Page 14

Chapter Fourteen

ROWAN

I don’t tell her I was already heading to my car after she didn’t pick up the phone. I don’t mention that as soon as the line disconnected, I had a bolt of panic shooting through me so strong Trevor threw an oven mitt at me to get me to ‘chill the fuck out.’ I don’t say that the time between the unanswered call and her snarky text had my heart beating faster than it had after three hours of practice today.

I don’t say it because there’s no point.

I barely understand it myself, why I felt this intrinsic need to make sure she was alright. Besides, she’s already looking at me like I’m about to chew her head off about the curtain rail. She doesn’t need me giving her a hard time for scaring the living shit out of me.

The damage to the wall isn’t even that bad. I helped my dad a lot when I was a kid and he was doing renovations on our house, so I know my way around minor repairs. The wall just needs a little filler and some paste to get the wallpaper back in place, then I can remount the curtain rail.

“Can you fix it?” Ruth’s voice sounds small from behind me and I fuckin’ hate it. It’s way too much like that frightened girl who sat on the couch the first night we met. It bothered me then, but now it’s like a knife. I like sassy Ruth; I like her smart mouth and her fire and how she gives me shit every chance she gets. This version of her feels wrong, like someone’s put a jar over a butterfly.

“Easy fix.” I give her what I hope is a reassuring smile.

“Okay,” she sighs out, shoulders creeping down from where they’d tensed up around her neck.

“My truck’s parked outside. There’s some stuff in the bed that I need, if you can get it?” I throw her my keys. Her catch is lazy, second nature. Even when she’s a little chaotic, Ruth is all grace when it comes to her athleticism.

She leaves, frowning at me over her shoulder as she heads down the hallway. I could have got everything myself. I brought most of it when I first came up, but I feel like she needs something to do other than stand in the doorway staring at me, bouncing on the balls of her feet like she’s warming up for a fight.

It’s only about a minute before I hear thundering footsteps coming up the stairs. Ruth bursts into the room breathing hard, eyeing me like she was expecting to find me going through her underwear drawer.

“You good?” I shoot her a raised eyebrow.

“Of course.” She’s practically wheezing. How fast was she going? Ruth’s an athlete, she’s not going to get winded from a jog. “Here.”

She tosses the toolbox onto the bed and we both cringe at the clatter of what’s inside. I shrug away her apologetic wince and set to work.

It takes Ruth a while to move away from the door. All the while I’m patching the hole, she watches me with something wary in her eyes that I can’t place. I don’t say anything, not wanting to do something that might scare her off.

I don’t know what’s gotten into her, why she’s suddenly acting like I’m going to toss her out the window if she comes too close. Did I do something? Am I making her uncomfortable? I think through the way I just drove over here, intent on sorting out her problem. I play it out from her perspective. Some football player she barely knows, who was tangentially involved in her kidnapping, barrels into her home with power tools and hammer? Yeah, not threatening at all…

I try to think of something reassuring to say, but I come up empty. Each time I go to open my mouth I can’t get anything out, so we just watch one another for a minute before I get back to work.

Eventually, I can’t take the silence anymore. Especially since I’ve just repasted the wallpaper and we have to wait for it to dry. Even I, with my pretty high tolerance for awkward silences, can’t face standing with my back to her, staring at the curtain rail until it’s ready to be put back up.

“Listen, there’s something I wanted to talk to you about,” I say hesitantly. I don’t know how she’s going to take the news, but she deserves to know.

“What?” She sits ramrod straight on the bed, her fists clenched in her lap.

“Fitz told me that you reported the team-”

“Yes.” Her chin tips up defiantly and I want to nudge it back down, to tell her that she doesn’t need to be ready for a standoff, that I’m on her side.

“That was a good call.” I keep my tone gentle. “I wanted you to know that Jed got a five-game suspension and the others are on probation.” Fitz made the announcement a few days after our talk. The guys deserve more than just probation, but I’ll make sure they get it.

“I’m not sorry.” She stares me down.

I meet her eyes head-on. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“You’re not mad?”

“Why the fuck would I be mad?” I straighten up.

“I got your team in trouble.”

“They got themselves in trouble,” I say, my voice leaving no room for argument.

I watch Ruth’s fingers pull at a loose thread in the comforter. “Honestly, I’m kinda surprised that Beaufort did anything,” she says.

“Fitz doesn’t let shit like this slide. He’s a good man.”

“I’m sure he is. I just know how this kinda thing usually goes.” She looks dejected and I hate that she’s probably right to be.

“He’s not like that.” I wouldn’t work for him if he was.

“Did you get in trouble?”

“No, they know how it all went down.”

“Okay.” She seems relieved.

“Were you worried about that?”

“Well, yeah.” She gives me a look like I’m stupid. “You really took care of me. You didn’t have to, but you kind of made the whole thing bearable; I don’t want you to end up getting punished.”

“I didn’t mind taking care of you.” It’s true. I feel like I spend my life taking care of everyone I know; the guys always want something, and my mom’s always freaking out about the way my dad and I fight. I should be happy to have a sort-of-friend who never needs me, but instead, I find it endlessly frustrating that she won’t just let me fix her fuckin’ problems for her.

I turn back to the curtain rail, wanting to get away from this line of conversation. “Why didn’t you call your landlord?” I ask. The apartment’s off campus and doesn’t look like it’s owned by the university. I picture her dealing with some shitty landlord and my muscles tense. Trevor and I lived in a place last year owned by this guy who kept cutting the heat to try and save money, claiming we didn’t need it overnight as we were only sleeping. The experience forged us as friends, but it made the year shitty.

“I think she’s sick of hearing from me.” Ruth forces out a chuckle.

“Why would she be? It’s her job, right?”

“Well, sure, but at the rate I’m breaking stuff, I’m gonna get evicted next time I call.”

“That’s bullshit,” I say more forcefully than I mean to. At least it gets Ruth to look up at me, hitting me full in the face with those sad green eyes. “It was an accident, right?” I step closer, aware I’m crowding her, towering over where she sits on the bed. I feel like shit that I didn’t believe her earlier. The whole thing just seemed so unlikely.

“Sure.”

“Sure?” I raise an eyebrow.

“Yes. Yes, it was an accident.”

“Then it’s not an issue. And I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.”

“It’s just…” She trails off. “I feel like I get into a lot of accidents. I don’t want to be that person who always needs someone to clean up their messes.”

“You’re not.”

“We’ve hung out twice-”

“Are we counting the kidnapping as a hangout?” I fail to hold in my smirk.

“Not the point,” she deadpans. “We’ve hung out twice, and now you’re here, putting my apartment back together after another one of my calamities.”

“I don’t mind, Ruth. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m pretty good at calamities. It’s kind of my thing.”

She just stares at me and it tells me everything I need to know. That she has noticed, that maybe she’s noticed far more than I’d realized, more than maybe I’d want her to.

“I don’t want that from you, Rowan.” Her voice is soft, her eyes filled with sincerity. “You don’t have to be that guy. That’s not why I like you.”

Oh.