Second Down (Moving the Chains Book 2) (15 page)

“Oh, you know…everyone will really get excited if I can uncover their star quarterback’s deepest, darkest secrets.” I retreat back into the safety of screwing with him. If I have to feel this awkward, then he can have a taste of his own medicine.

“You should definitely start by asking him why his room is fifty shades of blue.” The look that Patty throws me is full of meaning. “He did it himself, freshman year.”

Rob frowns at his mom. “You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?”

“Immensely.” The grin she gives him makes me like and respect the woman that much more.

“Come on, before my darling mother decides to dig me into a bigger hole.” He stalks toward me with the clear intention of herding me out of the room.

“A word to the wise, Evie. Don’t look under his bed or in his nightstand.” Patty laughs as she washes dishes in the sink.

“Oh my God, Mom,” Rob mutters under his breath. His face turns a sick shade of green.

That comment piques my interest. All discomfort forgotten, I need confirmation if, indeed, there are juicy secrets to be uncovered in Rob’s lair. Especially the kind that his mother seemingly wants me to discover. “What will I find there, Patty? His little black book of cheerleaders?”  

She outright cackles, bending over the sink to support herself as her entire body shakes. “Oh, honey. Let’s have this conversation again when you’re the mother of a teenage boy.”

Sucking in a sharp breath beside me, Rob tears down the hallway.

I offer Patty an apologetic shrug before turning to follow.

Rob rushes up the staircase, taking two at a time. I struggle to keep up and take in everything that my eyes want to pour over in miniscule detail. The hall is lined with photographs that I don’t really get to see. I still have zero memory of ever being here.

He hangs a left at the top of the stairs, then pushes open the second door to the right, stomping in without looking back to see if I’ll follow. Dropping the bags unceremoniously on the middle of his bed, he stalks into an adjoining bathroom, slamming the door shut behind him.

I hesitate in the doorway, taking in the sight of Rob’s bedroom out of sheer curiosity. One thing is certain, blue is definitely his favorite color. The walls are a medium shade of blue, and the furniture is brown oak, solid and masculine, with clean lines and brass hardware. On the wall opposite the door, two windows are curtained in navy blue, which matches the comforter spread across the queen-sized bed centered on the wall to my left, flanked by nightstands on either side. Atop the stand to the right of the bed, a lamp with a royal blue shade is lit, while the stand to the left is bare on top. I fleetingly wonder which of these hides whatever secret Rob is having a temper tantrum about.

I take a small step inside the doorway. To my left along the same wall is a desk with shelves above it that are overflowing with various trophies and awards; a laptop sits open but idle on the surface of the desk along with a docking station for his phone, a printer, and another lamp that matches the one near the bed. I peek around the open door to my right. The far wall contains a large dresser with a television and some sort of gaming system resting on top. In front of the dresser is a chair that sits on the floor, while a comfortable looking light blue arm chair rests in the far right corner of the room, a hoodie and jersey draped across the back. The wall to my right also boasts an open closet door. I wonder if there are any worse things hiding in there than what might be found under the bed.

The room is surprisingly clean for a teenage boy; Mike’s room is usually inundated with piles of dirty laundry, but here I can see that the carpet is a plush cream color. There are no expected posters of half-naked women on the walls, no nudie magazines laying around, and the bed is made. In fact, there’s more proof around the room of his geekiness. A Star Wars poster, table of the elements, and various books are scattered around the room. My confusion over Patty’s allusions, and whatever Rob is clearly so upset about increases as I look around in bewilderment. There is nothing in this room to serve as clue about who Rob is behind closed doors that I don’t already know about.

But there might be clues about us hiding in here. I still have a hard time believing Alex’s story about our relationship, even though none of my friends denied it. Maybe something tangible will help me sort out this mess.

I take a seat at Rob’s desk, glancing quickly over my shoulder to the still-closed bathroom door. Snooping isn’t usually my thing, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

There’s nothing on his desk that jumps out at me. I awaken his laptop, but it’s protected by a pass-lock. The screen saver is a picture of Rob, Alex, and Mike together at practice. I don’t want to waste time staring at it, but my eyes are drawn to this photo of a happy Rob. His grin shows off the dimple in his right cheek; his eyes hold no sadness. So many people blame me for his current state, and they’re not wrong.

Even though I’m still unsure of his reasons for keeping our relationship a secret, I can’t fight my guilt over everything. I wish I could be resentful toward him. I wish I could fix him. I wish…so many things.

              Ripping my gaze away from the screen, I go back to the business at hand. I slowly roll open the top drawer of his desk, hoping to keep the noise of my snooping to a minimum. I’m almost afraid to look at the contents. Maybe this is where he keeps his stash of Playboys. If his spank bank material is in here, well…I don’t need to know about that.

              Several notebooks are shoved in the drawer, along with numerous pens and pencils, scraps of paper, and the usual school supplies. Nothing to see here.

              I move onto the next drawer, checking behind me to see if Rob has emerged yet. Nope.

              It’s not until I hit the bottom drawer that something potentially useful catches my eye. A notebook labeled, “Bio,” sits atop a stack of papers. Why would his Biology notebook be in here? We’re not done with that class for another few weeks.

              I pull it out and thumb through the pages of notes, skipping to the back to see if he’s filled it up already and switched it out for a new one. The second half of the book is full of clean pages, so I work backward until my own handwriting stops my perusal.

              There are pages and pages of notes between us. I go to the beginning and look at the date that he’d written at the top of the first page.

              The date of my attack.

              As I read the proof of what Alex told me, tears slip down my cheeks and land on the pages, blurring the ink. How could I forget this? I drew a heart and gave it to him. He promised me, “Together.”

              We sure as fuck aren’t together now.

The unmistakable sound of retching diverts my attention to the bathroom door. I thought Rob was having a hissy fit, not sick.

I shove the notebook back into its hiding place and slam the drawer closed, the usual mixture of guilt and anger swirling through me.

“Rob, are you okay?” I call out.

He doesn’t respond, but soon I hear the toilet flush, then the sound of running water. After a few minutes, the door opens and he emerges. His face still isn’t the right shade, but at least the sickly tone is gone that was present downstairs.

“I’m all right. Do you wanna dye my hair first, or pick out my clothes?” He doesn’t meet my eyes, keeping his gaze cast down to the floor.

“We don’t have to do this, especially if you’re sick. You might not even make it to school tomorrow.” I rise from the chair and reach for his forehead.

He closes his eyes on a sigh as I brush over his face to determine if he’s running a fever, but his skin is cool to the touch.

“I’ll be fine, and you’re already here. You haven’t remembered anything yet, so I guess we’re good to go.” He looks up with a weak smile, then walks over to the bed, pulling the purchased items from their bags and holding up the box of dye. “Have you ever done this before?”

“Uh, no, actually. I’ll need to read the directions.”  

He hands over the box as I sit on the edge of the bed, settling in to discover the joys of false hair color.

“You want some of your chocolate?” He pries open the box of truffles, stuffing one into his mouth and falling back on the bed with a huff.

Looking over at him with a raised eyebrow, I quickly smooth out my features when I discover his closed eyes as he chews. “Um, should you be eating that?”

“Yeah. It’s fine,” he says, still chewing. Typical Rob.

“Do you have any tattoos?”

He opens his eyes and casts a curious glance at me. “I just turned eighteen. It wasn’t even legal for me to get a tattoo until last week, so no. Why?”

“It says here that if you have any, you’re more likely to have an allergic reaction to the dye.”

“Oh. No, I don’t have any.” He closes his eyes again, and scoots the box of chocolates toward me.

“So, you wanted to get one, but couldn’t, huh?” His answer makes me think he wants one, at least.

“I thought about it,” he admits.

“Yeah, that seems like a typical jock thing to do. What did you want? Your number? Something to keep track of your passing yardage?”  

I can’t help the snippy tone to my voice. After what I just read, my game of playing like everything’s fine just isn’t possible.

“Actually, what I wanted to get had absolutely nothing to do with football or any other sport.”

“Mmhmm,” I mumble, continuing to read the directions. Even if he tells me what he wanted to permanently etch into his skin, it probably won’t be the truth.

His heavy sigh doesn’t make me feel any sympathy today. “When I found out I couldn’t get the tattoo I wanted until I was eighteen, I figured I’d make that my birthday present to myself.”

“Did you get the tat last week?” I have no idea what he did for his birthday. After the way he glared at me for the cupcake I left on his locker, I told Alex it probably wasn’t a good idea if I was involved in the after-school celebrations.

“No. Alex dragged me to some stupid surprise birthday dinner instead.”

“Oh.” I don’t really want to hear about it.

“It was ridiculous,” Rob continues, either not noticing or not caring that I’m not responding. “Everyone was there with their girlfriends, but I was there alone.”

Yeah, but you didn’t have to be. That was your choice.

“I’m really sorry about my dad downstairs.”

I don’t look at him; I can’t. “Random.”

“You’re obviously mad about something.”

I roll my shoulders and fight for some control over my emotions. “I’m not.”

“You’re a bad liar, Papageorgiou. Always have been.”

I study the contents of the dye kit with more concentration than necessary. “I’m not lying.”

“Does your head hurt?”

“No.”
Yes.

A deep breath from behind me. “Your chest?”

A repressed shudder. “No.”
Yes.

Another controlled push of air. “Memories coming back?”

“No!” I snap, twisting to face him. “Why don’t you just let it go?”

You’re good at that.

“The whole reason I didn’t want you to come here is because I didn’t want you to be uncomfortable or upset. I never want you to remember that day, Evie.” He’s still flat on his back across the mattress, but his eyes study me with an intensity that forces my gaze away.

“Stop worrying about it. I don’t remember a thing.”

The mattress shifts beside me until I feel Rob at my side. “Hey.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see him sitting up, staring down at me.

“Do you want to remember it?” He reaches a trembling hand out to push some of my unruly curls behind my ear.

I close my eyes as my inevitable reaction overrules my will power. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

He brushes a stray tear off my cheek. “Do you…do you want me to hold you again?”

“No. I don’t want to force you to do something you really don’t want to.”

“What makes you think I don’t want to?”

I open my eyes to glare at him. “You make it pretty obvious how you feel about me now, Rob.”

“It’s like you said, Evie. I’m trying, but it’s hard. It’s so fucking hard.”

I chuck the box of hair dye onto the night stand and flop back onto Rob’s bed. “I’m sorry. I know that’s my fault.”

“It’s not your fault,” he grinds out. “I don’t ever want to hear you say that again.
Nothing
that happened to you was your fault.”

I roll my eyes, then stare up at his ceiling. “Really? Because your dad seems to think your less than stellar play lately is my fault. Half the people at school are talking about me like I’m some kind of harbinger of doom. They’re already assuming we won’t make the play-offs.”

He lies down on the bed beside me, but keeps plenty of distance between us. “So last year rumors were going around about you because of Eddie fucking Hinton; now they’re going around thanks to me. Just fucking great,” he spits.

“You can’t really blame anyone for thinking I broke you.”

I squeeze my eyes shut and swallow against building nausea.