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Fuck Jason.
“How long have I been out?”
“Over an hour,” I tell her. “Which is pretty good considering he slipped you roofies.”
“That would explain the migraine.” Rowan leans forward, reaching for the water again, and Bryce offers her the aspirin he took from the medicine cabinet. Rowan nods a thanks at him and takes it, coughing, but she doesn’t try to rise from the couch.
“Why were you at that party alone?” asks Matt, and Bryce and I lean forward to hear her answer. We want to know what she was thinking, too.
“I wasn’t alone,” Rowan insists. “I was with Jason.”
“Where’s Jamie? Shouldn’t you women always have a buddy in case of something like this?”
“Do you guys have a buddy when you go to the bar?” asks Rowan, shaking her head, and I almost laugh.
“We’re men. No one is going to fuck with us.”
“I didn’t think anyone was going to fuck with me, either,” Rowan admits. “But I also didn’t expect I’d be drugged by someone I liked, either.”
“You don’t like him,” Matt says from his place on the chair. “You were angry at us, so you went out with him.”
“Are you saying this was my fault?”
“No, baby, that’s not what he’s saying,” Bryce soothes her, and Rowan doesn’t even bother punching him in the face for calling her baby.
“We just don’t want to imagine what would have happened if we hadn’t been there,” I add. “He could have really hurt you.”
Silence settles over the living room, enveloping us in a thick blanket of anxiety, fear, and worry. Rowan doesn’t look at any of us now, she just stares at the floor, her expression neutral, and I wish we knew what she was thinking … feeling.
“I guess … I guess I owe you guys a thank you,” she says after a moment of silence, breaking the tension in the air. She looks up from the floor and glances between all three of us, and my chest tightens with pain when I see the tears fighting to escape from her eyes. I want to hold her, to reach out and hold her close and tell her that I’ll protect her–we’ll protect her–for the rest of her life, given the chance.
But I don’t. Not yet.
“You don’t have to thank us,” Bryce says, forcing a smile. He’s got a nice smile, one that immediately seems to put Rowan at ease. Out of the three of us, Bryce has always been the more sensitive one, and I guess in a situation like this, it isn’t so bad. I don’t even have the urge to reach out and nut tap him for being such a sissy.
“I do have to thank you, though,” Rowan insists gently. “All of you.” She sighs and shakes her head, then wipes a tear that slides down her face. “I have done nothing to deserve your help, not from any of you. I betrayed you guys, I betrayed my roommate, and I trusted the wrong people. Honestly, if you guys hate me forever, I wouldn’t blame you for a second.”
I catch Matt’s eye over Rowan’s head. He doesn’t say anything, just stares back, but I know he’s thinking the same thing I am: at this point, we couldn’t hate Rowan Bates if someone held a gun to our heads.
“No one in this room is blaming you for anything,” I say. “We all had a part in it.”
“It’s true,” says Bryce. “Dereck especially is to blame, you know, with that whole Carly situation and all.”
I ball up my fist, ready to break his nose, but Rowan laughs that beautiful laugh, and the air in the room becomes lighter suddenly. Easier. I want to trap that laugh in a jar and keep it for every bad day.
“How did you guys know I’d be there?” Rowan asks. Her eyes meet mine briefly, then travel to Matt and Bryce. “Were you following me?”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Matt says, but under his gruff exterior, his tone is teasing. “Jamie texted me. She said that Jason had approached you guys earlier and asked. Told me she was worried about it.”
“Oh.” Rowan’s face falls, and she nods. “So it was a favor for Jamie.”
“No, sweetheart.” I scoot forward in my seat and reach for Rowan’s hand, and I think it surprised all of us when she took it and didn’t let go. “We went to the party because you were there. It was no favor for anybody. We … we wanted to protect you if anything happened.”
“I guess it’s a good thing you guys showed up then, huh?” Rowan says with a small smile, dropping my hand to nibble anxiously at a fingernail.
“Eh, you could have taken him,” Bryce says, and Rowan giggles. God, what a beautiful sound.
“Probably not, but thanks for the vote of confidence.” She slides to the edge of the couch to try and stand up, and three pairs of hands shoot out to steady her again. Matt secures her left, I get her right, and Bryce stays in front of her. We look ridiculous, I imagine, flocking around Rowan like she’s an invalid, but none of us make any move to back away.
