“How are you doing with the medication?” I asked warily. Theo’s brows pinched slightly and he pursed his lips in thought.
“It’s weird, but…okay, I think? It was hell on my body for the first couple of weeks, but I’ve actually smoothed out faster than the other times, which is good.”
I hesitated, not wanting to wreck a good evening so far, but I had to know. “And you haven’t had…umm, anybadthoughts, have you?”
“No, I haven’t,” he smiled softly. “I know it probably won’t always be like this, but I feel good right now. Really good. I don’t feel like I’m fighting through quicksand like before. I feel like myself again.”
“Really? You’re not just saying that?”
Theo gripped my hand resting between us, electric pulses zipping up my arm at the contact.
“I promise that if or when things change and I start feeling off again, I will tell you. I won’t hide that side of me from you ever again.”
His intense stare pierced through me, making my brain glitch as I got lost in his liquid blues. I was faintly aware that Theo was still holding my hand, his thumb smoothing over my pulse point that was beating erratically from his proximity.
Theo’s phone chimed with an alert, breaking whatever spell I was caught in. He stood and went to grab the food that’d been delivered. All I could do was sit there and convert oxygen into carbon dioxide, fighting to find even two functioning brain cells that would keep me from jumping his bones.
We queued up some action movie as we ate that I could barely focus on. Just like the weekend of our movie marathon,my attention caught on every tiny movement and sound that Theo made, but without the cover of a darkened room.
His damned scent wafted over to me every few seconds and I got the urge to rub against him until I was marked with his smell. He seemed infuriatingly unaffected by me again, just watching the movie, chill as could be. I let out a slow, deep breath, trying to get control of myself before I did something immensely stupid.
Like beg him to fuck me over the back of the couch. Or on the floor. Or on the kitchen counter. You know, for old times sake.
“You’re staring,” he murmured, mimicking my words from that night.
“Sorry,” I rushed out as heat flooded my face.
One of his brows quirked up and he smirked at me, siphoning the air from my lungs. Fuck, he was gorgeous. He had only seemed to grow more attractive in the years he’d been gone, more devastating to my senses. I idly wondered what he’d look like in twenty years, or thirty. Would I even be around to find out?
Theo’s phone vibrated with a text on the table in front of us. His brows furrowed as he unlocked it, his fingers flying across the screen to type out a response.
“What’s that about?” My mouth formed the words before my brain caught up and I winced internally. “Wait, never mind. That’s not my business. I’m sorry.”
“Dawson, it’s okay. I don’t mind telling you.”
“No, it’s not. That’s...I have no right being nosy like that.”
“I don’t see it like that and I’m not going to keep secrets anymore,” he said firmly. “It was Corvin.”
Icy dread slid down my spine and I did my best to smooth out my features. “Oh? What did he want?”
“He asked me to go out with him and some friends tonight.”
I wonder how much it would cost Dad to bail me out after I break Corvin’s spine during practice tomorrow?
The burger I ate suddenly felt heavy and sour in my stomach. I couldn’t place Theo’s tone and how he felt about Corvin’s invitation. My chest thudded uncomfortably and I dug my nails into my palms, the small bite of pain doing nothing to ground me.
“Gotcha. Well, that’s, um…that’s cool. He’s, you know, a good guy and you’ll have fun together.”
“Do you really mean that?”
“Sure. Why not?”
Theo didn’t answer and a cold sweat broke out on the back of my neck. My gaze was riveted to the TV, praying I looked calm on the outside while a fucking hurricane tore through my chest. Theo leaned back and draped an arm on the couch behind my shoulders. I barely held back from launching myself to the other side of the room, so I didn’t sink into him and let him hold me while I fell to pieces inside.
“Hmm…it’s a shame you mean that because I told him no.”
I whipped my head toward him so fast my neck popped painfully. “You what?”
