A bubble of anxiety rose into Audrey’s throat. Everything in his bathroom was so nice and clean and sparkling white, and here she was, barreling into it all, mascara dripping down her face with her garbage dress falling apart. And Theo just stood there, equally dripping in his expensive, ruined suit because she’d asked him to go out with her tonight.
“What about you? You’re s-soaked too. You’ll need to sh-shower to warm up, right?”
Theo froze. She couldn’t see his face, but the tips of his ears poking through his dark hair turned bright red.
“Shower?!” His voice cracked. “I’ll, um—d-don’t worry about me, sweetheart.” He huffed a laugh and straightened to face her, rubbing a hand awkwardly along the back of his neck. “I’ll—I’ve got another, um—an-another bathroom. Two others, actually. One’s even down in my studio.” His eyes widened and he began to sputter. “Oh shit.THE STUDIO. Please don’t go down there. Don’t go down into the basement at all.” He held up his hands, almost defensively. “It’s an absolute mess and I don’t want you getting hurt or anything. Glass everywhere, and uh…well, I have some pretty dangerous equipment, and I—I’ll just…meet you back in the living room when you’re done.” He motioned toward the vanity and the shower. “Help yourself. Use whatever—whatever you want.” The rest of his face turned red, and he backed slowly out of the bathroom. “T-tea or hot chocolate?” he asked again.
Audrey tilted her head curiously at him. Now he was acting stranger than usual all of a sudden. “Hot chocolate?”
“Great. I will…make that. For you.” Theo turned and limped away, and Audrey poked her head through the doorway to watch him dart back downstairs before slowly shutting the bathroom door behind her.
Theo’s shower was the most heavenly thing she’d ever experienced, like something straight out of a luxury spa, and she took her time warming up under the scalding hot water. Hers at home always took a good five minutes at least to warm up, and the water pressure was never quite strong enough to actually rinse everything out of her hair. Theo’s was practically a high-pressure massage in comparison, and Audrey moaned as the jets from multiple shower heads pounded against her back and scalp, easing all the tension out of her shoulders. She closed her eyes and leaned into it before using some of Theo’s bath products, all of which were in thick glass bottles labeled in a foreign language.
Not that she’d ever thought he was the kind of guy who just used hand soap as shampoo or something, but this did seem to explain how his hair was so good—at least in part, anyway. Hers felt like silk by the time she turned off the shower and reached for a towel, which was thick and fluffy and warm, heated by the rack Theo had placed it on for her.
A built-in towel warmer? Heated ceramic tile? Multiple floors? No discernible roommates?!
What was this?
How richwasTheo, exactly?
Audrey paused at the thought, teetering on the verge of panic. She was beginning to feel completely out of her depth when she reached for the pile of clothes Theo had brought her to choose from. And then she smiled.
Just beneath the faded, worn Columbia Lacrosse T-shirt and massive pair of matching navy sweatpants was a familiar black hoodie, soft and fleecy and perfectly broken in. She held it to her nose and inhaled deeply, letting Theo’s warm, woodsy scent wash over her. It did make her feel better.
He’d already shown her who he was. He’d visited herapartment, knew where she worked, saw where she studied. Theo didn’t seem to care in the slightest that she didn’t have much to her name.
Why should she care that hedid?
By the time she padded back downstairs, clad in Theo’s massive clothes with his hoodie hanging down almost to her knees like a dress and his sweatpants rolled at least four times at the waist, he was standing in the kitchen, stirring chocolate milk on the stove with a slight furrow to his brow. His dark hair was freshly re-wetted and curling around his jaw, and gray sweatpants printed with “Columbia” along the leg were slung low on his waist. A black long-sleeved T-shirt stretched precariously tight across his broad chest, revealing far more defined muscle than he’d let her see before, and Billie Holiday crooned from a record spinning in a retro player in the living area. Rain still pelted the floor-to-ceiling windows, smattering hard against the glass while thunder rumbled in the distance, lightning occasionally flashing across the cityscape.
It didn’t look like the storm was letting up anytime soon.
Audrey shuffled into the kitchen in Theo’s thick socks and put her arms around his waist, burying her face in his side.
“Warmed up now?” he asked, his voice rumbling deep as he slid an arm around her and pulled her closer. She nodded and felt him chuckle. “Better?” She nodded again. She did feel a lot better. “Good.” He pressed a kiss to the top of her head before taking the pot off the stove and pouring it into two waiting mugs with his left hand. He topped them off with some whipped cream and picked one up, but stilled and stared at the remaining mug with his right hand outstretched.
It hovered there, trembling, and he screwed up his face in concentration when he tried to grasp the ceramic cup between his fingertips, clearly trying to will his hand to stop shaking. “Come on,” he whispered to himself, his voice so low she almost didn’t hear him. “Come on.”
But his fingers couldn’t hold the mug steady, and when he tried to lift it away from the counter, the hot chocolate nearly spilled over the sides from his tremor. He set it down quickly and tried again with the handle. But when the same thing happened a second time, he put both mugs down and glanced at her, despair clouding his expression.
His shoulders slumped, and Theo stepped back sharply from the counter, covering his eyes with both hands. His chest heaved.
It looked like he was trying not to cry.
“Hey.” Audrey stepped over and pulled his hands down. As soon as he caught her eye, he closed his and faced away from her.
“I can’t even hold a fuckingmugright now without spilling everywhere and making a mess. I’m a disaster.”
“Theo. Look at me.” She slid her hands up along the sides of his neck to cradle his cheeks. They were smooth, like he’d just shaved, and he wasn’t wearing the silicone scar tape. He’d scrubbed the paint away from his scar, and it was redder than it had been before.
Everything about him right now was stripped bare and rendered raw.
He shook his head.
“I hate myself. I hate that I’m like this—that I’m so broken.”
“Don’t say that, Theo. I like you the way you are.”
