Greek: Double Date (13 page)

She giggled and leaned into him. Dead fish shouldn’t have been so funny, she supposed, but it was late, she was tired and she was dancing her final dance of the night of the All-Greek Formal at an engineering after-party with Christian rock music crooning in the background. And just as she had at her first formal, she was doing it with Cappie.

“So, did you have a nice night?”

Evan escorted Rebecca from the formal, where things were wrapping up and people were moving to their various after-parties. Evan would probably just return to the Omega Chi house, but not before he took Rebecca back to ZBZ, because she was his date for some reason and it was the right thing to do. The thing guys who wore vests and ties on a regular basis despite a lack of dress code did. The thing knights did.

“Surprisingly so,” was Rebecca’s answer. “Thanks for the escort.”

“From the way you framed it, I thought I was going to have to fight this guy.”

“Yeah, and he left early. Maybe you’re just very intimidating.”

“I don’t even know who this guy is. Which reminds me…”

She looked away, not eager to be reminded.

“You did promise.”

“And you didn’t get drunk enough to forget. I suppose some of that was my fault.”

“Yeah, me keeping my cool and all is your fault.” He shook his head. “You’re Rebecca Logan. You’re not afraid of your big sister or your president or Nationals or being drunk on YouTube—”

“I’m not a fan of dogs.”

“Well, yeah.” Their joint attempt to fight off a guard dog after Rebecca’s car had been impounded with her much-needed laptop in it had been…memorable. Evan still wasn’t sure how he’d gotten sucked in to helping her with that, but that had been the start of their new…well, he wouldn’t exactly call it friendship, but friendly acquaintanceship. “The point is, you’re not afraid of anybody. So why this guy, whose name now escapes me if I was even told it in the first place?”

“Robert. His name is Robert.”

“And you promised.”

“Not in writing!”

He stopped on the sidewalk, metaphorically and physically putting his feet on the ground. “What’s up?”

“Would this stay just between you and me?”

Evan shrugged. “Who else would I tell?”

“Fine.” And when she continued walking, he followed her. The campus was remarkably quiet for a Saturday night. “I was in high school, and Robert was a senatorial aid for the summer in my father’s office.”

He had a hunch where this was going, as nothing that included her father tended to be good, but he just said, “Okay.”

“I had this friend, Lindsey. She was my idol. I was just a
lowly sophomore and she was a senior, but we’d been friends through my mom’s family for years. She was accepted early to Yale, and it was her last summer, so my father offered her this ridiculously well-paying job pushing papers in his office because the only other thing to do in our hometown was be a camp counselor, and she needed money, so I talked him into it.”

“Okay,” he repeated, now even surer of the direction of this conversation.

“Robert and Lindsey started going out. At first I was jealous because he was kind of cute, but then just annoyed because it was my last summer to hang out with Lindsey and she was always hanging out with Robert. And this was all before I learned not to stop by my father’s office late in the day and unannounced.”

He didn’t say anything. There was nothing he could say.

“I saw enough. Next to nothing is still enough. Lindsey was sleeping with my father’s chief of staff, and Dad didn’t want anyone to find out because there would be an ethics probe, so Robert was covering for both of them. He was never going out with her. He just said that to make her schedule seem busy and because my father threatened to fire him if he didn’t—or so he said. Robert left for the summer, Lindsey went to Yale, the staffer took another job, and my dad…is still my dad. The one person I can’t get away from.”

“Did he apologize?” He added quickly, “I mean Robert.”

“He did, but he acted like it was nothing, like I shouldn’t be freaking out. Lindsey was eighteen and could make her own decisions. Like it was no big deal that my best friend—my aunt’s goddaughter—was a slut.”

“And how old was Robert?”

“Sixteen.”

He had to venture into more dangerous territory to continue the conversation. “So what is he like now?”

“I don’t know and I don’t want to know.”

“It has been five years. People change.”

Rebecca glared at him, and she was so very good at that. It gave him chills even though he was expecting it. “Are you defending him?”

“No. You know I’m not. What he did was…well, he was a jerk. But that was four years ago and now…I don’t know, maybe he’s moved on. Matured.”

“How do I know that?”

“You could ask.”

“I have no obligation to him.”

“Look, Rebecca,” Evan said with a sigh, “you can do whatever you want. You can never speak to him again. But it sounds to me like he represents the problems you have with your dad, and that’s what’s really bothering you about him. You don’t need anything left over from high school or your parents to ruin your life. Face him or forget him. Either way it’ll be over with, and you can go to the next formal alone or with a date or however
you
want to do things.” He added, “Though I did appreciate the invitation.”

Rebecca rarely flinched, but after a moment, she did. “You’re right.”

“I am? I’m being told a lot lately that I’m not very motivational.”

“Face him or forget him. It’s a good motto.” She gripped her purse extra tightly when she shook it for emphasis. “If it comes up—if he and Casey wind up dating—I will do something about it.” She straightened up, not that she was slumping much. “Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome.”

She let go of his hand, so he could go one way, and she the other. Charged with yet another secret to keep—college seemed to be full of them—he walked back to Omega Chi in time for the tail end of their after-party. It wasn’t a particularly rocking event, but it was better than a quiet house.

“Should I ask how your date was?” Calvin said as Evan entered.

“I think by asking that you basically already did,” Evan replied, removing his tie. “Yes, you can ask, and it was fine. Normal. Not bad or traumatic or devastating.” Unlike his previous formal, when he was still dating Casey, which had been devastating because he was trying to avoid the oncoming disaster that would soon engulf them both and he knew it. “It was just a nice night.” He shook his fist at his little brother. “No rumors about me and Rebecca. It was a favor. A fun favor, but a favor.”

“You can get along with women and dance with them and talk privately with them without dating them,” Calvin said as Evan passed him. “You just have to be related—or gay.”

“I heard that,” Evan grumbled, but decided not to confront Calvin, and instead turned in for bed.

Evan was long gone when Rebecca returned to the
Zeta Beta Zeta house, as sororities and fraternities had to be situated with a mandatory length between them, an old-school rule still on the books. The house was lit but quiet, and she was alone—except for Robert Howell, sitting on the front steps.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Maybe it wasn’t the most dignified opening shot, but at least it was a shot.

He stood, and he was much taller than she remembered. “Waiting for Casey.”

“Didn’t she invite you into the house?”

“No. She isn’t back yet. That’s why I’m on the porch.” He moved aside so he wasn’t blocking her entrance. “Look, if you want to pass me by, that’s fine. I can deal. But can I ask why you’re spreading rumors that I’m some kind of demon before I even get my foot in the door at CRU?”

“I did no such thing.”

He huffed. “You said something to get everyone fired up, because that’s all people have been saying behind my back. I couldn’t get away from the formal fast enough.”

“So that’s why you let Casey ditch you.”

“No. She wanted to leave and so did I, so we left. Hostile atmosphere, conflicting schedules—we each had our reason.”

“Why should I believe you?”

“Because it’s the truth?” Rob said. “Maybe we should start over. Hi, Rebecca, it’s been six years—”

“Five.”

“Five years. What have you been up to?”

“I’m not starting a friendly conversation with you.”

“So there’s only one kind of conversation you can have with me?” Rob put his hands on his hips. Yes, he was definitely taller than he’d been in high school. Her heels helped. “It’s been five years! I haven’t seen you. I’ve moved on with my life. Apparently you haven’t.”

“There’s still my father.”

He winced at that, but he recovered quickly. “Look, it was a long time ago. It’s behind me now. If I could go back and…redo my decisions, I would try to make the right one. But I can’t. And neither can you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“What’s that supposed to mean? Who was more supportive of Lindsey, me or you? Who supported her rather dubious choices even after they were exposed?”

“She was eighteen years old!”

“Older than both of us! And we were her friends.”

“I was her friend!”

“Then you were a terrible friend,” he didn’t hesitate to say.
“You abandoned her the moment she had a taint of scandal on her. Did you call her when she got to college? E-mail her? Or did you just cut her off?”

Rebecca stood, horrified, as she realized he was right. The little snot-nosed prick who had somehow developed into what everyone else imagined to be a mature, awesome guy was actually, somewhat, possibly a tiny bit right. Maybe. She hadn’t called, or e-mailed, or anything. She’d felt betrayed by Rob, but she hadn’t really cared about him. She’d cared about Lindsey, and Lindsey had betrayed her. Had not confided in her, had deliberately misled her. Everything that Lindsey was to her vanished the instant Rebecca saw her jumping off the chief of staff’s lap when she walked into his office. Lindsey was dead to her—and Rebecca had treated her that way.

“I called a few times, and finally spoke to her once. She was trying to move on,” he said. “She was pretty upset about you, though. So, yeah, I was a stupid kid, but you’re hardly blameless.” He moved in for the kill—though he did it in a rather soft voice. “I want to go on with my life—and I have, except you’re in the same sorority as a girl that I happen to like and do not intend to do anything stupid with in any fashion. Are you going to stand in the way of that because of something that happened over summer vacation five years ago, or are you going to step aside and accept the fact that I’ve changed, and maybe even that I tried to do the right thing, but didn’t know what the right thing was and didn’t have anyone guiding me? And that it doesn’t matter now, because it doesn’t have anything to do with anyone but you and me? I’m just a normal transfer student, trying to make it up to the dean who arranged his transfer, keep his grades up
and maybe meet a nice girl. Is that okay with you? Or at least acceptable?”

What could she do? Even if she told the story, she wouldn’t come out well. No one would, and he would be forgiven when he went begging back to Casey, if he even bothered and didn’t move on, leaving them all in his dust. Anything else she could say to slander his name would be a lie; the truth wasn’t bad enough. He was forgivable, at least in someone else’s eyes, maybe someone who hadn’t had a father for a senator and a best friend as that staffer’s temporary office slut.

“Fine,” she said. “It’s behind us. But I don’t have to pretend that I like you.”

“Fair enough.”

“Are you going to go now?”

He said, “You know my story. I’m waiting for Casey. What’s yours?”

Unable to answer him, she fled upstairs, away from Robert, her father and everything else she couldn’t leave behind at Cyprus-Rhodes, no matter how hard she tried.

“Are you sure you can find your way home?” Casey asked, not for the first time.

Cappie, whose eye was not quite swollen shut, was walking uneasily, but he shored himself up to answer the question. “I’m fine. Well, no, I feel like someone’s shoving a poker into my eye, but I can still see.”

“Out of
both
eyes?”

“Yes,
both
eyes.” If he wavered on the pavement as they walked, it was probably the last few beers for the road, and to take the edge off the pain. The bottle said not to mix the
painkiller with alcohol, but that somehow made Cappie all the more eager to try it. “Besides, I can hear people shouting from a couple blocks away. And I’m supposed to walk you home.”

“Because you’re the chauvinistic male, and I’m the helpless female prey?”

“Wow. Add a dragon in there and we’re in fantasy territory, Case.”

She could only laugh at him. “You’re the women’s studies major.”

“I want to change it, but it’s just so tempting to stay in those classes. It’s the professors. They try to drive me out and that just makes it more exciting.”

“Or makes you more…failing.”

“I have handed in every assignment and passed every test. If she fails me, she hates men and there’s nothing I can do about it except sue her for gender discrimination.”

“You’re not serious.”

He frowned, “No, definitely the aspirin-whiskey combo talking. I’ll have to remember that one.”

They paused at the corner before the street that led to the ZBZ house, Casey’s home of three years. She could have walked home drunk and blindfolded—she even had once, as a pledge—and arrived safely, but that wasn’t the point. Cappie was her escort, sort of, even if he wasn’t her date. But they had danced, and she had no one else at the moment. “Thank you for walking me home. And for—whatever it was you did at the social.”

“I did something?”

Cappie had acted politely, acceptably, and even with an air
of respect for his elders and peers. He had not shot her down but had boosted her, bolstered her conversations and recommended contacts for her. In other words, for some hours of the night, he had not been Cappie as she knew him. Or maybe that was what she expected of him after four years of college life, and nothing else—to play the fool even when he wasn’t. But it would be rude, she realized, to imply that he usually acted like an idiot and he hadn’t tonight and that was why she was thanking him, even though they both knew it. “Just—thanks. For whatever.”

“Okay. I can accept a vague compliment. Not that it was a hardship. I mean, yes, missing a chance to get angry and punch someone at a formal is something I will just have to bear, but the chances of me seeing Dean Bowman drunk again are also pretty slim.”

“You’re not really planning to blackmail him?”

He shrugged. “I’ll let him draw his own conclusions. And then blackmail him.”

Despite herself, she laughed and held his arm, lost in a warm fuzziness she didn’t dare examine until he said, “Wow, angry border guard.”

At which point, Casey’s night went considerably downhill.

Robert Howell, her
first
date of what seemed to be an evening succession of three of them, was standing on the porch steps, his hands in his pockets, looking rather apprehensive. Casey detached from Cappie, who was not too drunk to get the signal.

“Thanks for the walk,” she said, far more formally than was in her heart.

“Safewalk. Thank you for helping KT fill its mandatory
community service hours.” He waved to her and walked briskly off in the direction of his fraternity, another route she knew so well.

Casey spun around. “Rob!” She was legitimately surprised to see him, so that wasn’t hard to muster. Her embarrassment was harder to stifle. “That was…”

“CRU doesn’t have the Safewalk program.”

“I know. He’s…being dramatic,” she said sheepishly. “That was Cappie.”

“The KT president?”

Lying wasn’t going to get her anywhere. “And, okay, my freshman-year boyfriend. He was at the engineering thing and Dale had to finish with his band so… What are you doing here?” She tried to put as much emphasis on the last sentence in as nice a way as possible.

“I was in the area,” he said, and, in the darkness, it was hard to tell if he was angry, or ever had been, even though the lights for the porch were pretty bright. “And I wanted to say I was sorry.”

“For what?
You
have nothing to be sorry about.” She had plenty to be sorry about, or that was how she felt at this moment. “I know things were cut short but—”

“I didn’t want you to think I was ditching you. It may have looked that way to your friends and people gossip and…you know…” He held out his hand, which she accepted, and stepped up onto the porch with him. With them both in full light, his better features—which seemed at the moment like all of them—were highlighted. He really didn’t look mad. “I thought the other event was important to you.”

“It was. And it was not supposed to be on the same night as the formal.”

He nodded. “I heard. And…I may have had my own reasons for wanting to leave.”

“Rebecca.” It came out of her mouth before she could stop herself, but Rob was not disappointed. At least, in her.

“We go back,” he said. “I should tell you the truth, so it’s not some swirling rumor anymore. When I was working for her father, his chief of staff had an affair with one of her friends, and I covered for them. Rebecca found out, and nobody came out looking like a saint.”

“Oh, wow, that’s…”

“Not what you imagined?” He was so cute when he smiled, even if it was a painful smile. “I was young and I just did what the senator told me was good for my career. It was the wrong thing to do and I told Rebecca that five years ago and I told her again tonight. I can understand if she’s having trouble putting it behind her. Senator Logan being her father and all.”

“Uh, yeah.”

“So…cut her some slack. And me, if that’s possible.”

“I wasn’t holding anything I didn’t know against you,” Casey said. “Rebecca said it wasn’t romantic from the start. She just wouldn’t say what it was. And I was curious.”

“I don’t blame you.”

“And I don’t know what I would have done in that situation, either. So, okay, forgotten. Five years ago, not my business, whatever. I’ll tell Rebecca—”

“Let her sort it out for herself. I think she needs to.” And his eyes were oh-so-sensitive when he said it. It made him that much more adorable. “Anyway, I also wanted to thank you for
the evening, the part of it we did share, and invite you to dinner next week. If you’re not busy.”

She jumped a little in her heart. “I would love to! And I am totally not promised to any guy on either night. I’m not promised to any guys on most nights—actually, all nights, right now, except you. I’m not normally—”

He stepped forward. “I understand. Next Friday, barring any disasters in university scheduling?”

“Yes, Friday night. Thank you. For everything.” She was saying thanks a lot—just to different guys.

“Good night.”

Her voice was very soft when she said it. “Good night.”

Rob kissed the top of her hand—much like a knight—and left, to disappear in the direction of campus grounds and wherever he lived. His headquarters were unknown. He disappeared on the cool evening breeze of Cyprus-Rhodes, into the mystery from which he seemed to come. He wasn’t mysterious—if anything, he more than adequately explained himself—but he wasn’t
known.

Like Cappie was.

Casey didn’t have time to properly enter the house. Ashleigh pounced out of it like a tiger—an overexcited, overly friendly, but very aggressive tiger. “So? He waited for you for, like, ever. Isn’t that adorable?”

“It is. And a little stalker-ish.” She winced at her word. Definitely overused.

“Yeah, but there has to be, like, something a little
not
okay for him to be so awesome. Otherwise you would know it was fake. No guy is that great. So his flaw is what? Perseverance? He came back as the formal was ending—and I guess the boring engineering thing.”

“It wasn’t boring. I was pleasantly surprised. Things were—pleasantly surprising.” And unpleasantly complicating. “It was…nice.”

Nice
didn’t begin to sum it up, and smoothed over a lot of rough edges. The persistent signals that her future beyond CRU and ZBZ was coming, and she had to prepare for it. And the one to guide her through that, or to it, had been, of all people, Cappie. He was nice, the people she met were nice, and at the end of the evening, even Rob was nice. So why did she feel so uneasy?

The evening had been complicated. For the moment, that was all her weary body and mind could accept, but she knew she could not avoid the persistent questioning of Ashleigh. It was best to roll with it—or more specifically, to let Ashleigh do the talking. “So how was the formal?”

“It was so awesome! You should have stayed. Or, I guess, if you had a good time—but you would have been cute on the dance floor with Rob.”

“I seriously think you have a crush on my almost boyfriend.”

“Almost? Case, his hands might have not been all over you, but his eyes were. And not in a creepy way. A guy way, but, like, a cool guy way. A way I would be fine with. The way Fisher looks at me sometimes when—”