"Rossi knows there's something up with Erin."
Aaron looked up from his coffee mug and frowned slightly at Penelope. It was risky for her to utter such words in the break room, and he shook his head a little before pulling his head towards his office. "I think this needs to be said somewhere a little more private, don't you?"
"Of course, sir." She frowned back at him before flouncing away from him and up the stairs, making a beeline for his office. JJ shot him a questioning look, and he shook his head at her, allowing a small smile to dance across his face before he followed after Penelope.
The moment his office door was closed, Penelope was in his face, her finger pressing against his chest as she stared up at him. There was real fear and fury in her gaze, and he averted his eyes, feeling guilt steal over his body. "What does Dave think? And how do you know this before me?"
"Erin's been happier lately, smiling like she used to, and he knows that he is not the one to put the silly schoolgirl smile on her lips. She's denied everything to him, so far, but we all know that he can have a suspicious mind when it comes to his lovers. I think it all stems from finding out about Joy so late in life."
"There is that," he murmured, trying to think of a good way to cover their tracks. There was no way that he would get Erin hurt even more, because of him. "And what does Erin think will happen?"
"She is trying to play things by ear, she thinks that she can placate him by stroking his ego. Look, I know that when we're here, we only see his jovial, fun, side. But you've seen the other side of him. The tough, rough, mean side that he tries to keep hidden from the world, because he knows that it would tarnish his authorial persona. And from what little Erin's told me, that side can be truly terrifying. You're playing with fire here, but she's the one that will be burned by it, when things blow up."
"Don't you think I know that?" he asked lowly as he crossed the room and took a seat behind his desk, needing the buffer between them. Penelope followed and sat on the edge of a chair, staring intently at him. "I am trying to handle this as delicately as I can."
"Then back off from her, Hotch. Stop sending her signals that tell her you're interested in her, and all the embers of this wildfire will burn out before it destroys the both of you." She reached across the desk and swatted his hand a little, causing him to look up at her. "I care about both of you, you know. And I want nothing but the best for you both. But did you ever stop to think that Rossi might make things very difficult for her, if you two do something foolish?"
He shook his head a little. "I think I've been so focused on making certain that Erin is doing okay, that she's learning and growing and becoming happier, that I allowed the consequences of our actions to be swept under the rug." Sighing deeply, he glanced down at his phone, seeing the display light up as a text from Erin came through. "She wants to know when I'm coming."
"Tell her that you'll be on your way in a few minutes. We need to finish this discussion."
He arched an eyebrow as he unlocked his phone and tapped out his reply to Erin. "I don't think that there's much more to talk about. We're going to tread carefully from here on out, and I will begin the difficult process of disentangling our feelings."
"All right, I suppose." Penelope didn't look convinced by his words, but they were all he could give her at that time, not knowing how difficult it would be to dig out the roots of the growing attraction he felt towards Erin. "Promise me, though, you won't do anything that will deliberately hurt her."
"I can promise you that," he replied as he pushed away from the desk and looked down at his coffee. "Would you please dump that out for me? I had thought that I'd have enough time to drink it, but it seems that I was wrong."
Penelope didn't even look guilty as she nodded, and he could feel her eyes on his back as he picked up his guitar case and left the office. Glancing up at Dave's office, he noticed that the man was bent over something on his desk, and he then remembered Dave telling him that he was spending the next four weeks doing a second edit of his next book. It was supposed to be finished by the next month, and he was more than a little stressed out over it. Part of Aaron wondered if that was why he was being so harsh on Erin, but then, he knew that stress was no excuse at all.
The entire drive over, he couldn't stop thinking about how he would react to Erin. They were going to be alone once more, since Dave was most likely going to be at the office until late in the evening. Which meant that they would be playing with fire more so than ever before. But still, he wanted to spend alone time with her, to make her a little happier than where he had found her.
Without realizing it, he had pulled into the driveway and was sitting at the wheel, still lost in thought. Shaking his head to clear away the disparate voices speaking in his ears, Aaron turned his car off and made for the door. This time, instead of Bernice greeting him, Erin opened the door, a soft smile on her lips. Aaron couldn't help but notice that she was dressed a bit more romantically than typical, her long full skirt skimming her ankles and her off the shoulder blouse lending an air of the bohemian to her.
"I was waiting for you to get here," she said airily, stepping forward to hug him tightly before pulling him inside. "David isn't going to be home until after supper, so we can play as loud as we want without having to worry about him overhearing us."
He nodded and gripped the handle of his guitar case tighter as they went into the study. Erin had laid out a tray of snacks and two glasses of water, trying to make it seem cozy, which touched his heart. Sliding his eyes over to her, he saw that her hands were clasped in front of her, as if she expected him to reject her. "Erin?"
"What?" she whispered, her smile faltering a little.
"You don't have to put on a performance for me. You just have to be yourself." A pretty blush stained her cheeks, and he closed the distance between them, reaching up to cup her face with his hands, even as he knew that he was crossing a major line in the sand. "Was there a song in particular that you wanted to work on today?"
"You Needed Me? I know, it's Anne Murray, but I've really come to appreciate that song so much more over these last few weeks." Erin was looking away from him by the time she finished talking, and it hit him that she was referring to him in regards to that song. The depth of her feelings took him aback, and he tried not to let that show on his face as he ran his thumb back and forth over her cheekbone. "Aaron?"
"I would do anything to make you smile, Erin." She slid her eyes back up to meet his, and he felt his breath stolen from his lungs at the sight of love, true love, hiding in those depths. And all of Penelope's words of warning came rushing back to the forefront of his mind. She frowned a little before closing the distance between them and kissing him tenderly.
"I need you, Aaron. In a way that is so different from David, from Alan. I know that this is so very dangerous, these feelings. But I also need to feel alive." Another soft kiss before she rested her head on his chest. "Penny has told me that I should be careful, that I should disentangle myself from you, before David finds out and does something rash. But I find that I don't want to listen to that advice."
"She has given me the same advice, too, which makes her a friend to both of us." Erin nodded against him, letting out a deep breath as he began to rub her back once more. "We should probably start going over the song, just in case Dave should come home unexpectedly. I wouldn't want him to walk in on a situation like this."
"All right," she murmured reluctantly as she let go of him and went over to her guitar, picking it up and holding it protectively to her chest as she failed to meet his eye, as if she needed some physical distance between them in order to keep her emotional equilibrium. Aaron just began to tune his guitar, knowing that they would eventually work things out so that everything made sense. In the end, that was the only thing that made sense.