Page 50 of Date Knight (Roll for Romance #2)

Amy

But still, it had scared me. He hadn’t said it, but I’d been able to read between the lines: our relationship and the things he thought it demanded were making his burden heavier.

So over the next week, I took care to need nothing from Phil.

I didn’t ask about plans for the ball, despite the fact that we were getting close enough to necessitate more detailed logistics.

I asked to cancel the bonus date night we’d planned in favour of hanging out at his, knowing it meant one less shift he’d have to pay Anil for and several hours fewer to worry about Ethel.

And all the while, I wore my amethyst pendant every day, even buying a handful of tumbled sodalite and amazonite, dropping stones in his pockets each day, desperate for anything that could encourage honesty and understanding.

Meanwhile, I had plenty of my own shit to worry about.

I was trying to get the presentation ready for my dad, spending actual time at the job sites so I understood how he and his team worked.

I asked them questions about how they got their schedules, what annoyed them about the processes they used, and what they would change if they could.

I knew I’d be asking for a lot– I was going to try to strike whilst the iron was hot and get him to implement a bunch of integrated upgrades at once– so I needed to be just as on it as I had been for Tim.

All around making sure my boyfriend didn’t crumble into dust under the weight of… well, everything.

But things weren’t getting better. If anything, I could see Phil fraying further and further. And by the time Sunday dinner rolled around again, I suggested he stay at home to catch up on things, and when I joined him at around seven, he fell asleep on the sofa almost immediately.

So I was surprised when Tuesday came and he didn’t want to skip the pub quiz.

“Of everything you could skip, the pub quiz is the easiest,” I said as we waited outside the physio. Phil was texting Anil to confirm for the evening. “We only ever get second place, and I can go by myself.”

“I know you can,” he said, and despite the fact that he was smiling, I could hear the exasperation. “But you like going, don’t you? So I do, too.” He pressed a kiss to my temple.

I narrowed my eyes at him, sceptical at best, fearful at worst.

“I know I’ve been tired,” he said in the understatement of the millennium, “but I feel like I’ve been neglecting you. So let’s just do the quiz tonight, yeah?”

“I don’t feel neglected,” I lied. Though it wasn’t his fault; I was insisting upon my own neglect. It was temporary… wasn’t it?

Although, come to think of it, what was the endpoint? What arbitrary milestone was I waiting on that would make everything better? I didn’t like where that train of thought led.

“It’s a done deal,” he said, hitting send on the text and holding it up to show me. “Also, you didn’t send me my horoscope today.”

“No, I guess I didn’t,” I said, frowning. “Why, do you want it?”

“Of course,” he said, lacing his hand through mine. “Like I said, I care about the things you love.”

“You’ve literally never requested a horoscope from me before.”

“Probably because you’ve always shared them with me by lunchtime.”

He wasn’t wrong; I’d sent him his horoscope religiously.

I’d omitted today’s on purpose because it was a bit too relevant.

But he held out his hand as if I would physically hand it to him, so I couldn’t exactly deny him one.

I thought about making one up off the top of my head, but I couldn’t very well lie to him whilst hoping he’d be honest with me.

So I opened the app on my phone and read it out to him, as if I were seeing it for the first time.

“Failure is inevitable, but the best jesters turn dropped juggling balls into part of the show. When things don’t go to plan today, focus on how to stick the landing.”

He frowned. “That’s a bit ominous.”

I shrugged, hoping to play it off. “Sounds to me like we need to make sure our pub quiz team name is good enough to make everyone laugh when we’re listed in last place.”

Phil looked at me like I’d just stabbed him, his mouth falling open. “You don’t like Presti-quiz-itation?! You wound me, Evans.”

I rolled my eyes, but inside I was heaving a huge sigh of relief that I’d managed to stick that landing. The only thing that worried me was the niggling feeling in the back of my mind that his horoscope had been about much more than just the pub quiz.

* * *

As we sat around the table at the pub later, marking down our last answer, we collectively held our breath.

We’d been confident about nearly everything, and, based on the muttering around us, we were pretty sure the other teams had not.

But it was the busiest it had ever been for the last pub quiz of the summer, with a dozen different teams and at least fifty people in the room.

Phil was as relaxed as I’d seen him since we’d gotten together properly.

He’d let himself have not one but two beers, and he seemed back to his usual self, which mostly meant making innuendos for every question and propositioning me to meet him in the toilets at least three separate times.

I’d brushed him off, but he ran his thumb up and down my spine as we looked over our answers before marking, and I crossed my legs tighter, wondering if maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to pass the time until the results were announced in a more intimate way…

“Is it jinxing it to say that I think we’ve got this one?” Chloe asked as she looked over Fatima’s shoulder at our paper.

“Absolutely yes,” I said, pointing at the table. “Touch wood immediately.”

“I’m literally leaning on wood,” Chloe said, indicating her elbows on the table, but she knocked it with her fist obediently anyway.

“Let’s not get our hopes up,” Morgan whispered. “None of you knew the answer to the Stephen King question, and that one was worth a lot of points.”

“Hey, Chloe’s right. We’ve got this,” Phil said, smiling and nodding as if trying to make his optimism catch. But we were more stoic than ever, desperate to win first place just once before the summer ended.

We exchanged answer sheets with the team at the table next to us, called “Quiz Khalifa”, and it was almost comical how little we spoke whilst the answers were being read out.

We all exchanged relieved looks every time our answer was revealed to be right, and smug ones every time Fatima crossed out a wrong answer on the other team’s paper.

We swapped papers back and were pleased to see we’d gotten seventy-six of a possible eighty points, compared to Quiz Khalifa’s sixty-one, though we had no idea how well the other ten teams had fared.

“Results time!” The host said into the mic once the results had been tallied, and all fifty-plus people packed into the pub cheered.

I grabbed Phil’s hand, surprised at how nervous and hopeful I felt.

When Chloe, Fatima, and Morgan grasped hands too, and Fatima reached out for mine, we closed into a circle around the table.

“In fourth place, with sixty-two points,” the host said, and we all exchanged incredulous glances– that was a massive points gap from what we knew we had, which was a good sign– “we have I Wish This Microphone Was A Massive Cock. Hardy har, boys.”

The table of six twenty-something lads to our left roared with cheers and laughter– clearly they were impressed with their own sense of humour– as the rest of the teams clapped politely.

“Shouldn’t it be I Wish This Microphone Were A Massive Cock?” Chloe asked. “I’m not exactly an expert, so I’m not sure.”

“And at third place, with sixty-nine points?—”

“NICE!” yelled nearly everyone in the pub at once, including the host himself.

“We have Quiz-Team-a Aguilera!”

A table of forty-somethings across the room cheered and high-fived, and I felt both Phil and Fatima tighten their grips on my hands. Or maybe I was the one squeezing them. It didn’t matter; all our hands would go numb for all we cared if it meant we could somehow manifest the win.

“Our top two teams,” the host said, “are Presti-quiz-itation, who have basically been paying rent on their second place position this summer, and newcomers Les Quizerables.”

I made eye contact with someone a few tables over whose group looked similarly expectant– a group of eight shoved around a tiny table for four. If we lost to them, I’d still chalk it up as a win; they had almost twice as many people as we did.

“So let’s reveal our winner, shall we?”

Amidst cries of “Yes please!” And “Get on with it!” from the crowd, Phil suddenly dropped my hand and reached for his pocket. He pulled out his phone and stared down at it, then flashed me the screen, his face white as a ghost.

Anil was calling.

“Yeah?” he said, answering, his voice dry and stilted. And if I’d thought he looked scared before, I hadn’t known what was coming.

Over the next five seconds, as the others in the pub started a drumroll on their tables, I watched as Phil’s eyes widened ever so slightly, his mouth fell open, and then his jaw twitched as he clamped it shut again.

“I’ll be there in twenty,” he said, then hung up and met my eye. “I have to go.”

We shot up at the same time as our friends, but whilst they cheered and high-fived and hugged, we just took off towards the exit.

I followed Phil as he literally sprinted out of the pub, but I realised halfway to the door that I’d left my bag.

I would have just left it behind, but it had my phone and keys, so I ran back to grab it off the chair, offering a quick “Sorry, guys,” to the others before running off again.

But when I got outside and looked around, trying to figure out where Phil had gone, he was nowhere to be seen.