Pressing the ice pack against the line of his jaw, he shook his head just the tiniest bit, his eyes doing this dismissive flutter. “I didn’t get jumped.”
His assurance wasn’t doing it for me, damn it, and I was getting angrier by the second. I touched his arm. “Tell me what happened, Aiden.”
“Nothing.”
Nothing. The right side of my mouth went tight. “You beat yourself up then?”
That scoff said more than the word “No” did.
“Then…” I trailed off, not giving this up.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” I’d already known that from the beginning. But as stubborn as he was, I was too. And I wasn’t going to let it go because this right here, the clear signs of him getting into a fight with someone on his team was a sign of the apocalypse. Aiden didn’t give enough of a shit about his teammates to care what they said about him or to him.
He’d said it at the game, there were only a few people he’d ever met whose opinions mattered to him. And I knew that wasn’t something he said for the heck of it. He meant it.
I’d been trying my best since Friday not to think about the basketball game we’d gone to. Or at least, I’d attempted not to think about what he’d said to my sister’s husband or how he’d looked at Susie like he wanted to kill her. The memory of him grabbing my hand and walking with me to the car in silence as anger marred that handsome face, had drilled a hole straight into my heart. Then, as we’d sat in my car, he’d said, “I’m sorry I didn’t go with you.”
All I’d managed to do was sit there and frown. “To where? El Paso?” His response had been a nod. “It’s fine, big guy. It’s all water under the bridge now.” I couldn’t help but reach over and put my hand over the top of his. “That was nice of you to stand up for me, by the way.”
Well, I thought it had been more than nice, but the realization of what I thought I felt was something I never wanted to voice.
Then Aiden had gone and done it as he faced forward out of the windshield, teeth gritted, jaw tight. “I’ve let you down too many times. I won’t do it again.”
Just like that, this feeling of dread poured through my stomach, making me antsy. He’d spent the rest of the weekend more remote than normal. While he hadn’t become outgoing since we’d begun getting along a lot better, Aiden had retreated into himself a little more. He’d worked out and finished and started another puzzle, which was his telltale sign that he was trying to work something out in his head or relax.
It all suddenly made me nervous, and a little, tiny, baby bit worried. Pulling one of the stools at the island back, I plopped into it and simply stared at that discolored, harsh face in unease. “I just want to know whether I need to steal a bat or make a phone call.”
His mouth had been open and poised to argue with me… until he heard the last thing I said. “What?”
“I need to know—”
“What do you need to steal a bat for?”
“Well, no one I know owns one, and I can’t go buy one at the store and have it caught on videotape.”
“Videotape?”
Did he know nothing?
“Aiden, come on, if you beat the shit out of someone with a bat, they’re going to look for suspects. Once they have suspects, they’ll look through their things or their purchases. They’ll see I bought one recently and know it was premeditated. Why are you looking at me like that?”
His mauve-colored eyelids went heavy over the bright whites of his eyes, and the expression on his face was filled such a vast range of emotions, one after another after another, that I wasn’t sure which one I was supposed to hold on to. He switched the icepack to the other side of his bruised jaw and shook his head. “The amount you know about committing crimes is terrifying, Van.” His mouth twitched under the rainbow of whatever he was thinking. “It scares the hell out of me, and I don’t get scared easily.”
I snorted, pretty pleased with myself. “Calm down. I went through this phase when I was into watching a lot of crime TV shows. I’ve never even stolen a pen in my life.”
Aiden’s careful expression didn’t go anywhere.
“I’m not trying to kill anyone… unless we had to,” I joked weakly.
His nostrils flared so slightly I almost missed it. But what I didn’t miss was the way the corners of his mouth tipped up into a tiny smile.
I smiled at him as innocently as possible. “So do you want to tell me who’s going to get the fists of fury?” I hoped I sounded as harmless as I intended, even though I felt the exact opposite as every second passed.
“Fists of fury?”
“Yep.” I held up my hands just a little so he could see them. He had no idea the number of fights I’d gotten into with my sisters over the years. I didn’t always win—I rarely won if I was going to be honest—but I never gave up.
The sigh that came out of him was so long and drawn out, I kind of prepped myself for the half-assed answer that was going to come out of his mouth.
“It’s nothing.” There it was. “Delgado—”
The brakes in my head came to a screeching halt. “You got into it with Christian?”
He glanced at me through those incredibly long eyelashes, moving the ice pack a little lower on his jaw. “Yes.”
That dreaded feeling in my stomach got worse. “Why?” I hopefully asked as calmly as I could, but I was pretty sure it came out relatively strangled.
Please, please, please. Don’t let it be why I think it might be. Christian had been a creep on Thanksgiving, but it wasn’t like he’d made grabby hands at me.
Aiden’s face said it all. His mouth opened slightly and the tip of his tongue touched the corner of it. That brief silence was cold. “You could have told me,” he accused.
I gulped. “Told you what?”
His gaze was through the thick row of his eyelashes, and I caught his hand flexing over the icepack. “What he did to you. How he acts around you.”
Zac. I was going to wring his neck. “I’ll tell you what I told Zac: it isn’t a big deal.”
The big guy went stone-cold still. A muscle in his jaw popped and a vein in his neck throbbed.
“It is a big deal, Vanessa. Zac mentioned it to me right before he left, but I thought if it was a big deal, you would have said or done something about it. You didn’t.” He leveled that dark, angry gaze at me, his jaw tightening. “I saw the way he looked at you after the game. I heard the way he talked to you while I was right there. He knows we’re married, and he still did that shit.”
Did he just cuss for the second time in a week?
“I am not okay with that,” he claimed in that incredibly deep voice, his spine straight and shoulders back. “I’m not fine with you always thinking you have to deal with things on your own.”
Remorse filled me, but only for a second. I straightened my own back and glared right back at him. “You didn’t have to get into a fight with him over it, Aiden. I don’t want that guilt on my head. The last thing I want is for you to get angry with yourself later.”
Plus, what would I have done back then? Told Aiden his teammate had tried coming on to me? He wouldn’t have done anything. I knew that. The Aiden from a few months ago knew that, too.
“I did have to, and I would do it again.”
I blinked. Then I blinked a little more, having to look up at the ceiling so that I could collect my words. A touch at the side of my jaw had me tipping my head back to look into those deep brown eyes.
Everything about him was serious and intent. “I know you think I wouldn’t care,” he said in that whisper voice that bled solemnness, “but I would. I do. We’re in this together.”
My mouth suddenly dry, I nodded. “Yes.”
“Trust me, Van. Tell me. I won’t let you down.”