Keep Up

Chapter Three

I pulled the covers over a sleeping Roman before walking into the bedroom, removing the towel wrapped around my damp head. I quickly swiped a comb from the bathroom where Dean was taking a shower and pulled it through my hair as I sat on the bed. My phone vibrated from the bedside table.
We really need to talk-Seth
I sucked my teeth and deleted his contacts, blocking his number in process. I put it back down as Dean came out.
"Who was that?" he asked, catching droplets of water that fell down to his stomach before they could soak the waistband of his basketball shorts.
I shrugged, shaking my head. "No one important," I answered truthfully, combing the other side of my head.
He rounded the bed until he was on the window side and sat down with his back towards me; there were bruises all over.
"You okay?" I asked.
He shook his head. "I'm gonna get him at one point," he stated.
"I know you are," I said. "But I didn't want you to do it tonight because I was hoping you would kind of cool down."
"Well, I guess you thought wrong."
"Yeah," I agreed. "But what happened tonight makes me wonder if those arguments Seth and You had were intentional on his part. To provoke you."
He glanced at me over his shoulder, shooting a frown my way. "Why would he provoke me?"
"I guess he thought by gassing you up, when he turned on you and Roman, it wouldn't come as a surprise and you would kind of leave him alone," I explained.
He chuckled. "I don't think so," he disagreed.
"Well, I am just thinking off the top of my head," I defended as I set the comb down and opened the top draw of the small table to retrieve my nail bag.
"You know, the reason why I didn't want to tell you about the fights Seth and I had was because the majority of them were about you."
I turned my whole body to face him as he laid himself down and cupped one of his hands to the back of his head. "Excuse me?" I questioned. "Me?"
He nodded. "He kept nagging me about how I haven't been the best boyfriend and how you need someone better...." he trailed off, clenching his jaw for a moment. "He was also said that my past relationships can ruin ours because girls are coming back with a vengeance. Madison being the prime example."
I shivered at the name. Madison, Dean's high school not sweetheart, stalked us the entire month of May before we finally called the police and got her arrested. I don't know what's become of her now.
"Why didn't you tell me this?" I asked.
"Because I knew you'd be upset. I mean, look at your face." I tried to smooth my face out, pulling my eyebrows apart and relaxing my lips from their pursed position. "You were already stressed at the fact that we were fighting period. If you knew that most of those altercations were about you, you'd flip."
I zipped my nail bag open and rummaged around for my cotton balls and clear coat bottle.
"Chelsea?"
I placed the bag aside and slipped the cottons in between my toes before shaking the bottle and screwing the brush off.
"You're mad," Dean groaned.
"I would've liked to know," I told him tersely.
"I know I should've told you," he said, scooting to the middle of the bed and laying down on his stomach so that his face was inches from my right foot. "But I didn't want to see that expression on your face. I thought that eventually the fights would stop and it would be swept under the rug. It has stopped, just not the way I expected it."
When I glanced down at him, he was sticking his bottom lip out at me. I rolled my eyes. "I forgive you," I mumbled, starting to apply clear polish on my left pinkie toe.
"No you don't," he said. "You're still upset."
"No I'm not," I argued.
"Chelsea," he stated, not at all convinced. "You have the straightest face in the US right now. You don't really mean it when you say you forgive me."
"Would you rather I yell and scream at you?" I questioned conversationally.
"No," he whined.
"Okay then."
It was quiet for a few moments as Dean watched me paint the first layer of polish on each of my toes.
"Why do girls do this?" he asked, wiggling my pinkie toe.
I shrugged. "Why are guys obsessed with football?"
"Touché," he replied. "Which reminds me, we should watch it when season comes."
I scrunched my face up. "Why?" I asked.
He shrugged. "It can be one of the "couplely" things we do."
I giggled. "'couplely'?"
He shrugged again with a smile.
"I mean, I guess we can do that. I'm just not a football person."
"I'll make you one," Dean promised as I searched for my Pure Ice nail polish. "What team are we rooting for for the upcoming season?" He gave me a pointed look. "The Cincinnati Bengals," I stated. "Because you're from there."
"Naturally," he replied.
"So what if they suck the whole season?" I asked.
He shrugged. "I'm not really into any other teams. So what's your state team?"
"Virginia doesn't have an NFL team," I reminded him. "Just CFL."
"I keep forgetting you live in Virginia," he said. "We haven't visited your family since April."
"I didn't want Madison following us there," I told him, finishing my left foot and switching over to my right.
"Smart."
He turned his body so that his head was laying at the foot of the bed and his feet were buried under his pillows. He grabbed the remote that was randomly lying on the floor beside the bed and cut the TV on. He clicked through the channels and a news headline flashed across the screen before he proceeded forward. I didn't know what it was, but something told me to watch it.
"Dean, go back," I said.
Father and Son Fight It Out, said the headline in big, bold black letters at the bottom of the screen which also showed an eerily familiar house. Familiar all white house with its brown roof and wraparound porch. The grass on the lawn wasn't as perfectly manicured as when we came, but it wasn't that bad. It was lit up like a birthday cake and there was a lady with a round stomach leaning heavily on the rail with a man patting her shoulder comfortingly.
"Dean," I gasped as the closed polish bottle slipped from my grasp.
"Shh," he said quietly as he turned the volume up.
A brunette whose hair was wind blown wearing a short sleeve dress appeared on the screen. Charlotte  Hamilton flashed under her.
"Tonight, police receive a phone call regarding a father who was being maliciously beaten by his 30-year-old son. The house behind me is the scene from where it went down." She turned toward the house and gestured the man forward.
The man eased his wife down onto a rocking chair and clomped down the stairs to the brunette named Charlotte's side.
"Hello...Mr. Good, right?"
"Call me Tyler," the man said. I laid my head on Dean's back, my head spinning. The left corner of Mr. Good's mouth was busted and he kept moving his jaw around. He also had a cut on his temple and had a bruise in the middle of his forehead. Every time blood trickled from his right nostril, he quickly wiped it away.
"Care to recall what happened before the police arrived on the scene?" Charlotte questioned.
Mr. Good shrugged. "To be honest I don't even know how this started. We were in the living room watching TV and talking and I don't know what I said that made him snap, but next thing you know he just lunged at me. I know my son and he's not the type to blow up at the drop of a dime. I really don't know what happened," Mr. Good told her.
Dean growled at the TV. "You don't know anything about Jackson," he hissed. I rubbed his back comfortingly.
"Thank you for your time, Tyler, and I hope you get better," Charlotte replied before facing the camera. "The son was immediately arrested and is in custody of the Cincinnati Police Department. He's charged with domestic violence."
Dean snapped the TV off. He slid out from under me and started pacing in front of the bed. I stretched my legs out in front of me and removed the cotton balls from my toes. Dean shook his head.
"There's something wrong?" he mumbled more to himself. "Jackson wouldn't do that. That thing must have done something really wrong for Jackson to do that." I bit back the urge to not call his dad "thing". "Aren't we heading to Ohio soon?" he asked me, not looking my way.
I nodded. "We have SmackDown in Cincinnati this Friday," I informed him timidly.
He nodded. "Pack up your things. We're heading out right now."
"What about Roman?" I questioned.
"He can come with us," Dean said as he ripped our suitcases from the closet.
I quickly got off the bed and padded out of the room. "Roman," I said, shaking his shoulder. "Roman, get up."
"What for?" he asked groggily. "What's going on?"
"I'll explain it to you in the car, okay?" I told him gently. "Get up please."
He peeled the blanket away and stuffed his feet in his shoes. He grabbed his two suitcases and duffel from beside the couch and put them by the door. "Is something wrong?" he questioned.
I nodded. "But I promise to fill you in outside," I stated as I went back into the bedroom with Roman following suit.
I slipped my feet into some flip flops as he and Dean took care of the bags. I pulling my hair back into a slick ponytail and grabbed my phone, the room keys, and my nail bag making sure everything was accounted for.
"Ready?" Dean asked.
"Yeah," I answered. "Got our things from the bathroom?"
He nodded. "I put your comb in one of the bags, I can't remember which one," he explained.
"Doesn't matter," I said distractedly, doing a once over for the room. "Okay, let's go."