When Colton finishes, he turns back toward me and smirks, “All consuming experience!”

He laughs at the confused expression that crosses my face. “What?”

“What it stands for,” he grins and I finally get it. He’s still guessing what Ace means.

“Nope,” I say back to him, fighting the smile that tugs at the corners of my mouth.

He takes a step backwards, biting his bottom lip in concentration. I can see the minute he thinks of another one for his eyes light up, the corners around them crinkling. “The amazing Colton experience,” he shouts over to me, garnering an eye roll from Beckett.

“Oh geez!” I laugh at his lack of humility and copy Beckett with an eye roll of my own. “Nope,” I yell back at him with a suppressed laugh, my standard response to his guesses.

Colton takes another step backwards, his face alit with humor, and shakes his head at me. “Later Ryles.”

“Later, Ace,” I mutter, begrudgingly accepting the fact that in so many ways Colton is right. That no matter how intelligent I am or how rational I try to be, his pull on me is just too strong. And like a moth to the flame, I know I’ll end up burned.

I tug his hat down on my head, adjusting my now-wrecked ponytail, and watch as he throws a playful arm around Beckett’s shoulder as they walk down the pathway. I shake my head, overwhelmed by the day’s events, and head over to collect my excited but very tired boys for the long ride home.


CHAPTER 21


“Check it out!” Dane throws a newspaper proof onto my desk as he walks by my office at Corporate Cares. “Your cleavage is going to be in the newspaper and we’re going to get some good press.”

I whip my head up to look at him, confused at what he means before glancing down at the paper. On the lower half of the cover of the sports section is a side-by-side picture of our outing at the track and accompanying article. The picture on the left is a picture of Colton’s car with all of the boys kneeling in front of it with Colton in the middle of them. The picture to the right is a close up of Zander, Ricky and myself. I am in between the two, and unfortunately, the way my arms are positioned, my cleavage is defined and on display in the V of my snug t-shirt. “Lovely! Oh, my God, that’s embarrassing!”

“C’mon, Ry, you look hot. And the girls look great!”

I throw my pencil at him, laughing. “When does this go to print? Can we ask him to change the picture?”

“Yeah, right! You know they picked it so that the guys that open up the sports page will read the article and not flip past it.” I roll my eyes, feeling the flush of embarrassment creep into my cheeks. “Besides, just think of it as taking one for the team—”

“What?”

“It’s a really good article that’s going to give us good press. Your boobs are going to get people to read it.” He laughs out loud. “Hell, if I was into playing for your team, I’d keep the picture for late night fun!”

“Oh, shut up!” I shout at him, unable to keep the laughter from bubbling up.

“C’mon, Ry—read it. You’re gonna like what it says.”

“Really?” I raise an eyebrow as I skim through it, pleased with what I see so far.

“Seriously. It is.” He tells me taking a seat in the chair in front of my desk. “A lot of good info about The House and about corporate and the new facilities.”

“When’s it running?”

“This Sunday, and the OC Register most likely will run then too, but I haven’t seen their proof yet.”

“Hmmm, not bad.” I set it down on the side of my desk where I can read it more thoroughly later without an audience.

“How was your interview?” he asks, referring to the one good resume I had for the open counselor position at The House. I had interviewed her earlier in the day and was quite impressed.

“What? Oh, Avery something or other? She was actually really good. Almost too good to be true really, but her references check out, and I think I’m going to make her an offer. I think the boys will really take to her. I’ll need you to help me train her but—” The ringing of my cell phone interrupts me. I glance down to see who is calling. “It’s Teddy,” I tell him.

Dane rises from the chair and mouths he’ll come back later as I answer the phone. “Hey, Teddy!”

“Rylee! Heard we got a good article from the LA Times. Great job!”

“You’re breaking up on me, Teddy.” The phone line crackles and then sounds digitalized on his last words.

“I need to talk to you—” The call drops and the line goes dead.

I wait a second looking at my phone to ring again and when it doesn’t, I go back to looking at the budgetary numbers I was working on before Dane had interrupted. I just start getting into figuring out a discrepancy I was having trouble pinpointing when my cell rings again.

“Hello?”

“Rylee Thomas, please,” a monotone male voice says over the phone.

“This is she.”

“Hi, Ms. Thomas, this is Abel Baldwin.”

Oh, crap! What boy is it this time? “Good afternoon, Principal Baldwin. What can I do for you today?”

“Well, it seems to me that Aiden can’t seem to keep his hands to himself lately. He was in yet another fight last period, Ms. Thomas.” Disdain fills his voice at the mention of having to deal with this again.

This is Aiden’s third fight in as many months that has been caught by school authorities. I have a feeling that there has actually been a couple more that have gone unnoticed as well. Oh, Aiden. “What happened?”

“Not quite sure. He won’t really talk with me about it.” And I really don’t think you care, either.

“What about the other kid?” A question that I ask every time and always get a less than satisfactory answer to.

“They said it was a simple misunderstanding.”

“They?” There’s more than one? “I hope that they are in your office as well, Mr. Baldwin.”

He clears his throat. “Not exactly. They are in class and—”

“What?” I shout at him, perplexed at his obvious bias.

“And I think it’s better if you come and pick up Aiden—”

“He’s suspended?” I ask through gritted teeth.

“No, he’s not.” I can hear the irritation in his voice at having me question him. “If you’d let me finish Ms. Thomas—”

“He’s not suspended, but you want me to come get him while the other boys get to stay in class?” My rising frustration is more than evident in my voice. “Surely you can understand why I’m upset at what seems to be favoritism here.”

He stays quiet on the phone for a moment as I gather up my things as best as possible with one hand so that I can go pick him up. “Ms. Thomas, your accusation is unfounded and serves no purpose here. Now I would appreciate if you could come collect Aiden so that we can let the two parties simmer down. This in no way indicates that Aiden is at fault in this matter.” When he senses that I am about to jump in during his pregnant pause, he continues. “In addition, Aiden has blood on his clothing and seeing as it’s against school policy for him to walk around with it there, I think it’s in the school’s best interest to send him home for the afternoon.”

I sigh loudly, biting my tongue from telling this less-than-stellar principal just exactly what I think of him. “I’ll be right there.”

***

Aiden has been silent all the way home from school. My shift at The House doesn’t start for another three hours, but I think that Aiden and I need to have a little alone time to talk about what happened. I haven’t pushed him to tell me what took place, but I need to know. Is he being bullied? Is he starting fights looking for attention that he’s not getting? Is he releasing frustration due to memories from his past? I need him to tell me so that I can figure out how to help.

Before we walk into the house, I motion for him to sit down on the front porch step next to me. He rolls his eyes but he obeys reluctantly. He stares at me as I take in the swollen lip with dried blood at the corner, the dark red mark on his right cheek and the beginnings of bruising on the left eye. His cheeks flush deeply under my scrutiny.

“I know you don’t want to talk about it, buddy, but you have to tell me what happened.” I reach out and grab his hand while he lowers his head and watches an ant crawl slowly on the step beneath us. We sit in silence, and I allow it for a bit but then finally squeeze his hand, letting him know he needs to talk.

“They were just being jerks,” he grumbles.

“Who started it, Aiden?” When he doesn’t respond, I prompt again. “Aiden? Who threw the first punch?”

“I did.” His voice is so soft, so sad with shame that it breaks my heart. I see a fat tear silently slide down his swollen cheek, and I know that something is off.

“Talk to me, Aiden. Who was it and what did they do to make you want to hit them?”

He reaches up to dash away the fallen tear with the back of his hand and as only an eleven-year-old boy can, leaves a smear of dirt in its path. “They called me a liar,” he mumbles, his bottom lip quivering. “Ashton Smitty and Grant Montgomery.”

Little punks! The know-it-all, privileged, popular kids from his grade whose parents who never seem to be around. I wrap my arm around his shoulder and pull him to my side, kissing the top of his head. “What did they say you were lying about?”

I feel his body stiffen and my head is thinking numerous things as I wait for his response. When it finally comes, his voice is barely audible. “They told me I lied about going to the track on Sunday. That I didn’t really meet Colton or know him …”

My heart squeezes at his words. He was so excited to go to school and tell all his friends about his experience. So excited to be cool for once and have something that the other kids didn’t. And his enthusiasm turned into a fight. In my head I can see how it went; they pushed and pushed Aiden until he lashed back. I sigh loudly, squeezing him again. I want to tell him that the little punks deserved it and that he did the right thing, but that’s obviously not the most responsible way to react. “Oh, Aiden … I’m sorry, buddy. Sorry they didn’t believe you. Sorry they pushed you … but Aiden, fighting somebody with your fists is not the way to solve it. It only ends up making things worse.”