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He touched the rawest part of my sad little heart.
Lila: Have I mentioned how much I hate you?
Calla: You love us. Now go back to your fake domestic bliss and let us know if anything explodes. Figuratively or otherwise.
18
INADMISSABLE
THEO
Theo wakes to pain.
A dull, throbbing, entirely earned kind that starts behind his eyes and radiates through his skull like a fucking punishment.
His mouth tastes like the remnants of bourbon.
And regret.
His first thought is that he’s an idiot; the second is that Baryn Mayfair should be tried for entrapment.
He rubs at his eyes, wincing as the night replays in fragments—the rules, Baryn’s self-satisfied grin, his own inability to walk away. He’d taken every bait thrown at him, proud and ignorant enough to keep drinking just to prove a point no one was keeping score of.
Well, no one except for Theo.
Lila does something to him. She always has.
She makes him forget himself—makes him act without calculation, without the careful detachment he’s built his life on. With her, everything always seems to go sideways for him. Rational thought goes first, then boundaries, then whatever good sense he has left.
She makes him competitive, defensive, jealous of anyone who can stand near her without feeling the floor shift beneath their feet. She makes him want things he has no business wanting—her laugh, her trust, which he most definitely does not deserve.
It’s inconvenient. Addictive.
He presses the heel of his hand to his brow, willing it all back into order, but it’s useless.
He rolls onto his side, searching for the edge of the bed, and freezes.
Lila’s there. For a moment, through the fog of his hangover, he almost forgot where he was.
She’s on her stomach, hair a messy spill across the pillow, hand tucked under her cheek. The blanket’s pulled halfway up her back, rising and falling with each breath she takes.
Briefly, he forgets to breathe at all, aching to reach out and touch any part of her.
Then the memory shoves its way back into his head—her weight in his lap, her giggles, her small frame steadying him the best it could, her voice somewhere between exasperation and care. And then the words. His words.
Been half in love with you since always.
He shuts his eyes, but it doesn’t help. The room spins, and the longing ache he feels is worse than any hangover.
He could tell himself it doesn’t count, that drunk confessions are exempt from consequence—but that’s a lie, and he’s tired of lying to himself.
He meant it. Every slurred, graceless word.
And the truth is, it didn’t start just recently. It’s been there all along—screaming, persistent, waiting for him to stop pretending he could ignore it.
He sits up carefully, the motion pulling at every strained muscle in his neck. His head throbs in steady protest. He slings his legs over the side of the bed, pausing when the mattress shifts. Lila stirs once, just barely, and he stills until her breathing evens out again.
The floorboards are cold under his feet as he pads to the bathroom. The old door complains on its hinges, and he winces, easing it shut behind him with a quiet click.
