“I can get Linda or Lacey to walk me.I’m only a couple blocks away.Or ask Callan to hang around.”
“Or I can meet you out front when you’re done,” Theo replies, his thumb rubbing gently against my pulse point.“And we can go somewhere, and I can tell you what a complete idiot I’ve been, beg your forgiveness, and explain where my head is at.”
My eyelashes flutter like my heart.And all I can do is nod.
Chapter28
Lola
Ispend the rest of the night trying to enjoy the show, but I’m ridiculously aware of Theo’s presence.We don’t talk again, and I make a point of avoiding him.Like right now, he’s standing over by some of the larger pieces on the left wall, and I’m hiding by the charcuterie table on the other side of the room.I mean, not hiding, but making sure we aren’t running out of anything.Yeah.It’s work, not cowardice.
“Do I need to hit him?”Callan’s voice cuts into my thoughts.I glance over, and he’s walking toward me from the other end of the small table, but he stops in front of a plate of various cubed hard cheeses.His eyes survey the food as he continues to talk.“Because I’ve been letting you two sort your shit out, but nothing seems to be getting resolved.So I can hit him if you want.Now or later or at practice.Whatever.Just say the word.”
I stare at him as he spears a piece of old cheddar with a toothpick and pops it in his mouth.Then he does the same with a piece of Emmental.When he starts aiming his toothpick at a piece of Comte, before he’s even swallowed the Emmental, I step forward and swat his hand away.“Stop eating all the cheese, and no, I don’t need you to hit your teammate.”
Callan’s eyes lock on mine.“He’s just a teammate.You’re my sister, and I don’t like how hurt you seem.”
I smile at him, because Callan trying to be a protective brother is kind of cute.“He asked to talk to me later.”
“Is that good?”Callan asks and tries to lower his toothpick into another piece of cheese, but I swat his hand again.“You can tell him to fuck off.You gave Ryan way too many chances, and I don’t want you to make the same mistake.”
I raise an eyebrow.“You think Theo is like Ryan?”
He seems to really consider that as he finally turns his back on the food and looks out into the thinning crowd.The show is ending in the next half hour, so a lot of people have already gone home.Callan’s eyes land on his linemate.Theo is nodding as Grady gestures and talks about something.He looks our way for a second as if he can feel our eyes on him.He gives me a flash of a smile before focusing on Grady again.
“No.I don’t think he’s anything like Ryan.But that doesn’t mean he’s good for you.”Callan sighs and takes a small sip of the white wine in the plastic wine glass he’s holding.“Theo is complicated, and you’ve had a lot of complicated things happening to you.Like the whole… uterus thing.And then the Pete thing.And maybe you deserve something uncomplicated.”
I stare at him as he tugs at the collar of his button-down.“Being with him didn’t feel complicated at all.It was the best I’ve felt in a while.”
His gaze shifts to mine.“But yet you guys aren’t together.”
“I know.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” I reply, but I think I do know.I think it’s because of the “uterus thing” as Callan so eloquently put it earlier.
I can’t shake the feeling that, no matter what Theo says, that factored into it.His mom talked about wanting grandkids.He feels like he owes his mom after they stood by him with the roof debacle.And I mean, kids are a long way off when you start dating someone, but if you know you want them, why invest any time into someone who can never give them to you?
It’s been my deepest fear since this happened to me that I would be rejected because of it.That I was now defective and unlovable.I take a deep, shaky breath.Callan is still watching me.“I really will punch him, Lo.”
“No.He’s… no.”
“Do you want me to go with you while you talk to him?In case he needs to be punched?”
I laugh.“Stop with the punching offers.”
He grins, and he’s full of that boyish charm women seem to love.“Sorry.I’m hangry, and you cut off my cheese supply.”
I glance at the charcuterie and back at the crowd, which is even thinner than a minute ago.“Fine, pillage my cheese supply.”
I watch as he gleefully spears another cube.
It’s another hour before I’ve tidied up enough, with Linda’s help, that I can leave.I grab my coat and bag and call goodbye to Lacey.She pops her head out of the office.“Do you need me to walk you to your car?”
I glance out the plate-glass window by the door.Theo is sitting on a bench across the street.He’s probably half frozen, but he waited.I shake my head at Lacey.“No.I have someone waiting.”
Her gaze shifts toward the window again, and she smiles.“Bedroom eyes, huh?I told you.”
