Chapter 4
Aiden
I take one last look around my living room, suddenly self-conscious in a way I haven't been since high school. The exposed brick looks fine. The bookshelves are organized. The espresso machine is primed and ready. Everything's in order.
So why do my palms feel like I'm about to give a presentation to the city council?
I wipe my hands on my jeans, mutter "get it together" under my breath, and open the door.
Riley stands in the hallway wearing jeans and a soft gray sweater instead of her usual professional armor. Her hair is down—actually down, not scraped back into that severe bun—and my brain stalls for a second at the sight.
She looks... soft. Approachable. Like a completely different person from the woman who accused me of posting thirst traps four days ago.
"Hi," she says, and then seems annoyed at herself for such a basic greeting.
"Hi yourself. Come in."
She steps inside and stops dead, eyes going wide behind those wire-rimmed glasses as she scans my apartment with that analytical gaze. Her eyes move methodically from bookshelf to furniture to windows—the book collection, the quality furniture, the distinct lack of beer pong tables and neon signs.
"This is not what I expected," she finally says.
"What did you expect? Signed poster of myself over the fireplace?"
"Something like that." Her mouth twitches. "Maybe a shrine to your Instagram followers."
"That's in the bedroom. Very tasteful. Candles and everything."
She snorts—an actual snort—and the sound lands like a gut punch. Riley Pritchard just snorted at my joke. In my apartment. While wearing a sweater that looks soft enough to bury my face in.
Down, boy. Focus.
"Coffee?" I gesture toward the kitchen, grateful for something to do with my hands. "Fair warning: I take coffee extremely seriously. If you're expecting break room sludge, prepare for disappointment."
"Hazel mentioned you were a coffee snob."
"Hazel's not wrong." I move toward the espresso machine, hyperaware of Riley following me. The kitchen suddenly feels half its normal size. "Cappuccino? Latte? Americano? I do a decent cortado if you're feeling adventurous."
"Cappuccino's fine." She leans against the counter, arms crossed, watching me work. "Where did you learn to do this?"
"YouTube, mostly. And a very patient barista in Portland who let me shadow her for a weekend.
" I tamp the grounds with practiced precision, focusing on the familiar ritual.
"Spent about six months obsessing over extraction times and milk temperatures.
My brother called it a midlife crisis. I called it having standards. "
"The trauma surgeon brother?"
"You remembered."
"I remember everything." She says it matter-of-factly, no flirtation, but my pulse jumps anyway.
The machine hisses. I concentrate on steaming the milk to perfect microfoam—a task that usually calms me but currently feels like defusing a bomb while someone distracting watches.
"So, your brother's the golden child," Riley says. "What's that like?"
"Exhausting." The word comes out before I can soften it.
"Every holiday, every family dinner, it's 'Ryan just published another paper' or 'Ryan's hospital gave him an award' or 'Ryan saved three lives before breakfast.'" I pour the milk carefully, watching the foam settle.
"Don't get me wrong—I love him. He's a good guy.
But growing up in that shadow? I learned early that I wasn't going to win the achievement game. So I found a different game."
"The charm game."
"The people game." I slide her cup across the counter. "Ryan can save your life on an operating table. I can make you feel like your life matters at a community barbecue. Different skills. Equally valid."
Riley takes a sip. Her eyes close briefly, and she makes a small humming sound that I'm absolutely going to think about later when I'm trying to sleep.
"Okay," she admits. "That's exceptional."
"Told you."
"Don't be smug."
"Can't help it. Smugness is baked into my DNA."
She rolls her eyes, but she's definitely almost smiling as she wanders back toward the living room, coffee in hand. I follow, watching her examine my bookshelves with crime-scene intensity—head tilted, fingers trailing along spines, occasionally pulling a volume out to check the title.
"Emergency Management Theory." She holds up a dense academic text. "Beach reading?"
"Essential reading. If you want to understand incident command structures beyond what they teach at the academy."
"And this?" A dog-eared paperback. "The Leadership Challenge?"
"Classic. Required reading for certification, but I've gone through it three times on my own. Highlighted and everything."
She slides it back and moves to the next shelf, where my certifications sit in simple black frames. Her expression shifts as she reads them—surprise first, then reassessment, then something I can't quite name.
"Crisis intervention. Advanced structural assessment. Tactical operations specialist." She turns to face me. "You never mentioned any of this."
"You never asked."
"Fair point." She's quiet for a moment, fingernail tapping against her coffee cup. "Wade doesn't know about these, does he?"
"Wade knows what Wade wants to know. Which is that I'm the guy who's good with cameras and bad at taking things seriously."
"But that's not true."
"No." I drop onto the couch, suddenly tired of standing. "It's not."
Riley sits at the other end—close enough to talk, far enough to maintain plausible professional distance. She tucks her legs under her, and the casual posture does something to my breathing. This is Riley relaxed. Riley off-duty. I've never seen this version of her before.
"Why let people believe it?" she asks. "The charm-over-substance thing. Why not correct them?"
"Tried that." I lean back, staring at the ceiling. "First year here, I went the serious route. All business, by the book, no personality. You know what happened?"
"What?"
"Nobody listened. They'd tune out in briefings, ignore suggestions, treat me like background noise." I shake my head. "It was miserable. And ineffective. So I changed tactics."
"You weaponized likability."
"I adapted." The word comes out sharper than intended. "And it worked. My crew respects me. The community trusts me. Incident outcomes improved. The only people who have a problem with my methods are the ones who think leadership means having a permanent stick lodged somewhere uncomfortable."
Riley's quiet, processing. When she speaks, her voice has softened. "I owe you an apology."
"For what?"
"The thirst trap comment. The Instagram angles. The assumption that you're all surface and no substance." She winces. "I was being reductive. And honestly? Kind of an asshole."
"Kind of?"
"Fine. A complete asshole." She pulls off her glasses and rubs her eyes—her processing tell, I've learned. "I saw what I expected to see instead of what was actually there. That's bad science and worse character judgment."
"Bad science." I let myself smile. "Is that the most damning insult in your vocabulary?"
"Top three, definitely."
The room feels different suddenly. The air has weight. Less adversarial, more charged. The distance between us on the couch suddenly seems like both too much and not enough.
"Apology accepted," I say. "For what it's worth, I made assumptions too."
"Such as?"
"I thought you were cold. Rigid. So obsessed with protocols that you'd forgotten they exist to help people, not just create paperwork." I meet her eyes. "I was wrong. You're not cold—you're careful. You're not rigid—you're precise. There's a difference."
Her cheeks go pink. "That's... unexpectedly perceptive."
"I contain multitudes."
"Apparently."
Silence settles between us, but it's not uncomfortable. The evening light has gone golden through the windows, painting everything warm. Riley's sweater has slipped slightly off one shoulder, revealing a strip of collarbone I'm definitely not staring at.
I'm absolutely staring at it.
"We should work on the talking points," she says, not moving toward the folder on my coffee table. "The school visit's in four days."
"Plenty of time."
"Hazel sent a very detailed schedule."
"Hazel sends detailed schedules for opening emails. We're fine."
Her teeth catch her lower lip. I've cataloged this gesture too—nervous habit, usually appears when she's thinking hard about something she doesn't want to say out loud.
"Aiden." She says my name like it costs her something. "What's happening here?"
"What do you mean?"
"This." She gestures between us. "You making me exceptional coffee. Me sitting on your couch without fantasizing about setting your Instagram on fire. The fact that I don't actively want to murder you for the first time in three years."
"Progress?"
"I'm serious."
"I know you are." I set down my cup and shift closer—just a few inches, not crowding, but reducing the distance. "Honestly? I don't know what's happening. I just know that somewhere between the warehouse and Riverside Park, things changed." I hold her gaze. "For me, at least."
She doesn't look away. Doesn't deflect or retreat behind professional distance. Just watches me with those sharp green eyes like she's analyzing evidence she didn't expect to find.
"For me too," she says quietly. "And it's terrifying."
"Yeah." My voice comes out rough. "It really is."
The moment stretches. Lamplight catches her hair, turning it shades of copper and gold. Her fingers aren't quite steady on the coffee cup. We're even closer now than when I first shifted toward her—somehow we've drifted together without either of us noticing.
Her eyes drop to my mouth.
Mine drop to hers.
I should crack a joke. Defuse this. Be smart.
Instead, I lean closer.
"Riley—"
Her phone explodes with the most aggressive ringtone I've ever heard—some kind of emergency klaxon that makes us both jump like guilty teenagers.
"Work." She fumbles for it, cheeks flaming. "I have to—sorry—"
"Take it."
She answers, and I watch her expression shift from embarrassed to focused to grim in three seconds flat. Whatever this call is, it's not good news.
"When?" She's already standing, her whole demeanor snapping back to professional mode. "How much damage?" Pause. "Text me the address. I'll be there in twenty."
She hangs up and reaches for her jacket in one fluid motion. "Commercial fire downtown. The building's still smoldering, and they want an investigator on scene before evidence degrades. The on-call guy's out sick."
"I'll drive you."
"You don't have to—"
"Riley." I'm already grabbing my keys from the hook by the door. "I'll drive you."
She hesitates for exactly one second, then nods. "Okay."
We head out, the charged moment abandoned but definitely not forgotten. In the stairwell, I catch her profile in the harsh fluorescent light—flushed, focused, a little bit dazed around the edges.
I know the feeling.
Whatever's building between us, it's not fake. Maybe it never was. Maybe the viral video just forced us to stop pretending we didn't notice each other.
I hit the unlock button on my truck and hold the passenger door open for her. She climbs in without comment, already texting someone—her lab tech, maybe, or the fire marshal.
As I slide behind the wheel and pull out of the parking garage, I steal a glance at her.
She's twisted her hair back into that tight bun, the transformation complete—off-duty Riley disappeared the moment work called.
But there's still color high on her cheeks that has nothing to do with the fire scene waiting for us.
The city lights blur past the windshield. Neither of us mentions what almost happened on my couch.
We don't have to. It's sitting right there in the truck between us, impossible to ignore.