Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Cameron
I sat up straighter. “Of course.”
Theo stood with his hands in the pockets of his joggers, his shoulders slanted. His hair was slightly mussed, as though he’d run his fingers through it too many times.
He looks tired.
Theo stepped into the room but didn’t sit or move closer to me. He expelled a long, shuddering breath.
“I shouldn’t have reacted that way.” There was a stiffness to his words. “It wasn’t about you.” Theo’s jaw clenched. “I… wasn’t expecting it. The touch. I was working and—”
“I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” I said in a low voice. “Honestly.”
“You didn’t,” Theo said, too quickly. I arched my eyebrows, and Theo winced at his own contradiction. “I mean, you didn’t do anything wrong. It was my reaction. My fault.”
I curled my fingers around the edge of my sketchbook. “It didn’t feel like that.”
Theo shut his eyes for a second. “I don’t know how to—” Those last few words felt like broken glass.
I leaned forward. “Theo… it’s okay if something scared you.”
Theo’s posture tightened like wire pulled too quickly, and I knew I’d made the wrong move.
“I wasn’t scared.” Theo’s voice was sharp. “I just didn’t expect—” He broke off, his expression going blank, shutting down in real time.
I recognised it instantly for what it was, the emotional equivalent of a door closing, quiet and polite, but final. I tried again, my voice gentle.
“Theo, you don’t have to explain everything tonight. But if you want to talk—”
“I don’t want to talk.”
I winced at Theo’s cool tone, and regret flashed in Theo’s eyes the second he said it. I held my gaze, steady and patient.
“Okay.” I kept my voice calm, but I wasn’t about to withdraw. “But don’t push me away because of something I didn’t do.”
Theo stilled. “I’m not pushing you away.”
“You are. You’ve been doing it since I arrived. Okay, not all the time, but pretty damn close to it.”
Theo’s breath hitched, but he covered the reaction with a shrug so small it barely registered.
“I’m trying.”
“I know,” I replied. “But you’re trying to hold everything inside instead of letting me in.”
Theo’s shoulders tensed. “It’s not your responsibility—”
“I never said it was,” I murmured. “But I care. And I’m not the enemy here.” Theo paled, and I softened instantly. “Theo, I didn’t mean—”
Theo was already stepping back, not in anger, but more like a wounded animal retreating out of reach.
“I’m going to bed.” The words were quiet and tight. “Thank you for listening. I just… I can’t do this right now.”
I nodded once. It was the only thing I could do that wouldn’t push Theo further away. “Goodnight.”
Theo hesitated in the doorway, and I wondered if there was more to come.
“Goodnight.” Then he turned and went back into his room.
I picked up my sketchbook, my hands trembling.
What hurt was the look in Theo’s eyes when I said I’m not the enemy.
I had an idea who’d taught Theo that closeness was dangerous. Theo had already named him.
Luka.
I’m not giving up. I’m not going to run away.
I wasn’t going to let one bad moment erase everything we’d been building. But that evening had made something very, very clear.
If I wanted Theo, I’d have to fight the ghosts as much as the man. And I wasn’t afraid of ghosts, not if it meant getting to Theo.
I stood and began the task of unfolding my bed.
Tomorrow, then. I’ll try again tomorrow.
I wanted Theo back, the Theo I remembered, the Theo who’d shaken me to my core.
I hadn’t meant to think about that summer. The memory of it had simply surfaced. I’d told Theo there hadn’t been an aha moment, but that was a lie and I knew it. My heartbeat raced as I recalled Theo in a faded T-shirt, sunlight sliding over the curve of his arm as he leaned over the piano.
The way my pulse had thudded in my throat when our shoulders brushed.
I hadn’t thought about it in years, not properly. Maybe because it had felt too pure to touch.
Maybe because every time I tried to explain it, words failed.
How do you describe the moment you realised the world would never look the same again?
I sat on my bed, reached for my sketchbook, opened it to a clean page, drew in a slow breath, and let my pencil flow over the virgin white surface. Lines, shading, the curve of a mouth half-smiling in concentration.
Theo’s mouth, older now, surer, but still carrying that same quiet focus that made the rest of the world blur.
My phone buzzed, and I glanced at it.
Raquel: Do I need to come find you?
I smiled and clicked on Call.
“Cameron Walters, you ghost,” Raquel said immediately. “Do you have any idea how long it’s been since you called the girl who saved you from eating school cafeteria lasagna four days in a row?”
I laughed. “Hey, Rocky.” I kept my voice low.
“Don’t you ‘hey, Rocky’ me. You vanish for months, I get a couple of texts, and now you sound…” She paused. “Suspiciously quiet.”
“It’s late. I’m being considerate.”
“Where are you being considerate?” She paused. “Oh my God, have I interrupted a moment? You’re not alone, are you?”
“If you stop talking for more than a second, I’ll tell you. Okay, location first. I’m still in London.” I glanced at my surroundings. “Although not the same place.” Guilt flushed through me. I hadn’t texted her since…
The leather bar.
“That death-trap flat finally collapsed around your ears, didn’t it?”
“The landlord evicted us before we got to that point. I found somewhere new.”
“That quick? Impressive.” Another pause. “Wait. Why do you sound nervous?”
I looked toward the window. Lights from the street below flickered against the ceiling. “Because if I tell you where I’m staying—or who I’m staying with—you’ll make that noise.”
“The judgmental one or the excited one?”
“Both.”
“Spit it out.”
I hesitated, then said, “Okay. So… remember about a month ago when I told you I ran into Theo Sinclair?”
Raquel gasped so loudly I had to pull the phone away. “No. You’re kidding. You’re not serious.”
I grimaced. “Completely serious.”
“How did that happen?”
“It was Gary’s idea,” I said quickly. “It was a housing emergency, Theo had a spare room—well, technically a sofa bed—and he said yes.”
“Oh my God.” She was half laughing, half groaning. “You’re living with your teenage crush, and you’re telling me this as if it’s normal?”
“It’s… fine,” I lied. “Totally fine.”
Except right then it was anything but fine.
“Sure,” she said dryly. “Is he why you’re speaking in hushed tones?”
“He’s gone to bed, so yes.”
“And how is it working out?”
I rubbed my forehead. “It’s complicated.”
“I’ll bet. Does he know?”
“Know what?”
“That you’ve been halfway in love with him since you were sixteen.”
I groaned. “Raquel.”
“Oh, please. You think I forgot the sketchbook full of moody charcoal portraits of Mr. Sinclair, the Perfect Harmony Coach?”
“I was sixteen,” I protested.
“You were hopelessly in lust with him,” she corrected. “And judging by your tone, you still are.”
I didn’t deny it. I couldn’t, not after tonight. Not so much the lust part, but…
Who was I kidding? I’d wanked to thoughts of him, for God’s sake.
Raquel’s voice softened. “So, what’s he like now?”
I stared at the sketchbook in my lap. “Different. Still focused. Still too good at pretending nothing gets to him. But… there’s something underneath.”
Something I couldn’t see, that set my heart racing.
Raquel hummed, the sound thoughtful. “And you like him even more.”
I exhaled. “Yeah. Which is the problem.”
“The problem is that you’re finally around someone who makes you feel safe and seen, and you’re terrified it means something.”
“Maybe.” I wasn’t so sure about the safe part.
“Then promise me one thing.”
“What?”
“Don’t run away this time. Not from him, not from yourself.”
I laughed softly. “Still bossy.”
“Still right.”
I hesitated. “He’s complicated. I keep wanting to see what he looks like when he stops holding onto everything so tightly.”
“Then do that,” Raquel said simply. “Make him laugh. Be yourself.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“It never is. Just don’t hide from it either. You’ve spent years pretending you’re fine. Maybe it’s time to stop pretending.”
I smiled, a little ruefully. “Still the voice of my conscience, huh?”
“Always. Now promise me you’ll call again before you do something heroic and stupid.”
“Define stupid.”
“Theo,” she said sweetly, and hung up.
I sat there for a long moment, my phone in my hand, listening to the quiet hum of the flat. Then I set it down.
Outside, the clouds over Hammersmith shifted, letting a streak of moonlight spill across the window.
Too late, Rocky. I think I already did.
Raquel’s voice echoed in my head. You’re living with your teenage crush and you’re telling me this as if it’s normal?
She was right. It wasn’t normal.
It was full circle.
Back then, Theo had been the spark that lit the fuse, the reason I’d stopped trying to convince myself I was just “confused,” the reason every half-hearted kiss after that moment had felt like a rehearsal for something real.
And now here we were, sharing a kitchen, trading small talk and glances.
Only, this evening had tilted my world once more.
I gazed at the sketchbook. The face on the page looked back at me, focused, guarded, beautiful in a way that made my chest ache.
“You started this,” I whispered. It wasn’t accusation, but gratitude. That long-ago summer had given me the truth, and this strange, tentative present was letting me live it.
I set the pencil down, flexing my hand.
Maybe attraction isn’t supposed to fade when it finally finds its name. Maybe it just waits, quietly, patiently, until you’re brave enough to meet it again.
I gazed at Theo’s face.
You were my beginning. Maybe you’ll be my home, too.
If I could widen the cracks in Theo’s facade to discover what lay hidden.