“He’s a good kid. Kind. Too good for this.” Her gaze sharpened. “Don’t fuck him over.”
I flinched like she’d hit me. “We’re not?—”
She cut me off, disapproval entrenched in her tone. “I might be old, but I’m not blind—yet. He talks to me, you know.” Tension locked my muscles up tight, and I took a step back, making her scoff. “I know who you are, but that’s not the point,” she said flippantly. “He likes you and if you can’t give him what he deserves, then walk away before you hurt him anymore.”
She slammed shut the door in my face before I could respond. I stared at it, her words wrapping around me like barbed wire. Until my gaze dropped to the floor where my shoes scuffed the old carpet.
A sticky note was stuck to the mat. The handwriting was harsh, scrawled like he’d been shaking when he wrote it.
I’m not your secret, Theo. Not anymore. You want this? Want me? Prove it.
Or leave me alone.
His words gutted me. Something inside me shattered. I slid down the wall, cradling my head in my hands, and sat there long after the hallway had gone quiet.
Home felt like a modern mausoleum.Cold. Lifeless. The lights were set on warm, but it did nothing to ease the chill that had settled into my bones. Winston blinked at me from the stairs, tail flicking once in disdain before disappearing. Even my cat had stopped waiting for me to show up.
I sank onto the edge of the couch in the formal living room, still in my dress shoes, elbows on my knees, staring at nothing. I pulled out my phone again like an addict unable to quit and hit the call button on his contact. One more call. Just one more try, but it went straight to voicemail.
Emotion pricked the back of my eyes as a wave of exhaustion crashed over me. My body ached, every muscle strung too tight. My chest felt like a hollow shell. I scrolled through my contacts. Dozens of names: lawyers, family associates, assistants, clients.
Not one of them was a friend I could just call and talk to about this. Everyone in there served a purpose. They were dispensable. There was no one in my corner. The closest thing I had to a friend was Winston but even he’d had enough of me.
My only exception was Sin. That first night we’d met flashed through my mind. The way my body came alive in his presence. How he had this magnetic draw; he was the kind of person who’d never met a stranger.
The silence rang louder than a scream. My head throbbed, my chest felt too tight, and something deep in me that Sin had slowly pieced back together started to fray. The life I’d been bred for, been groomed for, was a gilded cage. People thought money made you happy, but I was proof that was a lie.
The one thing I craved was slipping through my fingers like ash. I buried my face in my hands as the first tears fell. I couldn’t keep being what my father wanted me to be. Not when it cost me everything. I just wanted to fall into his arms and be free. But I wasn’t sure I’d survive what I’d have to do to get there.
Thalia toldme where he’d gone after I’d spent hours at the lookout waiting like a fool, hoping he’d show. After a hundred calls that had gone to voicemail, I should’ve taken the hint. I’d sat through the dying light, through dusk, through the cold bite of night air, but he never came.
I found him at the old community basketball court near the edge of the city. The one where the streetlights buzzed like static in your skull, and the air always smelled like wet asphalt and regret.
He was alone. A half-empty bottle of vodka sat by his boot, the red ember of his cigarette pulsing like a warning flare. His elbows were braced on his knees, shoulders bowed under the weight he never should’ve carried alone. His jaw was tight. Set like concrete.
“Sin,” I breathed, like his name alone could tether us back together.
He glanced up at the sound of my voice. His eyes didn’t soften when they landed on me. They sharpened.
“You don’t get to say my name like that,” he said, his voice cold enough to make me flinch.
“I’m sorry?—”
“No,” he snapped, rising to his feet in a fluid, furious motion. “You don’t get to be sorry. Not anymore. You don’t get to keep showing up after letting me down again, bleeding out these half-assed apologies like they’re worth something.”
I stepped closer despite the fire in his voice. “Sin, please. Just let me explain?—”
“Explain?” he laughed bitterly. “Explain what? That I’m just your dirty little secret? That I only exist in the cracks between the life you parade around in front of the cameras?”
“You’re not,” I choked out, but it sounded like a lie.
“Then what am I, Theo?” His voice broke on my name—cracked down the middle. “Tell me. What am I when your father calls? When she’s on your arm at those parties in your perfect fucking suits, with your perfect fucking life? What am I?”
“You know it’s not like that?—”
“Do I?” he stepped in, his body shaking with rage. “Because it sure as hell feels like that. I’m tired of being treated like this, Theo. I’m tired of being the ache you keep hidden. I want to be real. I want to beimportant to you.”
I swallowed, heart hammering. “You are. You’ve always been?—”
