Chapter 23
ALEX
I thought this whole boyfriend delusion of Theo’s was just about sex and control, or a weird justification for breaking into my house to fuck me.
It might be those things, but that’s not all it is. He’s definitely sex obsessed, but what he really seems to want from me is affection. I don’t know why I didn’t see it sooner, especially because he’s so insistent about it.
He actually wants me to be his girlfriend.
I can use that to my advantage.
I’ve been pushing Theo so much because I thought the only way out of this situation was him killing me, but I think I found another way out.
He let his guard down with me when I was sweet to him, and I was able to hurt him by rejecting him, so I’m positive that I can use affection to get him to do what I want.
If I can get him comfortable enough that he slips up, I can get away from him. I’ll have to engage with him emotionally and toe the edges of his delusion to get him to let his guard down, and if I can do that without letting my guard down, I can finally get the upper hand here.
That might be hard.
I accidentally let my guard down the other night. Theo was so different and so sweet, it took me completely by surprise. The sex was different, too. It felt like it wasn’t about having sex. It felt like being cared for, in a way.
It was the best sex I’ve ever had.
That’s a problem.
***
“Honey, this is what you want to do with your day? We’ve been in line for almost an hour," Theo says, checking the time on his phone again. I pull my jacket a little tighter and roll my eyes at him.
“You’re free to leave, but you’re not going to, so shut up.” He laughs, shaking his head at me. “The brunch is worth the wait, I promise. They split their hollandaise the last time I was here, though, so maybe avoid the eggs benedict.” Theo gives me an incredulous look.
“You’re being picky about food? Alex, you ate a can of baked beans for dinner on Monday when I went to Salem.
I left you fresh spinach tortellini, but you chose to eat beans, cold beans, out of the fucking can like a cartoon hobo.
” How indignant he is makes me genuinely laugh, which in turn makes him smile at me in a soft, unguarded way.
“I didn’t want to cook. And yes,” I say, catching his disbelieving face, “boiling water for pasta and heating up beans counts as cooking.”
He rolls his eyes. “That’s insane. You’re so lucky I like to cook, especially for you.”
“I guess so,” I say, smiling up at him. His smile becomes more vulnerable as he snakes an arm around my waist and pulls me close, leaning down to kiss me.
I don’t fully lean into him, but I rest my hands against the hard plane of his stomach and kiss him back.
I don’t usually return affection outside of sex, and he notices instantly, grinning at me like he’s won something.
I’ve been working all morning to see how hard it is to get his guard down if I'm sweet to him, and he’s shockingly easy for me to manipulate.
This is perfect.
“Holy shit, Ted? Ted Anderson?”
Theo’s demeanor changes so fast it’s scary.
One second, he’s slouched against the wall of the restaurant, relaxed and leaning in to kiss me again, and the next he’s tense, standing to his full height, his face stony.
I turn around and see a short, thick man with stringy blonde hair walking towards us, waving at Theo.
Theo steps between me and the man, his arm passing across my body and his hand snaking back and resting on the outside of my hip as he shoves me behind him.
He’s so obviously upset that I want to rub his back in reassurance, but I quash the urge.
That’s too much affection.
“Adam.” Theo’s voice is lower and completely flat, and something about this is making me nervous.
“Damn, man, I thought that was you! It’s been forever, how are you?
” Adam reaches out as if he’ll hug Theo, who doesn’t move at all.
Adam puts his arms down awkwardly and sees me looking out from behind Theo and smiles.
“Hey, is this your girl? It’s Ashley, right?
” He shoves his hand out towards me. “I’m Adam. ”
I reach out to shake his hand, but Theo holds me back slightly. I lean forward and shake Adam’s hand anyway, looking up at Theo as he grips my hip and levels me with a scary, warning expression.
Who’s Ashley? I’ve never heard Theo talk about an ex.
Did he stalk her?
Did he kill her?
I look back at Adam and force a smile as I catch his eyes flitting down my body in a way that makes me uneasy.
“Um, hi. I’m Alex.” Adam’s face goes from confusion to embarrassment.
“Oh, sorry about that.”
“It’s fine,” I say, keeping my voice friendly. “How do you two know each other?”
“Theo and I roomed together for a while,” he says pointedly.
“In college?” I shoot Theo another look and see his jaw tense, a muscle in his neck twitching as he glares at Adam. I look between them, confused, and something in Adam’s expression changes as he glances back at Theo.
“New girlfriend?”
“Oh, I’m n-” Theo’s hand grips me tightly, his thumb pressing into my hip bone so hard I think I might bruise, so I nod, digging my nails into Theo’s wrist. “His girlfriend,” I finish, and Theo’s grip on me relaxes, his thumb stroking over my skin in quiet approval.
“It’s new,” Theo says with a weird, tense emphasis on the word. Adam’s mouth twitches up at the corners.
“So, she doesn’t -”
“No,” Theo says in a low, harsh tone of voice before clearing his throat.
“Excuse us,” he says, his voice cold and forcibly polite.
“Sweetheart, let’s go.” Theo wraps a tense arm around my shoulders and starts pushing me away from the restaurant, keeping his body between me and Adam.
I let him steer me up the street as I look back at Adam, who looks at me with narrowed eyes, his flat expression making my skin crawl.
When I look up at Theo, he looks furious.
“Who’s he?”
“Stop asking questions for ten fucking seconds and walk,” he hisses. I don’t like this situation or the way he’s speaking to me, so I stop dead. He almost pushes me over from how hard he’s trying to make me move, and he's so tense he's shaking.
I need to get him to calm down.
“Theo, what’s happening? You’re scaring me,” I say, keeping my voice soft as I gently pull his arm off me.
He stops, his whole body rigid as he looks up at the sky and exhales harshly through his teeth.
He turns towards me slowly, angrier than I’ve ever seen him as he grabs my shoulders and bends down to get his face closer to my eye level.
“Alexandria, sweetie, I need you to get in the fucking car, okay?” His eyes are wide and he’s speaking slowly through clenched teeth, and I can tell he’s trying to manage his anger, but it actually makes him scarier.
I want to be anywhere other than near him right now, but he doesn’t wait for me to respond before he places his arm around my shoulders again and drags me up the street.
Once we’re in the car, Theo runs his hands through his hair and swears under his breath as he drives away quickly.
The tension inside the car is so thick it makes my shoulders start to curl in on themselves, and I sink down in my seat, leaning against the door and staying quiet as we navigate onto the freeway, immediately winding up in bumper-to-bumper traffic.
Theo swears under his breath and leans over to open the glove compartment, pulling something out quickly.
“Honey, can you look at me for a second?”
It’s a mistake.
The second I look at him, he grabs the wrist closest to him and snaps a handcuff around it, quickly placing the other one on his wrist, and I scream, starting to panic.
“What the fuck, Theo?” I jerk my wrist away, but he grabs my hand, forcing his fingers through mine and pulling our entwined, locked hands towards him.
“I need to talk to you.”
“You can’t do it without fucking handcuffs?”
He grimaces. “I don’t know. Can you calm down for a second?”
“No! You flipped your shit and handcuffed me after I met your friend!” Theo barks out a harsh laugh.
“We’re not friends,” he spits. “I fucking hate that guy. He’s a real piece of shit, you have no idea.
I had to deal with him for two years, and they were the longest two years of my life.
He never shut the fuck up, and I wanted to beat the shit out of him constantly.
” He makes a disgusted sound in the back of his throat before he takes a deep breath. “We were cellmates,” he says quickly.
I freeze, looking over at him with wide eyes.
“Like in jail?” He shoots me a worried look out of the corner of his eye as he squeezes my hand.
“Um, more like prison,” he says quietly, “because I was in prison for nine years.” I stare at him, panic welling up inside of me.
"Why?" I ask quietly, leaning away from him.
“Sweetheart, listen to me, okay? In college, I had this girlfriend, Ashley. We were together for almost a year before she broke up with me,” he says quickly, squeezing my hand so hard it hurts.
Oh my god, he did kill his ex.
“When she broke up with me, she said it was so she could focus on getting into med school. I assumed she was just overwhelmed with classes and her internship, and I thought we’d get back together once she saw that she didn’t have to give up our relationship to get into med school.
I tried to show her that, but she started avoiding me, and then she filed this bullshit restraining order.
When I went to talk to her about it, I found out that we were on very different pages about our relationship,” he says, his voice slowing and getting terse.
Hasn’t he told me we’re on different pages?
Oh, fuck.