I ... stop.
“Whoa,” Aiden murmurs, but Ryker’s eyes are on me.
“Am I in an alternate universe?” I ask.
“When you told me that Aiden needed this job, I assumed that you’d both be staying out here,” Ryker begins as I prowl the room. “He’ll sleep in the bunkhouse, but he also has a bedroom here. You have your room, of course. And I had these two bedrooms combined into one, soundproofed, and made ready for you to move in and get to work.”
This is the kind of booth that only a filthy rich former hockey player could come up with. He obviously did his homework, because I can see that it’s entirely soundproofed. There’s a smaller desk by the window for me to work at, but there’s anincrediblesetup in the corner for my sound equipment, iPad, computers, and all the things I need to record. In fact, all I’ll need to do is pack up a few things from my setup at home and move them over. It’ll be easy.
