Page 51

Chapter Fifty-One

ROWAN

I watch in amusement as Ruth tries to decide between two ice cream flavors. She’s been going back and forth for a couple of minutes now. I shouldn’t find it adorable, but apparently, I’m in so deep that just about everything she does is cute to me.

“We can get both,” I suggest from where I’m leaning against the shelves, watching her across the aisle.

“That’s just delaying the inevitable.” Her nose scrunches. “Then we’ll get home, and I’ll have to decide which one to eat.”

Home. I really love hearing her call it that. It’s been two weeks since I realized how stupidly in love I am with her, and I still haven’t told her. I want to, I want to scream it from the rooftops, but there’s something holding me back.

“We gotta get going. Trevor’s expecting us back soon.” My roommate sent us to the corner store down the street from the apartment when he realized halfway through cooking dinner that we were out of olive oil. I don’t know why he couldn’t have used one of the other dozen kinds of oil cluttering the cupboards, but apparently, it was the end of the world.

She tips her head side to side as she tries to make up her mind, but ends up thrusting both cartons out to me. “You pick,” she pouts.

I grin and take both, placing them in the basket. “I’ll mix them up for you when we get back.”

Her frown turns into a beaming smile as she hugs my arm, pressing a kiss to my shoulder. I lean down and drop my own to the top of her head. Her usually unruly waves are pulled back in a French braid I did this morning. Fuck, I’m so gone for her.

We walk through the store like that, her arm looped around mine as we gather everything else we might need. “We never should have come in before dinner,” says Ruth, nodding down at the basket mostly made up of snacks.

“You say we like I had any part in this.”

“You were meant to be supervising!”

“Sure.” I smile down at her indulgently. “Because you take supervision so well.”

She looks up at me indignantly, her mouth opening, ready to argue, when a voice sounds from in front of us.

“Ainsley?”

My head shoots up, and my gut sinks as I consider the man standing at the end of the aisle.

Oh shit.

Taylor stands there, his face a mask of confusion as his eyes bounce between Ruth and me. I see the minute he recognizes her, the slight raise of his brows a harbinger of doom. Even with how wasted he’d been that night, her face appearing out of the toad head would have left an impression.

“Hey,” I say. My mind races as I try to make sense of what’s happening. I thought that living off campus would give me enough separation, that I could keep one foot in each of my two worlds and not end up in the kind of shitstorm that’s just landed at my feet.

He comes closer, giving Ruth a curious smile. “Aren’t you-”

“Yeah,” I say, harsher than I mean to. He knows exactly who she is.

Ruth takes a half step closer to me, like she’s looking to me for a safe place. It fuckin’ guts me.

Taylor studies the two of us, and even though I know he isn’t trying to be an asshole, I want to growl at him to back off, to get the fuck out of here and stop taking a damn crowbar to the gaping crack in my life.

“And you two are…” He smirks, and I want to smack it off of him. I know this isn’t his doing. I’ve created this by being such a coward, by always waiting for some perfect moment. I’ve left it so long that it can’t be described as anything other than deceptive. But fuck. He just had to be here didn’t he?

I look down at Ruth, and I want to throw up. She’s staring back up at me, green eyes shining with a hopeful smile as she waits for me to say something. She’s expecting me to do the normal thing in this situation and introduce my girlfriend to the friend we’ve run into. I open my mouth to speak, but the words turn to chalk on my tongue.

It would be so easy to get everything set straight, but I’m afraid.

Simmons, the strain on Fitz, everything that followed.

Rallying together, rallying against Allbreck, it’s what kept the team from falling apart. My mind hits a wall, and all I can picture is their faces, the questions. Why did it take me so long to tell them? What else am I hiding? I’ve seen the way things can spiral, and I don’t know how to stop that from happening.

“Ro?” Taylor asks, frowning at my panicked expression.

I give him the barest glance, unable to look away from Ruth.

I see it, the moment she realizes what’s happening here. Her face falls, millimeter by millimeter. That trusting expression washed away as hurt replaces it. Her eyes dart to Taylor before they meet mine again, filled with questions. I could cry as her lips part on a pained gasp.

“What…” She doesn’t finish.

I close my eyes, not able to take it anymore.

“I’ll catch you at practice,” Taylor says hesitantly before turning on his heel.

The silence that follows stretches tight between us. I worry that if it breaks, something will shatter between us, and I’ll never be able to put it back together.

“Rowan?” Her voice is almost a whimper. “Who was that?”

She knows. She remembers him from that first night. That’s not what she’s asking. She wants me to tell her that he’s nobody, some guy I barely know, who barely knows me and wouldn’t have a reason to know about the girl I’m spending all my nights and half my waking hours with. I wish that’s what I could tell her, but I can’t lie. I’ve done enough of that to last me the rest of my life.

I open my eyes and stare into her face, letting the look of pure pain sock me in the chest. I don’t say anything. I can’t.

“Was he your friend?”

I nod.

“He didn’t know me?”

Shake.

“You didn’t tell him about me?”

A tear tracks down my cheek.

“Do any of your friends know about me?” Her voice cracks on the words.

I force myself to say it, knowing I owe her that much. “No.”

Her whole body sags, her face crumpling. I think we both notice her arm still clinging to mine at the same time. As she moves to tug it free, I instinctively trap it closer, wanting to keep that point of connection. She takes a firm step back, and cold air rushes in, chilling me to the bone as we’re pulled apart.

“Why?” She lifts her chin high, meeting my gaze firmly even as her lower lip quivers.

I don’t know how to explain. I don’t know how to tell her I felt like I was spinning plates, worried that if I made the slightest move, then they would all crash to the floor. How do I tell her I thought that being with her would cost me everything else, that I feared it would destroy the team and ruin any chance of me being able to be a good coach to them? That I couldn’t stop picturing Fitz’s face when he found out I did the one thing he asked me not to?

“I-” I’m drowning, gasping for air as I try to come up with any way of making this better. It’s like my thoughts are trapped inside me, and even though I know that I should say something, that anything would be better than this floundering silence, I can’t quite make it happen.

“So this whole time, I’ve just been some dirty secret?” She spits out the words. “Am I really that embarrassing?”

“No.” I step toward her. “Absolutely not.” Her thinking this is something to do with her, that I’m ashamed of her, is more than I can take.

I move to hold her again, but she stops me with a hand to my chest. Her fingers curl into the fabric of my shirt, a tiny flex that comes with the slight scratch of her nails.

I wish she’d press harder.

I hope she leaves a mark.

“Then why?”

“I was waiting for the right time.” I sound as pathetic as I feel.

“Why would you need a right time to mention your girlfriend?”

“It’s complicated.”

“I’m sure I can keep up.” Her expression is hard as granite.

“I don’t know how to explain.”

“Then let me try.” Her jaw ticks as fury takes over her features. I’m almost relieved, it’s better than the raw hurt and betrayal that marred her face before. “This whole time, you let me believe that you were serious about this, that we were on even footing, but really you’ve been sneaking around, not wanting anyone to know about me. I mean, Jesus Christ, Rowan, I’m practically living at your house! Have you been bundling me out the door without me noticing?”

“No-”

“How the hell have I been so stupid?” Her voice breaks into a sob, and it’s all I can do not to wrap her up in my arms. “I didn’t even notice that the only friend I’ve met was Trevor! I’m so blind that I didn’t question it when you showed up at my game in a fucking disguise! Is it that hard to be seen with me?”

“Ruth, please-”

“You know, I thought it was sweet how you always came to me. I told myself it was because you had the truck, you wanted to make an effort to always see me in my town, but it was all for you, wasn’t it? It was so that none of your precious teammates would see you slumming it with the likes of me.”

“Ruth,” I try to stop her, but she’s too far gone. I should have known. I should have realized after everything that happened with Marshall in the past, that after her world got shaken by Georgie and after she’s spent her whole life being told that she’s too much, too loud, too brash, that all of that would make her believe this is anything except me being a complete fuckup. Instead, I stumbled right into the kind of situation that would hurt her the most. I’ve poked at every sore and delicate part of her. Me, who’s supposed to be the person she can count on, I’m the one who’s done this.

I’m burning with so much shame I could die of it.

“I thought we were a team.” Her whisper leaves me shattered.

“Please, Ruth-”

“Just leave me alone,” she sobs. “You don’t need to keep pretending that this is something it isn’t. I can take a hint.”

Her head turns and she makes as if to leave, but her hand stays clinging to my shirt, her fingers still latched on as if they’re reluctant to break that final point of connection.

“Please,” I whisper. My brain is such a mess that I can’t find any other words. None that could fix this, none that could make her stay.

She peels her hand away, removing each finger one by one as if they were welded there.

After she’s gone, I look down at the fabric and see the creases she’s left behind.