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Chapter Three

RUTH

T his guy looks pissed. I watch him carefully, not wanting him to reveal how much he makes me nervous as he runs a big hand over his face before stomping over to where I’m sat.

“Are you ok?” he asks like the words have been hooked out of him with a rusty wire.

“Yes.” I scowl up at him as I try to figure out how I want to play this. I need to get back to Allbreck. I have an assignment due, and a roommate who’s probably losing her shit. This guy seems like he might be my best hope.

“You don’t seem okay.” He frowns. “You’re sort of…puffy.”

“Puffy?” I arch an eyebrow at him as he flushes red, two crimson patches appearing over the line of his stubble and extending up toward his red-brown hair. It cuts through a little of his stony facade, and the tension in my chest eases a fraction. He doesn’t look like a bad guy, but I guess nobody ever does until they are.

“No-shit, I didn’t mean puffy.” He huffs out a breath, the groove between his brows deepening. “You’ve been crying, I think. Unless that’s just what your face looks like.”

“Thanks.” I cross my arms as much as I can in the mascot hands and look down at my feet.

“Fuck,” he hisses out. “Look, I’m sorry. I don’t really know what to say here.”

“Don’t spend a lot of time guarding kidnap victims?” Maybe I should be making more of an effort not to antagonize him, but self-preservation is losing out to how good it feels to be mean to him.

“You’re not a kidnap victim.”

“No? What would you call it then? I got dragged out of the studio, bundled into a car, driven to another city-”

“It’s a twenty-five-minute drive,” he interrupts.

“To another city!” I hiss. “It doesn’t matter how long the drive was. We crossed town lines!”

“Okay, okay.” He puts his hands out as if that’ll calm me down, but I just want to smack them. “Look, can I get you anything? Some water? A sandwich?”

I scowl, not wanting to be placated. I don’t want to take anything from him, determined to hang onto my fury. Unfortunately, breathing inside the toad head gives me crazy dry mouth.

“Water would be nice.” I work to keep my expression firmly in place. I can hear Mom in my head, reminding me of the manners she tried so hard to instill. Even in a situation like this, I can’t quite make myself be rude. “Thank you.”

“And food?”

“You don’t need to cook for me or anything.”

“I don’t know if a sandwich really counts as cooking,” he offers, though his expression looks more like someone getting ready for a root canal. “I’m trying to be helpful.”

God, why does he have to be nice? I mean, nice in a very grouchy, reluctant sort of way. Things would be a lot easier if he was just politely disinterested.

“You don’t need to be helpful.” I sigh.

“You want me to go take a nap or something?” I catch a hint of a challenge as the corner of his brow lifts.

I might as well cut him a break. “I guess I am pretty hungry.”

He stands to his full height, and it’s only now that I can appreciate how massive this guy is. Broad shoulders, at least a head taller than me, but there’s something about the way that he holds himself, as if he’s not quite sure what to do with all that muscle. It’s like he came upon it accidentally and hasn’t worked out what it’s all for yet.

“What kind of sandwich do you want?”

My stomach twists as I register his words and realize that I need to tell him that there’s probably nothing in the kitchen that I can eat. I know how insane it is, not wanting to be an inconvenience to the guy when I’m being held against my will, but after twelve years of being made to feel like I’m being difficult for my fistful of allergies, it’s a tough habit to break.

I learned pretty young that being as unobtrusive as possible was the best way to keep people on my side. If I never need things, then nobody can resent me for asking.

“You know what, I’m actually fine.” I give an awkward smile, my first one of the evening, as I try to brush him off.

“You literally just told me you were hungry.” He frowns, his blue eyes darkening as he fixes me with a hard stare.

“Honestly, I don’t need anything.” I shrug, but even I can tell how unconvincing it is.

“If you don’t tell me, I’m gonna make it cheese.”

“I don’t like cheese.” That’s a lie. I love cheese. I just hate what it does to my insides when I have it.

“Then tell me what you want.” He puts his hands on his hips and hits me with the same look he gave to some of the other guys. The one that had them all shuffling around like naughty kids. But though he must be used to getting his own way, I can be as stubborn as a mule when properly motivated.

“I don’t want anything.”

“You’re getting cheese,” he shoots back, turning and heading toward what I can only assume is the kitchen. I try to get up to follow him, but even without the hindrance of the gloves, I can’t get off this couch. I think I live here now. I’ll get Georgie to reroute my mail. That’s if she’s not already woken up half of campus trying to track me down.

“Hey!” I yell after him. “You don’t need to feed me!”

“You’re being fed!”

The silence after he goes chills me as I take in the room. It’s obviously a frat house, and judging by the plastic cups littered around, the members have either been having a party, or living like they were raised in a barn.

A throat clears to my left after a minute and I startle. I spin where to see the guy leaning against the door frame, a large glass of water and a plate in hand.

“You, uh… You don’t need to be scared or anything.” He doesn’t sound like he quite believes it.

“Who says I’m scared?” I ask petulantly.

“You’re looking around like someone’s about to jump out with a chainsaw.”

“Yeah well… I’m a woman stuck in a frat house with no way of getting home.” I raise an eyebrow at him. “That’s not exactly the start of a story with a happy ending.”

He at least has the good sense to look embarrassed.

“Fuck. Yeah, I guess not.” He crosses the room, pulling over the coffee table so that he can sit in front of me. Clearly, he doesn’t want to risk falling into the black hole couch. I have to force myself not to cringe at the intensity of the eye contact as he stares me down. “I’m not gonna let anything bad happen to you, I swear.”

I consider his words for a moment. The fact that this man, who obviously doesn’t want anything to do with me, has made himself responsible for looking out for me. I would be comforted by his words, but I fight it, not wanting to let my walls come down an inch when I’m relying on them to keep me together.

I look over his shoulder, staring at the looping video game screen instead. “I don’t know you well enough to believe that.”

“Well, that’s kinda the best I got.” He sighs. “I can’t drive you home. I gave my car to my roommate, he drove me here.”

“You don’t live here?”

“With these lunatics? Absolutely not.”

I have to stifle a laugh at that. It’s probably the most sensible thing he’s said so far. “Could you call me an Uber or something? I really have to get back.”

He doesn’t answer right away, that blush making another appearance. “I, uh… I actually can’t.”

“Why not?” I shrink back a little, worried I’ve read him wrong.

“I’m banned. From, like, every ride-share app. And three local taxi services… They won’t even come to the house anymore.”

Oh god, is he an asshole passenger? Being kidnapped is one thing, but being left with a guy who’s rude to cab drivers? Kill me now.

“Well, not me specifically. I mean, me, kind of. But I didn’t do anything,” he rushes out. “I just call the cabs, it’s the guys who have a vomiting problem.”

“Right.”

“Apparently, they can’t hold it together.”

“So, no cab?” I ask a little desperately.

“No cab.” He nods. “I’ll ask Trev to bring the car back, but until he does, I can’t get you home. I’m sorry.”

He does look genuinely remorseful, and for a moment, I feel a little bad that he’s stuck with me.

“Here,” he says, holding the glass forward. When I reach out to take it, I get hampered by the foam hands and shrug, holding them up in mock surrender. Last year, I added straps to the wrists so that I could tumble in them, but I regret it now with the reminder that I can’t get them on and off without help.

Tonight, I’d had to get Frank, the studio night guard, to strap me into them before he left for his rounds. Come to think of it, where the hell was Frank when I was getting dragged out the back door?

The guy frowns at them, realizing my predicament. But instead of helping me take them off, he reaches forward and presses the glass to my lips. The cold liquid is a shock and I’m so startled by his actions that I jerk away, sloshing cold water over my face and down the front of my suit. I gasp as the chill hits me. “What the hell was that?”

“Oh shit,” he startles, setting down the glass and looking around in his seat, as if a towel’s going to materialize from nowhere. He blinks a few times, almost looking like a kid waking up from a heavy sleep.

I manage to absorb most of the spillage with my sleeve. “Why would you do that?”

“I was trying to help,” he mutters, frowning at the glass like it’s personally affronted him.

“Well, you’re really killing it…” I mumble back, losing the energy to be snarky with him. “Look, can you just help me get these off?”

“Um... Yeah, sure. Of course.” He hesitates as his hands reach toward me, flexing like he can’t decide how to proceed. I offer out my arms and he takes one, holding my elbow to gently tug it forward.

The warmth of his palm seeps into my skin, even through the thick fabric of the costume, and I have to force myself not to lean into his hand, the first comforting touch of the night. His other hand slides up my sleeve, brushing the bare skin of my wrist as he feels for the strap. The contact sends a shiver through me, but he doesn’t seem to notice. Instead, he makes quick work of the Velcro and removes the offending appendage.

I stretch out my hand, flexing each finger as he unstraps the other glove and takes it off. I could probably do it myself now that I’ve got one hand back, but I make no move to stop him as he releases me. There’s a pause, the moment pulling taught as he holds my wrist for a beat too long before dropping it. I must have let my arm relax in his hold because it falls suddenly once he’s not holding it up anymore, smacking against my knee as we both jerk in surprise.

I shuffle back in my seat, sinking further into the couch before leaning forward to pick up the glass off the floor. God, I never knew how much I loved my thumbs until now. I can feel his eyes on me but I avoid his stare, wanting a moment to try and stop my head from spinning so much.

“Rowan,” he says, his voice sounding a little hoarse.

I lower the glass to stare at him over the rim. “What?” I frown.

“Me. That’s, uh… That’s my name.”

Oh, right. I guess we’re at the portion of the evening where we do introductions. “Rowan… Hi, Rowan.” I don’t quite smile at him, but I try to drop the sour expression I can feel on my face. “I’m Ruth.” This feels weird. I don’t pretend to be any kind of expert, but I didn’t expect getting abducted to involve this many pleasantries.

He picks up the plate from behind him and thrusts it forward. “I won’t try to feed you this one.”

Oh shit. I can see the edge of a cheese slice peeking out, all that wheat and dairy ready to turn my insides into the fourth circle of hell.

“This was really nice of you, but…”

“Just eat the God damn sandwich, Ruth,” he interrupts.

Fuck it, there’s no way around this other than coming clean. I can almost picture my mother’s pursed lips the first time she saw me shove my plate away at a dinner party. I loudly declared that I would ‘die dead if they fed me that’.

I was six.

“I actually can’t.” I chew the inside of my lip. I don’t know why I have such a hard time explaining. It’s not like allergies are that big of a deal (aside from the whole throat-swelling-up-and-dying thing), but I’ve just always felt better when I’ve kept them close to the chest. It’s like I can keep myself safe if I don’t let anybody know what can hurt me. Even if the thing that can hurt me is just a block of cheddar.

Rowan’s head gives a confused tilt that I find weirdly adorable.

“Allergies.” I wrinkle my nose as I look down at the plate. “Wheat, dairy, eggs. And bell peppers… Weirdly…”

“Oh shit.” Rowan’s eyebrows go up, making him look about four years younger.

“So this is…” I hold out the plate slightly, giving it a pointed look.

“Fuck!” Rowan shoots forward, snatching the plate out of my hand and hiding it behind his back as if any possible cheese particles won’t find me like so long as they can’t see me. “Jesus fuckin’ Christ, why didn’t you lead with that? Do you need one of the stabby pens or something?”

“An Epi-Pen?”

“Whatever. Do you need one right now?”

“It’s not that kind of allergy, more an intolerance. I’ll just get sick if I eat it.”

Rowan visibly deflates, slumping back into the chair with the offending plate on his knee. “Fuckin’ hell.” He rubs a hand through his hair. Some of it stays sticking up, undercutting the furious glare coming my way. “You should have said something before I tried to poison you!”

“It’s not that big a deal.”

Rowan shoots me an unimpressed look, Clearly he thinks that this is, in fact, a very big deal.

“Just tell me next time, yeah?”

I raise an eyebrow at him. “Next time?”

“You know what I mean.” His voice is all gravel, he’s leaning forward, slightly too close to be casual, but not so much so that I’m uncomfortable.

In fact, it surprises me how un-freaked out I am at this moment. By all accounts I should be curled up crying into my faux-fur sleeves, but Rowan gives off this vibe that just makes me feel kind of okay.

“So.” He picks up the death sandwich and bites into it. “What do we do now?”