Driven

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?”