Chapter 4 #2
Noah shrugged again. “I don’t care how you got in here,” he told me flatly. “I care if it blows up my situation.”
I nodded sharply. “Yeah, you said.”
“If Tiffany knew Mason, how did he get pulled into this? Whatever this is?”
So now he went straight in there? I didn’t like how he kept switching tactics. “It’s a long story.”
“I’m a really good listener.”
“I’m a really shitty storyteller.”
Noah smirked, and as I held his stare, he didn’t look away. “I got all night, Briar.”
“Do you?” I looked outside. “How do you know I don’t have someone coming over?”
He genuinely looked like I’d just insulted his intelligence. “You just came home, you haven’t unpacked—”
“And whose fault is that?” I demanded. “You barge in here—”
“I didn’t barge, I walked in. Calmly. You invited me.”
“The fuck I did!”
“I like this Briar better; the other one was quieter. Hiding. You’re feisty.”
I gaped at him. “You’re complimenting me?”
“Was I?” He looked me over carefully. Slowly. “Should I be?”
My head drew back so quickly I bumped it off the window. “Ow. And no, you definitely should not be.”
He crossed his arms as he studied me. “Why?”
“Because if you think you can flirt with me, forget it. Not interested. You’re younger than me, for starters.”
“Say I am flirting with you, which I wasn’t. I’m younger? By maybe three years. Shit excuse. What else?”
“You’re a footballer.”
He waited.
“You guys are notoriously . . . assholes.”
“So your brother’s an asshole?”
I barked out a laugh. “Yes! He most definitely can be!”
His lips twitched, but he nodded. “So . . . I’m younger, a footballer, not an asshole if I do say so myself, and . . . is that it?”
“No, that’s not it.” What the heck was happening right now? How had the conversation become this? “Stop flirting with me!”
“I wasn’t. I already told you that.”
“Then stop being . . .” I waved my hand up and down frantically. “This!”
Noah looked down at his boots and back up at me. “This? This is who I am.”
I’d been angry two minutes ago. Now I was arguing about whether he was flirting with me. I didn’t know exactly when that happened.
“Oh my God, you’re exasperating.” I pushed my hair off my face and took a step forward. “We’re done. You need to leave.”
“Why did they target Mason if Tiffany didn’t name him?” His voice was soft, quiet, but firm.
I almost stopped breathing. He went from flirty-ish to deadly serious in a heartbeat.
“The night she was attacked,” I couldn’t believe I was telling him. “She went to Mason.”
“She was scared?”
“Wouldn’t you be?”
His look was searching. “You don’t know, do you?”
I bit back my anger. “I wasn’t there.”
“Your brother said she was scared, or she was actually scared?”
“Both.” My voice was like steel.
“Why did she go to Mason? Why not the cops?”
I gave him a flat look. “Why did campus police tell the star QB and the national championship-winning linebacker to go back to their dorm the night campus police caught them fighting with their teammates and broke up the fight?”
He smirked, his eyebrows raising. “Right.”
“Right. Exactly.”
“The town police would have listened; they aren’t campus security.”
“Would they?” I held his stare in challenge.
“I want to say I hope they would.”
“Yeah. Hope is a dangerous thing on this campus.” We stared at each other across my apartment. “We done?”
“She went to Mason, but both of them could have said he did nothing. Why didn’t they?”
I broke eye contact, shaking my head and tipping it back, my eyes on the ceiling.
“Do you think it’s that simple?” I asked him, lowering my gaze to meet his one last time. “Do you think they went to Mason’s dorm room and said, ‘Hey, you assaulted this girl, off you go, we want nothing to do with you,’ and he just packed his bags and left?”
“No, I—”
“Do you think they said to Tiffany, ‘Oh, it’s so sad that some fucker raped you. Here, we packed all your shit. Off you go, don’t come back.’ And she went?”
“No,” he growled. “I don’t. I’m asking you what the fuck happened.”
I stopped. I hadn’t meant to say that much.
“And I’m telling you it’s nothing to do with you. You’re in this school, in this program, and nothing you do will change what happened to my brother or to Tiffany. Because, let’s face it, Matthews, you said it yourself — the only person who is invested in your future as much as you are, is you.”
We glared at each other, and I felt . . . awake.
“You told me you’re having trouble with the head coach, well, boo hoo.
Whatever I uncover here doesn’t affect you.
Players are protected by the NCAA unless they are directly involved.
Your coach is a bastard, and I will see him pay.
So when I say that all of this has nothing to do with you, I mean it, and, more importantly, you don’t want to be involved. ”
I walked across the room.
“Finish the semester. Talk to your old school or a new one if you’re nervous about what your future here looks like.
I really don’t care. Leave this one, and you can forget you were here.
Stay here, keep your head down, do what that snake says, and you still have your future.
This has nothing to do with you. Thank you for whatever you think you’ve been doing to help, but please, stop.
” I put my hand on the door handle to let him out, but his huge hand covered mine.
“What are you doing?” I looked up at him, a spike of fear shooting down my back.
“I’m not ready to leave,” he said softly. He took his hand off mine and stepped away from the door, away from me. “Don’t give me that look. I’m not like that.”
I felt slightly guilty about the thought, but at the same time, I didn’t know this guy. Had Tiffany thought her attacker the night she was assaulted was ‘like that?’ I doubted it.
“I could walk away. I probably should. But I’m here now.
This is happening now. Spence and I are already on their radars for the wrong reasons.
I just want to know what I’m fighting against, because I am, we are, fighting against it.
” He looked so believable. “You said we’re not directly involved, that doesn’t mean the fucker can’t make it look like we are.
So it does concern me. I already transferred.
I need tape of me playing at a D1 college for the Draft.
Two years of tape at a D1 are better than what I have now, championship winner or not.
So yeah, I could transfer, but it hurts my progress to do so.
So I’m here, and I need to know what the fuck you know, so I can beat it. ”
And all of that made sense, and I completely believed him, and that didn’t make me happy.
“How do I know I can trust you?”
He dipped his head, his eyes meeting mine. “How do you know you can’t?”