5. Then - Theo
Then - Theo
F rowning, I jump down from the bleacher, kicking at a rock. “She’s late.”
Oscar’s nose is buried in his textbook. He perches on the end, lifting it just enough to scan the empty field. “She’ll be here.”
In front of us, Max is on his back with his hands behind his head. His sleepy words drift over. “Do you ever wonder why we have bleachers around the field when the whole school would only fill a few rows?”
Jake snorts from where he sits next to Oz, his own textbook abandoned in his lap. “If that.”
But he glances down the field too. “Maybe we should go and look for her.”
“I’ll go.” The back of my neck prickles with heat. “I need some water, anyway.”
Grabbing my bottle, I start walking up toward the main building, dodging the flagpole and weaving my way around to the water station beside the yard.
My feet slow at the commotion, then speed up. Significantly.
Shoving through the small crowd, I follow the sound of yelling. Specifically, female, enraged, familiar yelling.
“You’re a two-piece son of a damn whore!” The redhead in front of me squares up against an angry-looking eleventh grader, standing between him and a smaller kid sprawled on the floor. His bag is ripped, books scattered everywhere and some of the pages ripped.
The alpha she’s facing off with is more than a foot taller than her.
Bobby Delavine. Asshole .
Kenny clearly agrees, because her hands shove forward, sending Bobby stumbling back. “You like picking on people smaller than you, dickface? Do you? You look like a horse slam-dunked you in the face and then gave you his teeth because he felt bad .”
Snorts of laughter echo from the crowd around me, a few low ooohs sounding.
“I could put you on your knees if I wanted to,” Bobby taunts, straightening. “ Omega . Fuck off, will you? This has nothing to do with you.”
“Oh, I’m going to—,”
When I wrap my arms around Kenny from behind, she stiffens. “It’s me.”
Magic . It feels like some unexplainable form of magic, the way her body softens against mine. The way it threatens to suck out all of the tension from my own spine.
She twists to look up at me. Then she looks back at Bobby.
She doesn’t say anything. She just grins, leaning back. “Call me a slut again, Bobby, will you? Theo didn’t catch it the first time.”
My hands tighten on her as I slowly look up. “You fucking what ?”
And Bobby, confronted by an alpha the same size as him, shrinks like the coward he is. “Look, Theo—,”
“Big Billy bollocks,” Kenny mutters under her breath. “Bet you have a cock the size of a cocktail shrimp. Probably smells like it too.”
At any other time, I’d be biting my cheek to hide my laughter. But I’m not feeling amused, not with that word rattling around my skull. Carefully, I settle my hands on Kenny’s hips and shift, lifting her until she’s safely behind me. My hand raises, brushing her cheek as she looks up at me, brown eyes widening. “You don’t need to get involved. I’ve got it.”
I have no doubts . “Yeah, but you don’t have to.”
Turning, I take a step closer to Bobby. My fists curl as I tilt my head. “Anything else to say?”
His eyes flicker to the watching crowd around us. “I was messing around. Nothing to do with her, sticking her nose in where it doesn’t belong. Unless she’s trying to catch my attention.”
Then his face changes, to a smirk that has my skin crawling. “Maybe she’s got it. Maybe you need to keep a better handle on your girl if you don’t want her going somewhere else.”
Movement behind me has me glancing around. Kenny is kneeling beside the stocky kid, her hand smoothing out a crumpled page as she murmurs to him. He looks at her like she’s hung the moon.
I know the feeling.
She glances at me, an apology in her eyes.
Bobby stumbles back as I take a step. Another, until my hand reaches out, gripping his shoulder. Sliding, until it reaches his throat.
“Theo—,”
My grip tightens. He tries to pull away, but I’m not letting go.
I squeeze a little tighter, his hands scrabbling for purchase against my fingers and coming up short. “How’s it feel, Bobby? To be picked on by someone stronger than you? Feel good?”
When he chokes, I roll my eyes. “On your knees, asswipe.”
His eyes bulge. “Like f-u-ck .”
He barely puts up a fight as I wrap my other hand around the back of his neck and force him down until his knees hit the dirt. A few snickers echo behind me. “Doesn’t feel great, does it? Apologize.”
“To Sam.” Kenny unfurls herself, crossing her arms as I present him like an offering. “Not me.”
Yes, you . “Sam first, then. But then you apologize to Kenny.”
I let go of his throat, keeping my hand on his neck until he’s forced to stare at the ground. The words steal out from between gritted teeth. “Sorry.”
“What was that?” I shake him lightly. “I don’t think Sam heard you.”
The kid scrambles to his feet, hovering behind Kenny and gripping his bag against his chest as Bobby says it again. Louder, this time. “Jesus. I’m sorry, alright?”
I glance at Sam. His trousers are dirty, a rip in the knee. “You okay?”
Sam nods, face a furious red. “He does it all the time.”
“Not anymore.” Bobby squirms like the little weasel he is as I glance down. “You hear me, Bobby? I see you messing with Sam again, this is going to be an appetizer for the main event.”
“Fine,” he grunts. “Let me up.”
“Not yet. Forgetting something?”
Kenny’s cheeks are flared with spots of color, mixed in with her freckles. “It’s okay, Theo. It’s not the first...,”
Her mouth snaps up. The red spreads in a deep flush, covering her face and neck in seconds. “I mean—,”
I stare at her as she trails off.
She’s been spending a lot of time with us. Slotted into our group like we were just holding space, waiting for her to get here. Filling up a hole we didn’t even know we had.
Distracting me enough that now I wonder if this is just the first I’m hearing about a problem.
It’s nothing to push down. For satisfaction to curl around my lungs, warring with fury as Bobby’s face presses into the mud. When I pull it back, I lean in. “You wouldn’t be bothering her, would you, Bobby?”
“No—,”
Again, I push him down. My words roll out, deep and fucking furious, almost shaking. “You don’t go near her. Understand?”
His palms slam into the dirt. “I’m sorry!”
“To Kennedy,” I snarl. “Fucking mean it, asshole. Spell it out .”
His eyes are watering. “I’m sorry I called you a slut.”
Kenny eyes him, that little notch appearing between her brows like a crinkle. “ And .”
“And…,” he spits. “Writing on your locker.”
What?
She doesn’t look at me. But she looks a little smaller. “I knew it was you. Asshole.”
I lean in. “You tell everyone . Nobody touches her. Goes near her. Any of you make any trouble for her, and we’re coming for them. You hear me?”
“Kristen said it first,” he mumbles. “Locker was her idea.”
God, what a fucking weasel. And he squeals like one as I smash his face down a final time, making sure it’s smeared with dirt. “Better decide who you’re more scared of then, Bobby. Tough call.”
I’m done. Dropping him, I step over his sprawled body and move over to Kenny. She shifts when I cup her face. “Wait. People are looking—,”
“Let them.” I don’t give a fuck. “You didn’t tell us they were giving you trouble. Why not?”
She shifts, but I’m not letting go. “It was just the locker. And a few hurty words. No big deal, Theo.”
I tilt her face up so I can see her eyes. “You kidding? That’s a big deal to me, Ken.”
She sucks her lip into her mouth. “It… is?”
“Yeah,” I breathe. This close, I can see the flecks in her eyes. A mix of cinnamon and hazel that has my heart thumping, stumbling, suddenly unsteady in my chest. Her skin is soft and warm, sunshine beneath my thumb, and I swallow. “Everything about you is a big deal to me, Kennedy Traylor. In case you didn’t realize.”
My eyes drop as she bites down on her lower lip again. We’re so close—
Her breathing stutters as my thumb drops, barely brushing against her mouth. I could —
The wry, amused cough shatters our fragile space. Kenny skitters back, still a furious red as she tries to tame a wild curl by tucking it behind her ear. My hand is left hovering in mid-air before I snatch it back, my own cheeks heating.
Max is grinning as he looks between us. “Not interrupting, are we? Room for a few more?”
I push my tongue into my cheek to hold in my retort as he almost skips over to Kenny, wrapping his arms around her and tucking her perfectly beneath his chin. He waggles his eyebrows at me over her head, and my eyes narrow at the laughter dancing in them. “What’d we miss?”
“Nothing much,” she mumbles into him. But I watch as she presses her cheek against his t-shirt. Max visibly softens, as if having her near is enough to smooth out any rough edges. His hand hovers uncertainly, before it flattens on her back.
Nothing much . Except that I think… I’m a little bit gone for Kenny Traylor.
In a big, possibly life-altering way.
I glance around. Jake and Oscar are watching her too, Oscar finally pulling himself away from his books as he watches her closely. I’ve never seen him look at someone that way. As if she matters. And certainly not in the last two years.
Maybe we’re all a little gone for Kenny Traylor.