Chapter 10
10
LYLA
“Lyly!” Crew’s shout has me sitting up so fast I nearly fall out of bed, barely managing to catch myself at the last second. I blink in confusion against the brightness of the beautifully decorated bedroom I’ve lived in for the last month.
What time is it?
Glancing at the clock on the white nightstand, my eyes fly open in shock when I see it’s after nine a.m. already. Pounding knocks on my bedroom door send panic racing through me, and I don’t even think, jumping out of bed and ripping open the door to see Crew and Aidan with matching smiles.
“Happy birthday!” they shout in unison.
Aidan holds up a tray of chocolate chip pancakes with what looks like cherry compote on top, a wide grin marring his handsome face and forming little wrinkles in the corners of his light eyes. My mouth waters, but I’m not sure if it’s from the food or him .
My boss towers over me, clad in light wash jeans, a faded black Raptors muscle tee with obscenely cut armholes that offer flashes of his bulging arms and chest, and bare feet. His messy hair is just on the verge of too long, but it’s a good look on him.
Now listen, bare feet usually freak me the hell out. I don’t like looking at them, touching them, or even thinking about them. But Aidan’s bare feet? There’s something so intimate about seeing this larger-than-life man’s masculine toes resting on the heated wood floors. For some reason I’d rather not explore right now, I don’t mind them all that much.
He must see the look on my face because a deep chuckle rumbles through his broad frame. “I figured combining both of your favorite foods would make for a pretty daggum good birthday breakfast.”
My mouth flops open like a fish, my eyes darting between the two handsome guys standing in front of me. “I had an alarm set to make birthday hotcakes for Crew…” For some reason, none of this is making sense to my sleep-fogged brain, but I know for a fact I set an alarm for six.
Crew’s toothy grin is adorable as he grabs my hand, dragging me back to the bed. “I sneakeded in and turned it off so you could sleep in!
I huff and ruffle his wavy hair. “You snuck in, Crew-bug. And I’ll let it slide this one time because you were doing something so sweet, but remember, we need to respect people’s private spaces, alright?
He nods emphatically. “ Right. Sorry, Lyly.”
“Raptor, why don’t we let Miss Lyla eat her breakfast and get ready for the day while you go get your shoes on.”
Aidan glances at me with a shy quirk of his lips as his son sprints out of the room. “If you don’t have any plans, Crew and I would like nothing more than for you to join us on a birthday trip to the aquarium. ”
Spending the day with Aidan and Crew would make for the best birthday I’ve ever had, so I readily agree. “Give me thirty?”
“‘Course. Take as long as you need.” Without a word, he stalks toward me and drops a gentle kiss on my cheek before ambling back out. Aidan moves to shut the door, but just before it clicks, he glances back at me under enviously thick lashes with a small but genuine smile. “Oh, and happy birthday, angel.”
“Did you see how big that shark was, Lyly? It was bigger than our car!” Crew’s enthusiasm makes me giggle, and I see Aidan glance at me with affection from where he sits in the driver’s seat.
He’s been glancing at me with these soft looks all day, and my resolve against dating is crumbling faster than a stale petit four.
“I did see it, Crew-bug! Were the sharks your favorite part?”
“Yes! The sharks and the stingrays. Did you see the baby stingray’s legs? I don’t really know why they have legs when they live in the water. And they’re kinda funny lookin’.”
I choke out a laugh as the wild six-year-old continues to recount every second of the last three hours from his booster seat, regaling his dad and me with exaggerated tales of his imagined underwater adventures.
Turning my focus to Aidan, I lower my voice so only he can hear me. “Thanks for inviting me today, Aidan. It means a lot that you wanted to include me in your last free day with Crew before the season starts. ”
He scoffs, keeping his eyes trained on the highway. “Are you kidding right now? Even if I hated being around you for some unthinkable reason, it would be a cold day in Arizona before Crew let me leave you out of a birthday activity. Or any activity for that matter. Like it or not, angel, you’re stuck with us.”
My cheeks flush crimson, but I’m saved from answering when we turn down our quiet street to see cars taking up nearly every available inch of curb space. Turning wide eyes to the man next to me, I see him grinning like the cat that caught the canary. Ever since meeting Sebastian, I haven’t done well with surprises, so I’m worried Aidan has something planned and hasn’t told me.
“Why are there so many cars lining the street?”
Aidan’s grin turns mischievous, and he shrugs. “Oh, we have a little party for Crew’s birthday every year. It must have slipped my mind with how busy we’ve been the last few weeks.”
Something about his words ring false, but I can’t imagine him doing something malicious, so rather than ask more questions, I do what I can to brace myself for whatever we’re about to walk into.
It’s midday, so at least everything is brightly lit and pleasantly warm for only being mid-March. Summer in the South can be brutal, so I like to enjoy the 75-and-sunny spring days while I can.
It takes less than five minutes for us to unload Crew and his new stuffed shark that’s almost as big as he is, and instead of leading us through the garage as usual, Aidan hovers his palm just above my lower back and guides me around to the front door.
I raise an eyebrow at him, but he’s got that damn grin back on his face that makes me more anxious than I’m willing to admit.
“SURPRISE!”
My throat clamps down in abject horror when I see no less than thirty people milling around the living space, my oxygen momentarily being held hostage by my traitorous lungs. Crew knocks into me, squealing on his way to Wren’s open arms. It’s enough to open my lungs back up, and I quietly gasp for air.
Balloons and streamers are everywhere, along with an overly large banner that reads, ‘Happy Birthday Crew & Lyla!’ I try to use a calming technique my therapist taught me: naming five things I can see, four I can hear, three I can feel, two I can smell, and one I can taste, but the sheer amount of men in this room, along with all the eyes on me, is enough to allow the panic attack to fully take hold.
I choke out a strangled ‘excuse me’ and rush from the room, beelining for the furthest guest bath on this floor. It’s tucked into a far corner of the house and doesn’t have any windows, so the second I close the door behind me, dark silence engulfs me, settling the worst of my panic and hopefully stopping the bile that coats the back of my throat from coming up.
Turning the tap as cold as it will go and holding my hands under it usually helps when I’m having a panic attack. But this one was too bad, too unexpected, so I quickly splash the freezing water up onto my face and neck in an attempt to shock my body into remission.
I’ve got one cold hand cupped over the back of my neck and one laid flat over my sternum when the door swings open, sending renewed adrenaline skittering through my body as the ringing in my ears intensifies.
I don’t even realize I’ve closed my eyes and braced myself against the wall with my hands up until strong arms circle my upper body and squeeze . My hands are trapped against a masculine abdomen, and then he tucks my head into his chest, and all I can smell is Aidan. I’ve been picking up on it more the last week, but he smells like a summer day at the beach. Salty ocean air and just a little bit of citrus.
It takes a few seconds, but the panic ebbs enough that my hearing comes back online just in time to catch his murmured words. “ Shh , angel, you’re safe now. I’ve got you. I’m right here, and I’m not letting you go.”
Aidan’s warm, steady hand is a comforting weight on my head. Before I can even consciously process the action, my arms are encircling his trim waist, and I’ve buried my nose even further into his chest.
“That’s it, angel. Use me however you need to. Can you try to copy my breathing, Lyla? I’m worried you’ll hyperventilate if we can’t calm you down.”
It takes every bit of my focus, but I manage to do as he says and match my breaths to his. He’s so much larger than me that I can’t possibly breathe in for as long as he does, but it’s the trying that gets my heart rate to decline.
I’m not sure how long we stand wrapped around each other in the tiny guest bathroom, but it’s long enough that my breathing finally returns to normal, and sounds from the party start to float in around us.
A soft knock on the door startles me, but Aidan doesn’t loosen his hold as a familiar head of curly brown hair pokes in.
“Hey guys,” Rhodes says gently. “Wren is herding everybody outside, so don’t worry about rushing out to entertain.” His eyes scan me slowly before meeting mine with an understanding I’m not surprised to see from him .
Wren and Rhodes may not know exactly what happened to me back in Maryland, but Rhodes is perceptive and nosy as hell, so I’m positive he knows more than he should. Maybe even more than his fiancé. Normally, that might bother me, but I’m finding that more often than not, I’ve been grateful for his compassion and empathy.
After briefly checking with Aidan, he steps the rest of the way into the bathroom and sets a cold water bottle on the sink before hovering a careful hand above my shoulder. “You alright, Ly?”
I can’t find it in me to be embarrassed when my body is shaking so hard I’m practically being held up by his best friend, my boss . So, rather than offer him false platitudes, I shrug with a shaky smile. The expression is minute compared to the smiles these men so freely offer, but it’s genuine, and that’s the best I can do right now.
Rhodes nods, but I can still see the concern shining in his eyes. “I’ll go help Wren hold down the fort. Text me if you need anything.”
Aidan lets out a sigh when the door shuts again, releasing one hand from the strands of my hair to open the water and hand it to me. “Little sips for now, angel. We don’t want you getting sick when your adrenaline dumps.”
The bridge of my nose burns at the gentleness in his voice. He witnessed me in one of my worst moments, and he’s not running for the hills or making an awkward excuse to leave.
There’s no way this man is real. He’s too much like one of the heroes in those romance books Wren keeps making me buddy-read with her. Is he just biding his time like Sebastian did? Will I see a different side of him if I agree to accompany him this weekend?
He keeps one thick arm wrapped around my upper back as he pulls a white washcloth off a small shelf above the sink. Flipping the still-running water to warm, he waits for it to come to temperature before wetting the cloth.
With methodical movements, he wrings it out and brings it to my face, gently wiping under my eyes and nose before making a quick swipe over my forehead.
Green collides with blue when my eyes snap to his in awe.
Seriously, who wrote this man?
I’ve always struggled with anxiety, but whenever Sebastian caught me having an “episode,” he would steer clear until I got over myself. His words, not mine. There’s no way in hell he ever would have held me through it or cleaned me up afterward when I was covered in snot and tears.
“You alright, Lyla? You checked out on me again.”
With a long sigh, I crash my head back to his chest, inhaling the scent that’s uniquely him. “I was thinking about life before I came here and how much of a miracle you and Crew are.”
Aidan stiffens slightly beneath me. Not enough that I think he’s uncomfortable, but enough to let me know that I’m probably going to have to come clean to him about why I’m here and soon. His next words confirm it, the gentle care with which he says them bringing fresh tears to my eyes.
“Angel… I don’t know what happened to you back home, but please know I’m here if or when you’re ready to talk about it. ”
I nod against his chest, but a pit forms in my stomach when I think about telling him what happened. When I think about admitting to this perfect man how ashamed I still am that I allowed myself to get into that situation and allowed myself to stay for so long.
It’s only a matter of time before Sebastian comes looking for me. And I don’t know if I could live with myself if Aidan or Crew got caught in the crossfire.