Believe (True Believers #3)(3)
Author: Erin McCarthy

Not exactly the same happy ending for me. I wanted to tell her so desperately I swallowed hard and clamped my mouth shut. Telling her would only mean she would have to keep a secret from Kylie. From Riley, too. Telling Kylie would only hurt her to appease my guilt.

I couldn’t do it.

Shrugging, I said, “Things change.”

“Robin.”

“What?”

“If you got attacked or something, you would tell me, right? You know you can tell me.” She reached out and touched my arm, expression filled with concern.

And it went from bad to worse. Now she thought I was a victim. I nodded. “I would tell you. It’s nothing like that, I swear.”

“Because it seems like you started acting strange after the party at the Shit Shack. Something is obviously wrong. So if that Aaron guy did something to you, tell me.”

“No, he didn’t.” I shook my head emphatically. Aaron had just been a guy I had danced with, flirted with, kissed. Before he ditched me and somehow I ended up going home with Nathan.

“Did something freaky happen? Did you do something you regret, like anal?”

Not that I was aware of. I couldn’t prevent a shudder. “No. No anal.” Though I did do something I regretted, more than anything else I’d ever done. The person who said that life was too short for regrets clearly had never done something super shitty.

“Jessica!” Jayden called her name from the kitchen. “Can you come here?”

“Yeah, I’ll be right there, buddy.” She set down her fork. “Be right back.”

Jayden was eighteen, but he had Down syndrome, and I knew that Rory and Jessica both cut him a lot of slack. If he asked for attention, they gave it to him, and I was totally grateful for the interruption. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could lie to direct questions.

As Jessica went into the kitchen, the guy on the couch suddenly coughed. I turned and saw dark eyes staring at me. He had rolled onto his back and was sitting up on the arm roll, his hair sticking up in front. My palms got clammy, and I stared back, horrified.

Not only was he completely and totally hot, he had obviously been awake for more than thirty seconds. He looked way too alert to have just opened his eyes.

“Uh, hi. I’m Robin,” I said, my hands starting to shake. What had we said? Nothing incriminating, I didn’t think. I hadn’t admitted anything. Though I had said “anal” out loud and that was awkward enough. All those nasty jokes about prison popped into my head and my cheeks burned.

His expression was inscrutable, but he nodded. “Phoenix.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said, because that’s what you say even if there was zero truth to it. It wasn’t nice to meet him. He was a criminal and I was a lying cheat, and I was way too preoccupied with my own self-hatred to have anything interesting to say to him.

“Yeah. Sure.” He sounded about as enthusiastic as I felt.

Agitated, I sat down on the coffee table next to the couch, wiping my hands on my denim shorts. “Sorry if we woke you up.”

He shrugged. “No big deal.”

I wasn’t sure what to say after that. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and like his cousins, he had tattoos covering his chest and arms. The one that caught my attention was the bleeding heart. It looked severed in two, the blood draining down his flesh toward his abdomen. It was beautiful and creepy and bold. Was it a metaphor? It seemed a little poetic for the average guy, but something about his steady stare suggested he was no ordinary guy. His dark hair stuck up then fell over one eye, so it felt like he had an extra advantage, that he could watch me from behind that cascade of hair.

Jessica hadn’t told me why he had been in jail, and I decided I really didn’t want to know. Phoenix was trouble and trouble was exactly what I was trying to avoid.

“I’m not a big fan of anal either,” he said.

Giving or receiving? I couldn’t tell if he was making fun of me. He didn’t seem to be trying to lighten the mood with a joke for my benefit since he still looked stone-faced. It made me super uncomfortable.

“We thought you were asleep.”

“What difference does it make? You didn’t confess to a crime.”

Thank God. “I don’t like just anyone hearing my personal business. You don’t even know me.”

“You’re right, I don’t.” He threw back the blanket that had been covering him below the waist and he stood up. He was in his underwear, black boxer briefs that clung to his thighs. “Robin.” He added my name at the end like it was an accusation.

His body was lean and wiry, yet muscular. He looked like he worked out constantly but had been born with a raging high metabolism, so he would never be bulky. Every muscle was obvious, the V of his hips so defined it made my mouth thick with saliva in a totally inappropriate way for the situation. He bent over and picked up a pair of shorts off the floor, stepping into them and drawing them up. But he left them partially unzipped and the belt clanked against his thighs as he moved out of the living room and down the hall into the bathroom without another word to me.

I watched him, unnerved. There was something hard about him, mysterious. His name suited him, unusual and intriguing. Annoyed with myself, I went into the kitchen, where Jessica was clearly laying out the situation for Tyler.

“So what are we going to do? Kylie and I were supposed to share, and Rory and Robin each had their own room, but now there’s an empty room completely.”

“Can you guys just break the lease?” Riley asked. “I mean, what difference does it make? Everyone can move out.”

“My dad and Rory’s dad are the ones who signed the lease. I don’t think either one of us needs to piss our dads off any more.”

Riley frowned. “No. That’s no good.” He looked at me. “I guess you should find a replacement, since you’re the one moving out.”

Hovering in the doorway, I crossed my arms over my chest, miserable. “I’ll just move home and I’ll pay my portion of the rent. I can cover it with my paychecks from waitressing.”

I was trying to be fair. To not stick them with either a bigger rent or with a roommate they didn’t know and may not get along with, but Jessica’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“Wait a minute. So you’d rather live at home with your parents who are like sixty years old, and your ancient, evil-eye-giving grandmother, while paying rent on a place you don’t live in, than room with Kylie and Rory? Okay, I call bullshit. What the f**k is going on?”