“He’s your nephew, you said?”
“Yeah.” Then I laughed under my breath. “But sometimes it feels like he’s our little brother. We have a”—I paused—“unique family tree.”
He hummed. “All that teenage anger you mentioned.”
Slowly, I nodded. “Yeah.”
Aiden studied the line of pictures, and I wondered what he was thinking. His gaze landed on one of me, Logan, and Paige when I was sixteen.
“Your mom left the four of you.”
He stated it so simply, without any inflection, that it didn’t knock the breath out of me. Again, I nodded.
When he turned, his eyes held a dangerous edge. “I’d be pretty fucking angry too.”
My smile was wide, my laughter unexpected. But it felt really good. Aiden’s expression softened.
I stood next to him and looked at the picture. “That’s the anger you caught”—I glanced sideways at him—“a couple of weeks ago. My sister invited her to their wedding, and I … didn’t handle it well,” I said wryly. “Maybe I’m still not handling it well.”
Aiden watched me with heavy-lidded eyes. Something about my honesty seemed to affect him the most.
“So I don’t need to expect attacks like that often?” he asked. “I’ll keep my guard up if I should.”
“No,” I answered around a small smile. “You don’t.” At his nod, I breathed just a little easier. “I’ll show you where the utility closet is.”
I brushed past Aiden, my arm grazing his where my shirt had slid off my shoulder, and I felt the small touch down to my toes because his skin was warm and firm. As he followed me, he was quiet, but I got the sense he was studying our home. Studying me.
We passed the guest room and a bathroom, turning by the doorway that led to Logan’s office. Aiden paused, glancing inside. Over my shoulder, I saw him peering at the Washington Wolves paraphernalia lining the walls. Two framed jerseys hung centered over the couch along the back wall from Logan’s professional career and college. Photos of him and Paige, the sisters, and Emmett adorned the wall behind his desk. On the dark wood surface were two massive computer monitors and neat stacks of books and binders.
“No trophies out,” Aiden commented.
I smiled. “I think they’re in a box in the closet.”
His eyebrows popped up briefly. “Mine will probably end up there too. I can never figure out how to display them without seeming pompous.”
“The burden of greatness?” I teased lightly.
One edge of his mouth hooked up in a wry smile. “Something like that. I haven’t set up my home office yet.”
“Probably because you never leave the one at the gym,” I said.
His gaze moved from the office to my face. “If that’s not the pot calling the kettle black.”
“Touche.” I lifted my chin at a nondescript door. “Fuse box is in there. I can go check on the kids so I’m not in your hair.”
“Oh no, you’re going to help.” He was so nonchalant as he said it, opening the door and setting his toolbox down to hold it in place.
One of my eyebrows rose at the evenly spoken command. “Am I?”
He hit me with the full force of those eyes when he turned. “Yeah. Because if this ever happens again, you’ll know what to do.” Aiden jerked his head for me to join him in the utility room.
The small, not at all spacious utility room. The fuse box was on the middle of the wall, flanked on one side by the furnace, the water heater was in the corner, and on the opposite wall was some floor-to-ceiling metal shelving Logan had stacked with tools, light bulbs, and a bunch of other shit I’d never looked at.
All I knew now, as I stood next to Aiden, was that that shelving took up a shit ton of space in that room, and we were forced to stand with our arms brushing as he flipped open the door.
“It’s that one,” I told him.
He nodded. “Can you grab those two boxes on the top of the bag, the small red-handled voltage check next to them, and a flathead screwdriver? Please,” he added when I shot him a look.
Bending over to find the items he asked for, I couldn’t help my grin.
When I handed him the fuse boxes, he started explaining what he was doing, checking the part numbers, and where to check that the main breaker was shut off. Then he unscrewed the cover and set it on the ground by his feet.
“You still have power coming through,” he said, pointing for me to hold the gauge just beyond the wires to see how it lit up. “Now that we know the circuit breakers I had match up, we can replace the old one. But we have to turn off the main breaker first, so go ahead and turn on the flashlight on your phone. There’s not enough natural light in the hallway to be able to see.”
Yes, please, I thought. Just what I need. To stand side by side with Aiden in a dark closet. In a house by ourselves.
It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if he could hear my heart hammering behind my rib cage. After all, the only thing covering it was one thin layer of white cotton and the flimsy protection of my skin, which hummed like a live wire at his nearness.
If someone held that voltage checker in the scant space separating our bodies, it would have lit up like the Fourth of freaking July.
Aiden flipped the main power off, and we were plunged into darkness.
I let out an audible breath as he shifted slightly, the skin of his arm brushing my shoulder. He smelled like a soapy pine forest which sounded so much less sexy than it smelled. I wanted to crush that scent into crystals and snort it.
“Can you, uh”—he paused—“the flashlight?”
“Right,” I exhaled. I pulled my phone from where it was tucked into the pocket of my joggers, almost dropping it when my hands shook a little.
The light was garish and harsh, and when I glanced up at him, a muscle tightened ominously in his jaw as his eyes were straightforward on the fuse box.
“See that screw there on the far right of the blown fuse?”
I moved the flashlight but had to shift closer to get a clear view of it. “Mm-hmm.”
“That’s what you unscrew to remove the wire,” he explained. “Do you have the flathead?”
Nodding, I lowered the phone so I could reach my other hand into my pocket.
“I’ll take the phone,” he said.
Passing it to him, I willed myself to stop thinking about anything except replacing that motherfucking fuse because the things running through my head were positively indecent.
They got worse when he extended his arm behind me to angle the light so I could see more clearly.
In my head, I had an image of myself as a marionette doll, and he could pull and tug me into the right position simply by plucking a single string. Each corresponding body part would bend to his will. What I wanted was to slide closer and see what would happen if I moved in front of him.
Would he curl one of those big hands around my hip and yank me back against him?
Would he drop the phone, wrap his arm around the front of me, slide it down the opening in my shirt?
Would he slide his arm around my waist? Pluck at the tie of my joggers and shove them out of his way?
In the light, my hand visibly shook when I lifted it to unscrew the fuse.
“Hey,” he said quietly.