Page 27

27

Tovah

T he peace between us lasted about a week before it came to a grinding halt.

“You’ve completely lost it if you really think I’m coming to your hockey game,” I told Isaac angrily.

It was the Friday after Statuegate and we were facing off in his kitchen, glaring at each other. For the past week, we’d existed in a state of…not quite a quiet truce, but more of a temporary armistice. Isaac’s teammates walked me to class every day and walked me home, and Isaac was barely around. I’d focused on schoolwork, snooping around Isaac’s house—which proved fruitless—and worrying endlessly about my mom.

I’d also used a library computer to search the news and see if there was a report about a guy being beaten nearly to death on campus, but both The Daily Queen and the local papers were silent about it. Part of me, the part that needed to speak truth to power, wanted to write an article about it. But whoever had cleaned up the issue for Isaac would probably do worse to me if I wrote a piece about it. But I was worried; I wanted to make sure he was okay, and I had no way of knowing if he was or not.

I was helpless, and angry. And on top of all of that, I had to deal with Isaac and his nonsense idea that I was going to go support him at his hockey game as his fake girlfriend.

Fuck that. No.

“No,” I said out loud. “Besides, I thought I was just your fuck buddy.”

He shrugged as he grabbed eggs out of the carton for an omelet. “Not fuck buddy. Girlfriend. And you’re coming. Besides, as senior sports editor, don’t you have to go?”

I glared at him. “I don’t actually have to go to every single one of Reina’s sporting events. I can send a staff writer instead.”

“No,” he said, imitating me, before adding, “I want you there. As my girlfriend .”

I scoffed. He couldn’t be serious. And the word girlfriend, fake or otherwise, shouldn’t make butterflies dance around in my chest like that. “You think I trust you enough to come to your game? What are you going to do, strip me naked, tie me to the Zamboni, and let everyone take photos?”

One of the eggs Isaac was holding cracked, yolk spilling onto the counter.

“I think you’re supposed to usually have a bowl for that,” I said.

He glared down at his hands like he didn’t trust them. “No one is fucking taking a photo of you. And I wouldn’t do that.”

I rolled my eyes. I was still pissed. “You kind of already did. Speaking of which, did that guy even survive? Do you not care?”

Another egg cracked and spilled out everywhere. At this rate, someone was going to have to go back to the store.

“He’s fine,” Isaac said shortly. “I don’t want to talk about that asshole. I want to talk about the hockey game and what you’re wearing. You need clothes. Actually, you need one of my jerseys.”

I bit my lip.

He couldn’t know, could he?

“We’ll make a trip to your apartment after breakfast to get your stuff,” he decided. “And you can wear one of the extra jerseys I have here.”

“I can go to my apartment by myself.”

He snorted. “Like I’m letting you go anywhere on your own. You’re a flight risk.”

He wasn’t wrong.

* * *

I had two goals when we got to my apartment.

One was to grab one of the burner phones I had hidden under the floorboards. My mom hadn’t heard from me in days and I needed to both alleviate her fears and also make sure she was okay. That was my main priority.

The second was getting clothes from my closet without Isaac seeing what was hanging in there. If he found out, he’d never, ever , let me live it down.

I wasn’t sure how I was going to pull either goal off, though. Especially as Isaac loomed behind me as I unlocked the door to my apartment.

“The only thing I like about your place is the locks,” he grunted.

“Well, you can thank Jack for that,” I said. “He had them replaced when he first started stalking Aviva.”

Isaac chuckled. “You know, I’m not even going to defend him. I don’t blame him, though.”

I looked up at him in consternation. “You don’t blame him for being a creepy asshole without any respect for boundaries or like, the law?”

“It got him Aviva, didn’t it?”

Damn. I couldn’t contradict him; Isaac was right.

I used to think my best friend needed to get her head examined, but then here I was with the man who’d kidnapped, blackmailed, and then humiliated me. Maybe I owed her an apology.

Unlocking the door, I let us into my apartment.

I thought I’d miss it. I should’ve missed it. But my apartment looked unfamiliar and strange, like it belonged to someone else. There was nothing comforting about it anymore.

I headed into the bedroom. “You can wait out here,” I told Isaac.

He snorted.

“Sure, sounds good,” he said, following me into my bedroom.

I’d never had a guy in here. My bedroom had always been small, but with Isaac in it, giving off heat and so much energy, it felt almost claustrophobic. Having him in my space felt vulnerable in a way I hadn’t before.

Especially when he made his way to the closet.

I had a split second to decide: preventing my embarrassment when he discovered what I was hiding in there, or letting him get distracted so I could grab the burner phone without him noticing.

I chose to be embarrassed.

Isaac opened the door to the small, dark closet and disappeared inside.

Immediately, I kneeled beside the bed, lifting the loose floorboard and removing a burner phone, only to quickly replace the floorboard and tuck the burner phone into the pocket of Isaac’s hoodie I was currently wearing.

I did it just in time, because the closet door opened all the way, and Isaac stood there, an amused and bemused expression on his face. In his hands were hockey jerseys.

Three hockey jerseys.

Three hockey jerseys that had Jones 37 written across the chest and back, to be precise.

“You know, I was going to make you wear one of my jerseys I have at home, but it looks like that wasn’t necessary.” He grinned, dimples annoyingly and adorably on full display.

I didn’t want to think he was cute. I was still too pissed at him.

I also didn’t want him to think I had a crush on him, or anything stupid like that.

“I didn’t buy them,” I lied. “The newspaper gave them to me.”

He shook his head, smirking, dimples showing. “Sure. And you had to take all three.”

“No one wanted them,” I told him. “No one was interested in wearing your number. I felt bad. It wasn’t the jerseys’ fault. So I decided to give them a home.”

“How charitable of you.” He was still grinning.

“Don’t make this something more than it is,” I said. “Don’t turn this into some huge thing in your head where I’ve liked you in secret forever and have been doodling ‘Tovah Silver’ in my diary. I know who you are, Isaac, don’t forget that. I’d never have a crush on someone like you.”

His dimples disappeared. He stepped toward me, reaching down with his hand and gripping my chin in between his forefinger and thumb, tilting my head back to look at him.

“Oh, little snoop. I’m not making this more than what it is, because I know exactly what it is. You can pretend to hate me all you want—hell, you can actually hate me all you want—but it won’t change what’s between us. It won’t change that you’re mine, body and soul. That you’ve been mine since the day we met. You know it, and I know it.” He nodded to the jersey in his other hand. “And you’re going to wear my jersey to the game tonight so everyone else knows it, too.”

With that, he released me, stepping back.

“Pack your clothes,” he said. “You won’t be coming back here for a while.”

I found an old suitcase and started stuffing clothes into it, heart racing like I was being chased. Because as much as I hated it, in a way, Isaac was right. I had been his since we’d first met—as young children in Brooklyn on his family’s compound. But he didn’t remember me from back then, and I wasn’t his now.

I wouldn’t let myself be.

And I wouldn’t let him—or anyone else—think so, either. Not after what he’d done to me on the quad the other night. I wouldn’t put up with his bullshit, and he was going to see exactly who Tovah Lewis was.