Kayleigh was a quirky dance and government double major, a total crunchy vegan hippie with swinger parents who owned a hemp farm in upstate Vermont. Tonight, she was dressed head to toe in various shades of brown and covered in leaves. They were real, all of them orange and gold and red, attached to wires and woven over her shoulders and along her arms and in her swirling golden hair.
She moved like chaos incarnate, and the leaves shivered in the breeze she seemed to generate.
“Hey, lady!” she called over the music as they approached. “Wow, look at you, wearing makeup for once.” The tiny blonde shot double finger guns at her. “Let me guess: Studio 54 newspaper, and—” She pointed them next at Theo. “Jazz mummy?”
He made a pained, high-pitched noise in his throat, and Audrey strangled a laugh. “Fifty Shades of Greyand the Invisible Man.”
“Ah, very cheeky. I like it. But your tall drink of water doesn’t look so invisible to me.” Kayleigh raised an eyebrow at him and put her hands on her hips.
Audrey was almost glad Theo had put his sunglasses back on. She didn’t need to see his eyes to know what sort of look he was giving Kayleigh right now. “It’s an old film reference. I’m sure you’d see right through him if you unwrapped the gauze.”
“That sounds like a good time. Who’s under there, anyway? Who’d you bring?”
“Oh! Uh, this is, um—he’s my—” She hesitated for a second. They hadn’t discussed this, and—
“I’m her boyfriend.” He held out his hand. “Theo.”
Audrey’s heart leapt into her throat.
She didn’t know how badly she’d wanted him to be until he said it.
And she’d had no idea he’d say it at all, and with such confidence too.
She swallowed thickly. A wild thrill had just coursed through her entire body.
It was like she’d been struck by lightning.
“Boyfriend, huh?” Kayleigh shook his hand before turning and punching Audrey in the shoulder, breaking her out of her shock. “You’ve been holding out on me, Audible! I didn’t know you had a boyfriend!”
Theo slid an arm around her waist and tucked her comfortably into his side.
It was like she’d been made to fit him perfectly.
“It’s…new.” She was certain her face was on fire. Kayleigh opened her mouth to ask what was undoubtedly another question, but Audrey pointed at the leaves surrounding the club president’s head. “So are you…Mother Nature?”
Kayleigh’s face lit up, and she tossed her arms above her head and twirled dramatically. “I’m the Spirit of Autumn,” she said, landing in fourth position and following it with a deep bow. “But you were close. The vibes were right.” She grabbed Audrey and shoved her toward the food table in the corner with a wicked glint in her eye. “How about you and yourboyfriendTheohelp clean up? We have to be out of here in twenty before custodial comes in.”
They glanced at each other when Kayleigh left them to go talk to some of the other officers, and Theo removed his sunglasses. “I’m…really sorry about that,” he muttered. What little of his face she could see beneath the bandages was beet red, and he rubbed the back of his neck anxiously. “About the boyfriend thing. I know we haven’t discussed it, but you looked so flustered, and I didn’t want you to feel—”
“I want you to be my boyfriend.” She could hardly stop thewords from tumbling breathlessly out of her lips, and the second they did, he froze. “I’d love to be your girlfriend.”
“You would?” he breathed, his eyes widening in disbelief when Audrey nodded.
She glanced down at her elbow. He’d pocketed his gloves a while ago, and his bare fingertips were busy gently stroking her there, as if he couldn’t bear to not be touching her somewhere while they talked. No matter how calm he’d been earlier, he was nervous now. She could see it in his eyes, that flash of fear and doubt he so often wore around her.
“You don’t think it’s too early for me to ask? I can wait if you need me to, I pro—”
He quieted when she reached up to put both hands on the sides of his face. She slipped her fingers beneath some of the folds of the gauze, flipping them up and pushing them gently aside to reveal his mouth. Theo’s breath shuddered when her fingertips grazed against his lips, and his chest rose and fell heavily beneath her palms when she dropped her hands there.
Audrey shook her head, a weak, trembling smile breaking through the self-doubt she was desperately trying to hold in check.
The last time she’d hoped someone might want the title, he’d thrown her away like trash. And not for the first time either. In many ways, shewastrash. She was nothing, and no one terribly important.
But…
Theo didn’t seem to think so.
He never made her feel like anything less than a treasure.
