First and Goal (Moving the Chains #1) (29 page)

She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. “Mike’s right. It is a long story, and it starts way before Eddie. Listen, I know you’re trying to be my friend, and I’m trying too. But there are just some things that I don’t share with anyone, so don’t take it personally, okay? I hate that you think what happened with Eddie was worse than it really was, so I want to set the record straight.”

Her voice breaks. For all her denials, whatever she’s about to tell me is difficult for her to let go.

“God, I can’t believe I’m telling you this.” She shakes her head and takes another breath.

“No one knows what really happened. Before I go any further, you have to promise that this stays between us.” She squeezes her eyelids tightly. “Better yet, after I tell you the truth, just promise me you’ll forget all about it.”

I can’t help the laugh that comes out of my mouth even if it’s wildly inappropriate. “Listen, if I didn’t run down the halls a few weeks ago, screaming ‘Evie Papageorgiou thinks I’m built like a freakin’ god,’ then I’m not gonna breathe a word of this.”

She glares at me. “If you’d done that, number one, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, and number two, you’d never get the girl of your dreams.”

I roll my eyes. Impossible creature might never know she’s that girl.

“The only other people who kinda know about this are Tini, Mike, and Chelsie. So you promise me now that you will take this to your grave.”

“Chelsie?”

“She was with Mike when he picked me up.”

“Is that why she doesn’t like you?”

“How’d you know about that?”

Think fast, Falls.
“That day when you twisted your ankle and stayed to watch practice, you said she was glaring daggers at you. I saw Mike trying to smooth things over with her after he checked to see if you were okay.”

“Oh…right. Yeah, that’s why.”

Crisis averted.

“Wait,” I lean up, resting my elbows on the soft grass and looking down at her with a frown. “If Mike knows about what really happened, then why is Eddie still alive?”

“Because
nothing
happened. That, and Chelsie threatened to dump him if he got involved.”

“You know, I’m starting to dislike Chelsie more and more lately.”

“Don’t blame her. It wasn’t a fair position for her to be put in, either. I ruined their night.”

I stare down at her with a disbelieving expression, waiting for her to continue.

She glances away from me, probably scanning to see if Eddie is still hanging around. Which he is. Her body tenses when she spies him, so I scoot just a little closer to offer her my protection. When I lay back on the grass again, our bodies touch from shoulder to hip.

“I guess I should start from the beginning so you know everything. I still can’t believe I’m doing this…” She closes her eyes and begins her story.

“It was last year, right about in the middle of basketball season. I’d been crushing on the same guy since freshman year. He never showed any interest though. And hey, who could blame him?”

I shoot her an incredulous look, but she doesn’t see me.

She continues speaking, lost in her own mind. “Jess and Alyssa were really getting on my case about being such a goody two shoes. They just assumed I didn’t date because I was a prude. I never told anyone about this guy I liked. I was such a stupid girl, waiting on him to say something, anything. The girls didn’t know about my feelings for this particular guy. They were getting concerned that I seemed to have no interest in boys whatsoever.”

Her laughter is harsh. “They weren’t necessarily wrong. Until this guy came along, I really didn’t have any interest in boys. I always knew they were more trouble than they were worth. I just wish I’d have stuck to that mindset.”

“Wait, pause.” I smile at her, a futile attempt to mask my aching chest. I suspected Evie was into some guy sophomore year, but nothing ever came of it. “Who was the idiot that left you hanging for so long?”

She pins me with a raised eyebrow. “Tell me yours, and I’ll tell you mine.”

“Seriously?” There’s gotta be a way to make this work if she does admit to me who her crush was because…yeah, I definitely need to know. But I’m pretty sure she’s bluffing.

She sighs and looks away again. “No, not seriously. It doesn’t matter. He wasn’t interested. And like I said, I don’t blame him. I’m not exactly a prize or anything. Anyway, I had to listen to Jess and Alyssa go on and on about their sex lives, and they were rather persuasive that I needed to join those ranks. Said there were rumors going around that I was a lesbian and all that. Which, I mean, I didn’t really care. But I could see their point that people were getting the wrong idea. So when Eddie first started sniffing around and showing interest, they pushed me to go for it. He, um…he wasn’t really my type or anything. But he made me feel pretty, and he seemed harmless enough. No one had ever made me feel special before…” Her voice trails off while my heart splinters.

“It felt like I was forcing it, but I figured it was just because I’d been hung up on this other guy for so long, and I’d get over it eventually, ya know?”

Something about the tone of her voice gives me the impression that she’s not telling me the whole truth about what made her go for Eddie. I file that away for later and nod at her. “Yeah, I do know. I tried the same thing.”

Her expression morphs into surprise. “Didn’t work for you, either, huh?”

“Nope.”

Staring back up at the passing clouds, she continues. “I agreed to go on a date with him. The first one was okay, actually. He was a total gentleman. We had a decent time, and he kissed me good night on my front porch. So we went on another date. Same thing. Nice enough guy, had fun. So we went on another. By that point, everyone at school assumed we were going steady. He did nothing to dispel those rumors.”

Her cheeks are a furious shade of red. Even in profile, clear shame blooms across her face. “And I didn’t, either. I could’ve set everyone straight, but I kept my stupid mouth shut. Worse, I let him act like we were together at school. I let him kiss me in the halls in front of everyone. I was…awful.”

My mind runs a million yards a second at her words. I don’t have time to consider the implications of her admission before she goes on.

“I mean, he was nice enough. But there just wasn’t that spark, you know? He only ever wanted to talk about basketball or the latest school gossip. We had nothing in common. Not really. Not in the way that matters. On the fourth date, he suggested we go driving around the back roads like everyone else does. I’d only ever been kissed by one guy before Eddie. And honestly, I was curious. I kind of wanted to.”

Yeah. I know exactly who kissed her before Eddie.

“He made it to first base. I didn’t want to go any further.”

She pauses. It’s easy to see she’s trying to psych herself out that talking about this isn’t as hard for her as it clearly is. “Next date, he wanted to make it to second, but I still just wasn’t feeling it.”

She stops and laughs at the memory which surprises the hell out me. “I think I was actually imagining the guy I was still hung up on, and it made me feel so guilty.”

Her eyelids flutter closed again. “He kept trying to put my hands on him, to get me to touch him. I just couldn’t do it. I kept thinking about how little I liked Eddie. Kept thinking about that other guy. When Eddie put his hands up my shirt and started groping me, I just…I dunno, it felt wrong somehow. Like I was cheating.”

She laughs harshly. “Which was completely ridiculous because obviously the guy I wanted never showed any interest; we weren’t together. But there you have it. I’m completely ridiculous.”

Her eyes flit to the sky again, her cheeks completely red. “I went on one more date with him. Because…let’s just say because I’m a total jerk. So on the next date, he says I’ve been stringing him along enough, and he expects to get laid.”

She huffs out an angry breath. “That’s when I got out of his truck. Like, literally. I said hell no and got out. Eddie was pissed. He got out too and came around to try and sweet talk me. But I was done. I was tired of pretending to be someone I wasn’t. To be interested in someone I wasn’t. I couldn’t do it anymore. I guess he got desperate because he tried to drag me back inside his truck. And, uh…I panicked and punched him in the eye.”

I vividly remember the black eye he sported last year.

“Mike, uh, he taught me how to fight when we were younger. Said he wanted me to always be able to defend myself. I honestly didn’t mean to hit him! He just…I don’t know.”

Her cheeks go red again. “I think that’s why he spread all the rumors about me. He was angry that I gave him a black eye. Pissed that I didn’t put out for him.”

I interrupt, “Is that why you let all his stories go unanswered? Because you felt bad for hitting him?”

She heaves a deep breath. “That’s not even the half of what I did to him.”

Before I can ask what in the hell that’s supposed to mean, a teary-eyed girl appears in front of us. I recognize her immediately. She’s one of the sophomores from our cleaning crew. “Eva, can I, um, talk to you for a minute, please?”

Evie pops up nimbly from where she was sprawled on the grass. Without a word or glance back in my direction, she wraps her arm around the girl and walks her away. I watch as they talk, eventually disappearing inside the school.

I stare at the entrance they went in for long minutes, processing everything she said. Something still doesn’t add up. I know she was holding back. She basically admitted to using Hinton. That isn’t the Evie I know. Have I been wrong all these years, putting her on a pedestal above all the other girls? Evie never seemed like the type to play games. Then again, maybe desperation forced her hand. I can relate to that. Hell, aren’t I playing games with her right now out of desperation to make her mine? Judging her for the same thing I’m doing is a whole new level of hypocrisy.

Besides, Evie’s still a good person. She never once tried to stop Eddie’s rumors. Now I know why. She feels guilty for using and hurting him.

We’re all just a bunch of assholes.

I’m still not sure I buy her entire story. I can’t think about her behavior since last year without wanting to run down Eddie and beat him until I’m satisfied. Which would be when he’s dead. All of her quirks and her personality change from last year line up with my suspicions. She quit dressing the way she used to because she was trying to deter guys, not invite them. She became withdrawn and more quiet for the same reason.

If he really didn’t rape, or at least assault her, then I can’t explain any of her behavior.

The only thing that makes sense is that she lied to me. Eddie did rape her. She just can’t admit that to me.

He’s the reason for the no jocks rule. Eddie Hinton. For some sick, twisted reason that I’ll never understand, she believes that Eddie raping her and decimating her rep is justifiable because she used him to get over another guy. It all fits with what I know about sexual assault.

Just the thought of it makes me want to punch something. Preferably his face.

Before too long, Evie emerges from the building. She’s frowning as she makes her way over to me.

“What was that all about?”

She grabs her bag and throws it over her shoulder. “Girl stuff. You don’t wanna know.”

“If it was just girl stuff, then why do you look so upset?” She’s lying again.

I grab my backpack and fall in step beside her as she walks toward the parking lot.

“Kelly’s upset because of Brian’s advances on me today. She wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to take him up on it because she likes him.” Evie rolls her eyes. “She actually said to me, ‘All’s fair in love and war, but you better keep your hands off my man.’ She thought I was actually going to hit that since I’m obviously a slut.”

“What’d you say to that?”

“I told her that he’s too young for me.” She shrugs.

“Why didn’t you tell her those rumors aren’t true?”

She stops and faces me with a glare. “Well, I’m glad you took me seriously when I told you to forget everything I said about Eddie.”

Oh, I’m never going to forget. It strikes me that some things must not change as we age. We get older, smarter. We think we have a better handle on life as we gain maturity. But, do we really? Do we ever? Kelly and Brian’s antics aren’t any different than mine. Or Evie’s. Or Eddie’s. What really separates the men from the boys? The women from the girls? It’s not sex like the locker room talk insists. There’s gotta be something more to it than that.

“Hey, let’s go to the diner and do our calc. I’m starving.” I nudge her with my shoulder.

“Fine. I’ll meet you there.” She walks toward her car without arguing.

Shocked, I gape at her back for a few heartbeats. I didn’t expect her to capitulate so easily.

She’s just opened the door to her little sedan when Eddie appears beside her. He grabs her by the arm and spins her to face him. Her eyes are wide, shocked. She makes no move to punch him again. He’s obviously talking a mile a minute while her expression grows increasingly angry.

Fuck no.

Time seems to slow as his hand on Evie’s arm becomes my sole focus. My pulse pounds in my ears as I stalk toward them. Fire burns through my veins, incinerating any potential for rational thought. “You have ten seconds to get your hand off my girl before I break your fucking face, Hinton.”

He drops her like a hot coal and spins to face me. “
Your
girl?”

“Did I stutter?”

“Whatever, man.” He scurries away like the piece of slime he is. He knows I’m not messing around.

Something Pops once told me emerges from the fog of my anger.
It’s not true that the strong prey on the weak. The weak prey on the weaker. Real men never abuse the power and strength they possess. Only weak men do that sort of thing. Always be strong, Rob. Never be weak.
Maybe that’s what separates the men from the boys.

Evie blinks at me several times in shock. “Oh my God, Rob. What did you just do?”

I’ve never heard her use my name so many times in one day, and it pisses me the fuck off that I can’t just enjoy it. “I made sure you don’t have to worry about him ever again. That’s what I just did.”