The Sound of Us

Chapter Twenty-Five. “Blame It on Me” by George Ezra

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

“Blame It on Me” by George Ezra

SKYE

On the surface, everything seemed fine between me and Dante after our unsettling encounter in Noah’s office. Although we couldn’t be seen in public together—Noah had spies, Dante said—we spent the next two weeks stealing kisses in hallways, sneaking into buildings for secret sexy times in hidden rooms and passageways, and making forays into the basement storage room for “spare parts” that involved quickies on a table that he’d cleared off for the sole purpose of keeping my feet off the floor. We messaged on the days we didn’t see each other and had a blast on Thursday afternoons doing our show. But still, I couldn’t shake a sense of unease.

When we were alone together, we talked about music, school, work, and my journalism investigations. We discussed weather and world events, Isla and Nick’s obvious attraction and Chad’s determination to find a girlfriend before the end of term. I told him stories about my life growing up, the articles I’d written for my high school newspaper, and the guilt I’d felt when I got more satisfaction from breaking a story than winning a basketball game.

We talked about me, but we never talked about him. It was liked he’d locked a mental door the day after he’d told me after his sister and his family home, and no matter how gently I pushed, he wasn’t going to let me through.

“Earth to Skye.” Haley waved a hand in front of my face, blocking my view of the espresso machine while I was trying to pour an Americano. “Hot dude. Twelve o’clock. He’s staring at you. I think he might be a stalker or else he’s trying to mentally project his coffee order into your brain.”

I looked up and laughed when I recognized the man walking toward us. “It’s just Blake. He’s on the men’s basketball team. I got to know him at the bar the other night when Ethan introduced us. We’re meeting after I’m done with my shift.” I waved as the tall, blond, lanky wing shuffled up to the counter with a smile so wide I could count all his pearly white teeth. I introduced Haley because I knew she wasn’t going to leave my side until I did. Blake gave her a polite smile, but the spark wasn’t there.

“I’m off in ten minutes,” I said to Blake. “Do you want to grab a table and I’ll meet you in the student lounge?”

“I’ll see if I can find a booth in the corner.” He glanced from side to side. “I don’t want anyone to see us talking.”

“What’s that all about?” Haley asked after he’d gone. “It’s Friday night and you’d better not be planning to ditch Isla and me for hot stuff over there because you promised you’d come to hear me at the open mic tonight.”

“He’s helping me with an assignment.” I desperately wanted to tell her I had found my first-ever informant—he had sent me a cryptic message about some tea he wanted to spill—but disclosing his identity was a surefire way to ensure I’d never win the trust of an informant ever again.

“Is he helping you with an assignment?” she asked, keeping her voice even. “Or…” She rocked her hips. “Helping you with an assignment.”

“Haley!” I had to turn my face away so she couldn’t see me laugh. “I’m shocked.”

“Someone who gets all the hot guys can’t be that shocked.”

“What guys? I have no guys.” I pulled a row of cups from the box on the floor and stacked them on the counter.

“Seriously? You have Dante, and don’t pretend nothing is going on. The minute he walks into a room, your face lights up. Sparks fly. Then you’re scurrying off somewhere together on the pretense of getting things no one needs. Nick figures there’s nothing left in the basement storage room. Why don’t you guys just come out and say you’re together? Or, were you together and now you’re not together and you’re moving on with Beautiful Blake?”

“Blake is just a friend,” I said. “And, I don’t know what Dante and I have together.” I bristled at having my biggest worry dragged into the light. “We haven’t DTRed and I kind of want to keep it that way.”

“Sounds like a situationship to me,” Haley said, refilling the tea bags. “Do you do things outside of the bedroom?”

I glanced over to make sure there were no customers waiting who might overhear our conversation. “We’ve never been in a bedroom together.”

“I did not want to know that,” she said. “Where’s the bleach? I need to erase that image from my brain.”

“He told me he lives in the suite above Noah’s garage, but he’s never invited me to visit.” I grabbed cloth and scrubbed at the already clean counter. “For all I know he doesn’t even have a bed.”

“Okay. That’s not normal. So far so bad.” Haley raised an eyebrow. “Have you met his friends?”

“I’ve met everyone at the station…”

“We weren’t friends with him before you and Chad showed up,” Haley said. “So, the answer is no. When someone starts making you a priority in their life, they’ll start to introduce you to people that are close to them.”

Dante had lost the people closest to him. He’d quit his band. He had Noah, Nick, and the people at the station, but as far as I knew he didn’t have any other friends. “How many psych classes have you taken?”

“When something interests me, I go all in,” she said. “The problem is I don’t stay interested for long.” She pulled out her phone and scrolled through the screen. “One last question. Do you have a deep emotional connection or are you just a hookup or a booty call?”

I didn’t need to think about that one. Dante and I connected on so many levels. Music. Ambition. Losing a parent. Past pain. “Connection.”

Haley twisted her lips to side. “I was going to diagnose you with a bad case of situationship, but the connection thing kinda throws that off. You should talk it through.”

“That’s what Isla said.”

“Isla thinks he’s seeing someone else.” Haley left me hanging as she took the next order.

“What do you mean Isla thinks he’s seeing someone else?” I demanded the moment the customer moved aside.

Haley shrugged. “She says you’ve never invited him over for the night, and the closest she’s ever seen him get to a PDA was when he gave you a piggyback ride at the park and then at the bar when you were talking to him and he touched your hip.”

“He said Noah wouldn’t approve given our roles at the station, so we have to keep things hush-hush.”

“Noah doesn’t give a damn about people getting together,” Haley said. “People are always hooking up at the station because we’re all the same kind of people. Siobhan dated last year’s intern, and someone caught them going at in the lounge.”

Her words shook me to the core. “Noah didn’t care?”

“He was happy about it, actually. He said Siobhan needed a little love in her life.”

My breath caught as I grabbed my purse from beneath the counter. I tried to rally even though I felt like I was dying inside. “I need a little love in my life, too, so do I care what this is? No. All I care about is that I’m having fun right now with someone who makes me happy. Even if it has to be a secret.” My voice rose in pitch, wavered. “Why can’t I have that? Why is everyone trying to take it away?”

Haley stared at me with a horrified expression. “I’m not trying to take it away. Of course I want you to be happy. Just ignore me. Sometimes I read things in my textbooks and I get excited about applying them and I forget real people with real feelings are involved. You do you and fuck anyone who isn’t with you on the journey.”

“I have to go and meet Blake.” And then because I knew she was still upset after my outburst, I said, “I’ll tell him you’re single and fabulous.”

Haley brightened. “Tell him I like blond blue-eyed dudes who are tall and into sports. You can tell him to listen to my show, or better yet tell him to come to the open mic at The Gilded Lily tonight, but don’t tell him about my donut addiction.”

Blake had managed to find a quiet alcove in the student lounge, a large, open space lined with mismatched couches and chairs, some with cushions torn and stuffing spilling out. Groups of students huddled together under brightly colored posters and flyers from various events, their faces lit up by the glow of their laptops and phones.

“So, what’s the scoop?” I asked, handing him a free apple to keep him sweet.

He looked around and then leaned forward, lowering his voice. “I heard something I thought you might be interested in, but I’m not sure because it’s a bit heavy, and you were asking about people getting shitfaced or DUIs or hooking up with profs and stuff.”

“I’m interested in everything,” I assured him. “Heavy, light, and in between.”

“I was wondering… I mean… um… Would you…” He stuttered and stammered for a few more words until I realized he wanted something in exchange for his information.

In that moment I felt like a seasoned reporter. How should I play this? Favors? Bribes? Arm-twisting? “What do you want?”

His cheeks reddened. “Maybe we could go for a drink some time.”

“I… uh…” I’d just told Haley I didn’t want to put a label on what Dante and I had, and whatever it was had to be secret. So, what did I say?

“You’re seeing Ethan,” he said quickly. “I get it.”

“Ethan? No, I’m not with Ethan.” I’d seen Ethan at the gym a few times over the last few weeks, and we’d chatted briefly, but other than that, the spark between us seemed to have died after I’d blown him off outside the bar.

“He told us—the team—you were off-limits,” Blake said. “I figured that’s because you were together. Are you with someone else?”

Why was this coming up again after I’d spent weeks keeping the issue of our relationship conveniently buried away? Things were good with Dante. I didn’t want to ruin them with awkward questions about the status of our relationship and whether we were exclusive. The little girl in me who had been so desperately terrified of being sent away had decided that willful blindness was the way to go if it meant I could have a little happiness after eighteen months of utter despair.

“Maybe?” I shrugged. “Sort of. It’s a casual thing.” The strange feeling in my stomach belied my words. Why had Dante lied about Noah? Was this all just a game to him? Was he seeing other people?

Blake’s face fell. “Sure. I get it.”

I mentally chastised myself for being such an idiot, and gave up trying to sort out all my conflicting emotions in favor of doing what it took to get the scoop because I was a journalist, and I wasn’t about to lose a source because I couldn’t get out of my own damn way. “I’d love to have a drink sometime.”

“Cool.” He smiled briefly and then leaned closer. “I’m not the kind of guy who would rat on my team, but I heard something that really got under my skin, and I need to know if it’s true. I remembered you telling us at the bar how you didn’t miss basketball that much because you loved everything about journalism, and you wanted to dedicate your life to finding the truth. I thought this might be right up your alley.”

I was almost vibrating with excitement. I had a gut feeling that whatever he was about to tell me was something good.

“You can share it with me, and I won’t tell anyone it came from you,” I said. “I totally understand how you feel about the team. They’re family.”

“I knew you’d get it.” He swallowed hard and lowered his voice to almost a whisper. “I was in the locker room late one night be cause I’d stayed to practice my throws, and I overheard two seniors from the football team talking. One of them, I’ll call him Dave but that’s not his real name, had hooked up with a girl who used to be a personal assistant to one of the basketball coaches. She told him that there had been a big cover-up involving a member of the basketball team. Apparently, the dude had done something so awful that the university was going to kick him out, but the head coach convinced the higher ups to let him stay because he was pretty much guaranteed a spot in the NBA and—”

“That’s everything for the university rankings.”

Blake nodded. “I know Dave. He’s spotted me in the gym a few times. He’s a good guy—very religious. I don’t think he’d lie about something like that.”

I didn’t realize I’d been holding my breath until it came out in a rush. “Did Dave say what the dude did, or who was involved or even when it happened?”

Blake hesitated and then shook his head. “They left the locker room, and I didn’t hear the rest.”

“This is huge.” It was an effort to keep my voice down. “I just wish I knew how bad is bad. Did he kill someone? Or hurt someone in a fight? Or was it a sexual assault? Did he have a drug problem?” My mind was whirling with possibilities.

“I need to know, too,” Blake said. “I don’t think my chances of going pro are very good and I’ve been thinking about transferring schools. If there is some kind of scandal involving the team, I don’t want to be here. I thought if you could find the truth, then I could make an informed decision.”

“Could you ask Dave if he would be interested in talking to me? Or if he would be willing to put me in touch with the personal assistant?” My hand was literally shaking. This was potentially huge. Bigger than my building story. More exciting than garbage. “It would be totally confidential.”

Blake shook his head. “I wasn’t even supposed to hear that conversation. It was hard just coming to you.”

“I get it. I’ll see what I can do.” I had no idea how I was go ing to squeeze information from an unknown source, but I was in the gym every day. I still had my connections with the athletic community, and if all else failed, there was Ethan, who knew everybody.

Blake’s eyes darted over my shoulder and then widened. I huffed an irritated breath. I didn’t need to look over my shoulder to know Dante had found me.

“Hey there,” I said when he joined us in the alcove. I looked to Blake and then away, silently trying to remind Dante that I had mentioned meeting someone from the team when we were in Noah’s office, and I needed him to back off.

Dante stared at Blake like he’d done something to offend him. “Who’s this?”

Message not received.

“Blake. He’s on the men’s basketball team. We’re catching up on old times.” I introduced Dante as a friend from the radio station. The men nodded at each other but didn’t shake hands.

“What happened in these old times?” Dante sat beside me on the worn red couch and threw his arm across my shoulders.

“It’s none of your business.” I pushed his arm away. “I’ll meet you over at the coffee shop in about ten minutes. We’re almost done.”

“Actually, I should get going. I have a class.” Red-faced, Blake picked up his bag. “Let me know if you find anything out.”

“Thank you,” I said. “For everything. I won’t let you down.”

I waited until Blake was out of earshot before I rounded on Dante, who had his feet up on the coffee table and a scowl on his face.

“You just cost me what might have been the biggest scoop of the year. You were totally out of line.”

“Was I?” A tiny muscle pulsed at the base of his jaw. “The minute my back is turned, you’re off having a secret rendezvous with Blake the baller. What were you going to do next? Shoot some hoops together? Drink protein shakes in the moonlight? Go for a run in your tights?”

For a moment, his anger made me forget about my own. “Are you… jealous?” Jealous would mean there was something between us that wasn’t the situationship Haley had thought it might be.

“Why would I be jealous?” Dante folded his hands behind his head. “It makes sense that you’d go for someone like him. He’s your type. You told me in the storage room that you preferred to date athletes.”

“I told you I dated athletes because I wasn’t allowed to date anyone else in high school,” I spat out. “Or don’t you remember that conversation?”

“And yet you picked him,” he said bitterly. “An athlete.”

“I didn’t pick him.” I turned on the couch to face him. “If you take even thirty seconds to think back to our meeting with Noah, you would know who he is. And even if I did pick him…” I knew I should stop myself, but Haley had wound me up and Blake hadn’t helped. I couldn’t keep my head buried in the sand anymore. “What does it matter? You’ve made it clear you want this thing between us to be casual at best.”

With the floodgates open, the words just came pouring out. I didn’t care that people were listening to us. Everything I’d been holding in, all my questions, worries, and fears needed to be heard.

“You won’t let me touch you in public,” I continued. “We’ve never gone out together, not even for a drink. I haven’t met your friends or seen where you live. We haven’t officially told the people close to us what this is, if it is anything. And you lied to me about Noah. Haley said he wouldn’t care that we’re together. Is it because you’re seeing someone else?”

Silence. Dante stared at me, his face an expressionless mask. Finally, he took my hand and pressed my fingertips to his lips. “No. There’s no one else.”

I let out a shuddering breath, trying to separate his words from my fears. “I know we never agreed to be serious or exclusive but don’t come down on me because you set the rules and I’m playing your game.”

“You don’t think I’m serious?” Dante moved closer on the couch and placed my hand on his chest right above his beating heart. “I haven’t been with anyone else since the day I met you.”

“I didn’t ask for that,” I said, my stomach queasy.

“I want you and only you.” Dante’s voice dropped to a husky rumble. “I wanted you from the moment we met. And every time I see you, I want you more.” He threaded his hand through my hair, and rubbed his thumb gently over my cheek, the emotion on his face so real and raw it made my heart ache. “When I saw you with Blake…” His Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed. “I was jealous, Skye. So, fucking jealous. I can’t lose you, so if this is what you need, let’s make it official.”

“I don’t need to make it official.” I pulled away. “I just want to understand what we have.” Official meant commitment. It meant opening myself up to disappointing someone all over again. It meant taking the risk that I wasn’t good enough all over again. My blood chilled at the growing realization that the reason I hadn’t wanted to open this door was not because I needed a commitment, but because I knew I couldn’t give it.

A pained expression crossed his face. “Isn’t that why you brought this up? Because you wanted this out in the open? I’m touching you now.”

“In an alcove where it’s unlikely anyone could see us and in a lounge with only five people, three of whom are asleep,” I retorted.

“What do you want?” His voice was laced with the thinnest thread of desperation. “Do you want to fuck right here, Skye? Or should we go where there are more people? Do you need an audience? What do I have to do?”

“Dante…” I stared at him aghast.

“I’m giving everything I can give you.” His voice cracked with emotion. “What else do you need?”

“I don’t know.” My hands fisted on the couch. “I was happy just doing what we were doing. But then Isla thinks… and Haley said… and Blake thought I was with Ethan, and when I told him that wasn’t true, he asked me out. I didn’t know what we were or why it has to be a secret or whether I wasn’t good en—”

“He asked you out?” Dante froze and his eyes hardened. “What did you say?”

“I said…” God, how did this become such a tangle? “I’d go for a drink with him sometime.”

“Of course you did.” His voice turned to ice, cold and unforgiving. “You’ve had your walk on the wild side and now it’s back to polo-shirt-wearing clean-cut athletes named Blake. Was it fun, Skye? Did you enjoy getting your hands dirty?”

Gritting my teeth, I hugged my bag to my chest. “That’s not fair. It’s not like I led him on. And I agreed to go for a drink because he’s helping me with an assignment. I’m not interested in Blake that way, and he didn’t come here to ask me out. He said Ethan had told the team I was off-limits.”

“Off-limits?” Dante barked a harsh laugh. “Now you’re planning to date Ethan, too? Well enjoy. I’m sure he’s everything you want.”

“You don’t understand—”

But it was too late. He was already winding his way through the tables toward the exit.

I wanted to follow him, but I simply couldn’t move.

What just happened? My head was still spinning. He wanted me. There was no one else. He would make it official. He was jealous. But then the thought of me with someone else had sent him away. Was it me or was it him? I didn’t know what was driving Dante, but I knew what drove me. He’d opened up, and I’d closed the door. I was still afraid—afraid of taking a risk, of making a mistake, of being rejected. And this time, instead of just hurting myself, I’d hurt someone else. Someone I cared about.

Someone who cared about me.