“It’s fine.” A beat, like he could tell I was waiting for more. “Big.”
“Yeah.” I smiled. “It is that.”
Avery was already looking at his phone, scrolling through something, half-present the way he got when practice had run long and his attention was splitting between the immediate conversation and whatever he needed to eat in the next thirty minutes.
“We’re doing drinks tomorrow after practice,” I said. “A few of the guys. Nothing formal. If you want to come, you’re welcome.”
Théo looked at me for a moment. Something moved behind his eyes—consideration, maybe, or the internal calculation of someone deciding how much energy they had available for other human beings.
“Maybe,” he settled on.
If Avery was open and easy, Théo was a closed door with the deadbolt thrown.
“No pressure,” I said, and meant it. “Offer stands either way.”
He gave a single nod and turned back to Avery.
“Ready?”
Avery pocketed his phone. “Yeah. You eat?”
“I had something earlier.”
“Well, I’m starving. We’re stopping somewhere on the way back. Don’t argue with me.”
Something shifted in Théo’s expression—not quite a smile, but the ghost of one. Brief. Almost involuntary. He covered it with an eye roll before it could fully form.
“Fine,” he said.
“See you tomorrow, Sully.”
“Good luck fighting everyone on the Kennedy. Bye, Théo.”
A jerk of his chin. No words. Then he turned toward the garage, Avery trailing after him and already debating whether to eat before IKEA or after.
I watched them go for a beat longer than necessary.
Weird kid, I thought. But not in a bad way. Just… guarded. Like he was bracing for impact even when nothing was coming.
I shook it off and headed for my own car.
6. Théo
The drive to IKEA was long and mostly quiet in the way long drives get when there’s something neither person wants to say first.
Avery tried anyway. He waited until we were on the expressway, Chicago sprawling flat and grey around us, before he cleared his throat in that particular way that meant he’d been rehearsing something.
“Mom’s worried about you.”
“Mom’s always worried about me.”
“Théo—”
“I texted her.”
“You texted her ‘I’m not dead.’”
“That’s the information she needed.”
