Behind Her Smile

Chapter Twenty One

Chapter Twenty One: To Tie A Tie

"I still don’t see why I have to wear a suit." Ro grumbles as he tries to figure out how to tie his tie. The dance wasn't for tomorrow, but Sofia wanted to make sure he was ready. She is really a great friend. "And why cant I just wear a clip on?"

"Clip on ties are for boys and suits are for when who are going after the one they love." Sofia frowns as she slaps his hands. "Give me that. You are just wrinkling it." She unties it from his neck and readjusts the ends so they are even.

"You know how to tie a tie?" Ro asks in interest.

Sofia smiles a sad smile. "Yeah. It became a necessity after the years."

"What do you mean?" he asks and Sofia looks up at him.

She stills suddenly and the look in her eyes in indecipherable. Ro didn't seem to notice how close their faces are, but Sofia did. She blushes and looks at her hands as she finishes to tie and she tightens it around his neck. She steps back right after.

"Does it seem alright?" she asks trying to change the subject. Ro doesn’t notice and she sees him smiling at the mirror.

"Wow! You’re right. I do look good. I hope Dex thinks the same for the dance tomorrow." He mutters the last part self-consciously as he tries to push his gelled hair down.

Sofia frowns. She wishes Ro could see how much of a gem he really is. He is cute, not drop dead handsome, but he has a great heart and most times that is better. He knows how to treat a woman right. "If she doesn’t, then she is blind."

Ro looks at her with a half-smile. "Thanks, Sofia. Or should I say Gracias, Sofia."

Sofia laughs and shakes her head. "Come on. Let's practice what you are going to say to Dex."

Ro nods.

................

"Nice place." Dex mutters as they come in.

Rosie winces. "Sorry about the mess. I told Kit to clean up before he left for class, but obviously I was ignored." Rosie shoots a glare at Kit and he just looks at Dex with a blush.

Dex normally would have smiled and teased him until he turned into a tomato, but she didn't even crack a smile. How could she when she didn't even know if her family is okay? "It's fine. When can we start?" She asks Rosie.

Dex eyes widen in surprise when she hears Kit answer. "Right now. I just need the phone number." Dex exchanges a look to Rosie who just smirks.

"Its like Clark Kent and Superman. As soon as he talks about computers, he loses his shyness. It's kind of his superpower."

Kit just rolls his eyes and Dex takes the phone out of her pocket. "It's in here. You will have to turn it on." Dex didn't care if Axel knew her location, he already found out where she went to school and he already had gotten to her family. She wasn't going to wait until he catches her.

Kit turns it on.

Rosie clears her throat and she points to her phone in her hand. "I’m going to be right back. I just need to take a phone call."

"Okay." Dex says and Rosie disappears into what Dex assumes is her room.

Kit goes to his bag to turn on his computer while he waits for the phone to turn on. For the first time since Dex met him, he looks her into the eye. "I can get the location of the cell phone tower and use that to get last known location of the phone. But of course there are no guarantees it will work."

"Of course not." Dex says, but she crosses her fingers.

Her phone turns on and she grabs it to get the phone number. She recites it for Kit and he types it into his computer.

"Did you get anything?"

"Let me work."

Dex shoots him a dirty look, which he did not see because he wasn't looking at her. "Fine then." Dex sits on the couch and she nervously begins to braid and unbraid her hair. She just couldn’t keep still.

After a few minutes, Rosie reenters the room and sits besides Dex. She grabs Dex's hand and squeezes it. "Dex? What aren’t you telling us? Is someone stalking you?"

Dex purses her lips. She hasn’t told anyone about Axel, even her family don’t know all the details. She promised Ro she would tell him some day and the first one to hear her story will be Ro. After Axel is no longer a threat in her life, she will tell him everything. But Right now, she wasn't ready, so she lies. "Yes. That is exactly what is happening. I thought someone was following me and I think that same person is sending me weird messages." Not completely a lie, but neither was it completely the truth. She omitted the part that she knew who is sending her the messages.

Rosie looks at Kit for a second before turning . "That's scary to think about. Do you know why someone would do that? Do you know who?"

Dex bites her lip. "No, I don’t." She doesn’t look at anybody as she says that, she looks at her hands.

"Dex-"

Kit interrupts her. "I can't find a location. It must have been from a burner phone or something equally untraceable."
Her shoulders slump as she feels all the breath seep out of her. Dex's head falls and she lets it rest on her clasped hands.

She feels a hand on her back. "I’m sorry, Dex. Maybe we should tell the police and let them deal with it."

Dex shakes her head. "No police." The last time she had called the police on Axel, he had sent her a picture of the body bags. She wasn't going to have the deaths of innocents on her hands.

"But Dex-" Rosie protests.

"No police." Dex sits up and looks at Rosie in the eye. "I am not having police know about this. Promise me you wont call them."

There is a strong silence.

"You can't be serious. What if you get hurt?"

Dex doesn’t waver. "Then I deal with the consequences. Promise me you wont tell anyone."

Rosie doesn’t look happy about it, but she promises. Dex sticks her pink out and Rosie links it with hers.

Dex looks at Kit, and he looks away from Dex while holding his hand to her. She smiles slightly and links her other pinky with his. "Now you can break your promises."

Dex looks at Kit. "Is there another way to track the cell phone?" She didn't want to give up. She didn't want to be a sitting duck that could be taken by the tiger whenever he pleases. She had to find a way to be one step ahead of him.

Kit looks at his screen. "I won't be able to do anything unless the stalker contacts you again with a phone I can trace."

Dex purses her lips. Axel did contact her again. She called him and he answered. "What if I contacted him?"

Kit looks at her with wide eyes. "Why would you contact him?"

Dex bites her lip again. "I didn't know it was him. It was an unknown number, but I called it. Can you trace that?"

"I can try. What is the number?"

Dex sits up and sits next to Kit. He stiffens, but he begins to relax when Dex tells him her family's number. He types it into his computer and presses enter. It is a long shot, but maybe he still has the phone with him.

It is a long wait for the impatient Dex. Rosie offers to make everybody some hot cocoa and all three gather on the coffee table to sip. Neither speak to each other.

But then the computer dings and all three run to the computer.

Dex is the first to speak, her voice thick with disbelief and despair. "It didn't worked."

................

With adrenaline blocking his brain to talk some sense to him, he knocks on the door and waits.

He moves a hand through his hair to make sure his hair isn’t sticking up and then he brings it down so both hands are clutching the plastic wrapping of the bouquet of flowers. Sunflowers. Because Dex says they remind her of how she always follows the sun, even when she is trapped in darkness.

In retrospect, that is a little morbid.

When the door doesn’t open, Ro starts to second guess himself. Is this the right door? He nearly face palms himself. Of course this is the right door. And she has to be home. The lights are on.

Ro knocks on the door again with more force. He isn’t leaving, and he is not just saying that just because his legs are started to feel numb from standing for too long.

The door opens and Ro's smile drops. "Stefan? What are doing here?" Ro hadn’t seen Stefan since he threw a mop at his face. Since he said that he didn't deserve Dex. Speaking of which, "Where's Dex?" Ro asks. Is this the date Stefan was talking about? The one that Dex agreed to?

No, Dex would have told him about it. Right?

"Roman?" He looks him up and down and a smirk grows on his face as he takes in his suit and flowers. "Are you going to ask Dex to the dance? Well it's too late. She already said yes to me." He says smugly.

Ro shakes his head. "No. She’s not like that." Why would go on a date with him? She hasn’t gone on a single date since Ro has known her. Why would she agree to suddenly go on a date with Stefan.

He pushes Stefan out of the way.  "Hey!" Ro ignores him as he steps inside the apartment.  "Dex!"

"Ro?" She is on the couch and Ro could see she is putting on high heels. He stops in his tracks. She is beautiful. She had curled her hair so it falls in soft waves down to her waist. She is wearing a wine red dress that is floor length and matching red lipstick.

She is perfect.

As soon as the thought touches his mind, his mind reminds him that she dressed up for Stefan, not him. The thought is like a punch to his gut. He averts his eyes. It hurts to even look at her.

Stefan grabs his shoulder with an angry expression on his face. "Get out, Roman. You aren’t welcomed here." He starts pushing Ro towards the door, but Ro shoves him back.

Dex stands up from the couch. "Stefan, stop it!"

Both of them look at Dex who glares back. She walks towards Ro and puts a hand on his cheek. "Ro, what are you doing here?" She looks at his suit and towards the flowers questionably before looking back at him. He pulls the flowers behind his back.

Ro felt humiliated. He shouldn’t come here. He should have known he wouldn't be able to compete with someone like Stefan. Dex hadn’t made any inclination she wanted to have a relationship with him other than friends.

He pulls back from Dex's touch. "It doesn’t matter. I was just a stupid fool."

"Ro?" Dex tries to grab his hand, but he steps back and turns towards the door. He couldn’t even bear to see Stefan's smug smirk, so he keeps his head down as he leaves through the front door and doesn’t look back.

11/5/18