Walk a Mile

26. Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Six

Now

A quarter mile down the road, I hear the rumble of a vehicle approaching. I keep my arms crossed tightly over my chest, glaring into the space ahead of me as I tromp through overgrown grass in my flip-flops.

Beside me, Theo’s truck slows to match my pace. The window rolls down.

“Leave me alone,” I snap before he can say anything.

He leans across the passenger seat to talk to me. “Get in here.”

“No.”

“You’re going to walk four miles home?”

I move a little quicker, making the soles of my shoes slap louder. “I don’t have a home.”

He doesn’t correct me. The pit in my stomach deepens.

But he doesn’t leave me, either. We continue down the road together, Theo rolling along at three miles an hour, me maintaining my unaffected bitch facade. The grass is making my shins itch, and my mood sours further at the realization that I’ll be covered in bug bites in the morning.

Another pickup passes Theo in the opposite direction, and I glance behind me when an SUV comes up behind us. The lady behind the wheel rides his bumper for a few seconds before pulling around him and speeding away with her middle finger in the air.

“Laura Ellington just flipped me off,” Theo says, sounding shocked.

I don't want to engage, but I can’t help myself. “Who the hell is Laura Ellington?”

“She’s married to Mitch Ellington.”

Curiosity gets the better of me, and I look over at him. “From high school? The preacher’s kid?”

“Yeah,” he confirms, one wrist slung lazily over the wheel, the muscles of his arm on full display. In his entire life—at least during those times it intersected with mine—I don’t believe Theo has put the slightest effort into looking a certain way. It's infuriating how casually handsome he manages to look all the time. “Well, actually, Mitch is the preacher now. He took over the church from his dad.”

“You just got flipped off by a preacher’s wife ?”

The sound of an engine approaches us once again. Theo glances in the rearview mirror and flips his turn signal on. He pulls onto the shoulder of the road, coming to a halt beside me. I take the opportunity to step out of the grass and onto the asphalt.

“Please get in here,” he says, sounding tired.

I’m tired, too—of walking, of arguing, of pulling away from him when every instinct I have screams at me to draw closer.

"Only to save you from the embarrassment of stalking me in a truck with your name on it," I say as I climb inside.

Ignoring me, Theo pulls out behind the car that just passed us. As soon as we’re in that confined space together, all conversation of Mitch and his wife stops, and tension grows as our short-lived time at The Hutch comes back to the forefront.

“Quinton was way out of line,” Theo says finally. “I told him that.”

With my arms crossed, I shrug my shoulders. “It doesn’t matter. You can stop pretending.”

“Pretending what?”

“That you don’t agree with him,” I tell the dashboard.

“What?” he asks, incredulous. “What are you even—”

“‘Oh, so you both found rich guys,’” I quote. This seems to only confuse him more, so I elaborate. “That’s what you said about me and my mom. Gosh, I wonder where Quinton got the idea that I’m a gold digger.”

“Nina.” Theo puts a hand out as if to touch my thigh. I scoot away, pressing myself against the passenger door, and he lets it fall back into his own lap. “That is absolutely not what I think ofyou.”

I snort. If my mother were here, she would call the noise very unladylike . “Whatever.”

We pull up to a stop sign, and Theo turns left—the opposite direction of his house. It takes a few miles and a couple more turns for me to figure out where we’re headed. I know that I could ask him to take me home, and he would; still, I stay quiet, secure in the knowledge that even if I’m not happy with Theo, I will always be safe with him.

Outside of town, we rumble down the gravel road toward Train Bridge. I wait for memories to assault me—there were lots of things we did out here, all by ourselves, after that first kiss—but I find that there aren’t many parallels between then and now. For one, it’s still broad daylight; for another, we’re tense, not buoyant from the anticipation of having the time and space to explore each other's bodies.

We park at the bottom of the hill, the entrance to the bridge just visible above us. I watch Theo to see if he’sgoing to get out, and he doesn’t. He leans back in his seat, knees spread beneath the steering wheel. I slip my feet out of my sandals and bring my legs up to sit crisscross, and I wait for whatever it is he has to say.

“Quinton got over being mad at me a long time ago,” he offers up eventually. “He’s not over being mad at you yet.”

“Why would he be mad at either of us?”

“Same reason you and I spent the last ten years upset with each other, I think.”

I prop my elbows on my knees, my chin in my palms, and wait for further explanation.

“I really withdrew when I left for college. For four years, Ibarely came home, and I barely talked to anyone here, including Quinton.I didn't want to—” He lets out a breath. “I didn’t want anything to do with Amity if you weren’t here.”

Theo pauses, letting that sit between us for a second. “Then Dad and I started the business, and it was time to make peace.I called Quinton the night I movedback, acting like everything was normal, and helit into me. We had it out and patched things up. I finally talked toSage, tried to fill in the blanks for her, so she gotsome closure. Iwas the best man in their wedding. It was all good. And then...”

“And then I showed up,” I finish for him.

“You haven’t done anything wrong.”

I think about what Sage told me the other day—how confused she was after I left, how lonely after our other friends followed. How she and Quinton fell in love over a shared feeling of abandonment, while I avoided them all.

“I don’t know if that’s true.”

From beneath his baseball cap, Theo watches me. “It’s true, Sass. He doesn’t know you like I do.”

“Well,” I say, “nobody does.”

He smiles at that, seeming a bit surprised, and reaches over the console toward me. With gentle fingers around my wrist, he pulls my left hand away from my face. “Do you want to know what I think?”

“Yes.”

Theo strokes his thumb over my knuckles, and I relax. My eyes want to drift shut; I'm tempted to sit here and let his touch smooth away everything that is unsettled inside of me. But his intense gaze keeps me anchored from under the bill of his hat, and I wait, a bit too eager for his validation.

“I understand why you were with Daniel,” he tells me, his words soft. “I know I gave you shit about it, but I get it now, Sass. You grew up being told you were too much. You had your world ripped out from under you right before you became an adult.”

He glances over, seeming to want permission to keep going, and I nod. So far, it all rings true.

“Daniel gave you stability. Simplicity. Maybe not delirious happiness, but I understand what you were saying before—that's not always the point.” Theo glances down at our joined hands, squeezing mine once. “I should have known that.”

A shift in his tone tells me that we’re not just talking about me anymore. I shift in my seat, tucking my legs up beneath me and leaning toward him. “Who were you with?”

“Nobody that mattered. A couple of girls in college.” He rolls his lips, averts his eyes. “One night stands here and there.”

Hypocritical as it is—after all, I was engaged to somebody else not even a month ago—jealously burns in my chest. I glance up at the bridge, thinking again about the first time he kissed me. Has he ever brought anybody else out here? To the bridge, or any of the other backroads where we used to be alone together?

“Anybody I know?” I ask with forced lightness.

He glares at me as if it's a ridiculous question. “Of course not.”

“Well, I don’t know.” I shrug. “It has been ten years.”

Theo stares at me, and I stare back, daring him to blink first. His right hand still has a loose grip on mine; the left touches his door handle, as if he’s thinking about walking away.

“Nina, I’m going to tell you something,” he says finally. “Several things, actually. And I don’t want you to freak out. I don’t want you to run off and make me pick you up off the side of the road again. I expect nothing from you, honey. Okay?”

My battered heart skips a beat at that old endearment, then bangs against my ribcage when my imagination begins to run wild. I’m completely lost, clueless as to what he’s about to say. “Alright.”

Theo stares out the windshield for a moment, jaw working, searching for a beginning. “After you, I didn’t date again until junior year of college. We were together for seven months and then she dumped me because I wouldn't bring her home to meet my family. She thought I was cheating on her. I wasn’t,” he clarifies, as if I’d ever think him capable of such a thing. “Amity is where we grew up together. It’s where we fell in love the first time. I couldn’t imagine bringingsomeone else to my parents’ house, or to The Hutch, or to this fucking bridge.”

The first time. My brain snags on those words, even though they seem to be beside the point. Is he implying that there will be another time for us to fall in love?

I look down at our hands, where he now grips mine with both of his.

Is that time already here?

“Hey.”

I startle from my thoughts, looking up at him again. “What?”

He looks me in the eye, his voice serious and firm. “I have never brought another woman home. I’ve never introduced anyone to my parents. Yeah, once in a while, if I’d been drinking in Raleigh or Chapel Hill, or if I was on vacation, I’d hook up to scratch the itch. But it was always at her place or a hotel room—”

“I don’t want to hear about where you fucked your endless parade of women,” I interject harshly.

Theo’s smirk makes a quick appearance. It ghosts over his face for a split second, disappearing just as quickly. “It wasn’t an endless parade, Sass, my god. What I’m trying to say is that...I wanted to protect my memories of you.” Hesitation slows his next words. “And any we might make in the future.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, clipped, as my pulse picks up, the walls of every vein thrumming in time with my heart.

He adjusts in his seat again, turning fully toward me so that we’re both leaning over the console. Our faces are close—either of us could easily close the gap between us. But I can tell we’re getting to this big admission that I shouldn’t freak out about, so I wait, watching him and barely daring to breathe.

“Starting the company was my idea,” he tells me. “I’m glad my parents decided to go in on it. They’re so proud to have a family business again. I’m proud. It’s worked out really well for everyone, but in the beginning...it wasn’t about that. Itwas just about you.”

The pounding in my body stops, replaced with an eerie stillness.

“Me?” I whisper.

“You.”

I shake my head, even as I glance at the star dottingthe i on his polo. Think about it, he told me that day on the patio. Think. “I don’t understand."

“I thought that if I ever found you and I had something to show for myself—that I could give you that stability we didn’t have with Walk a Mile,provide foryou like Kelly said I’d never be able to—you might give me another shot.”

Theo—calm, confident, unflappable Theo—sounds vulnerable, even fragile when he tells me this, and then terrified as he waits for my reaction.

It’s a lot to absorb, I’ll give him that. But more than anything else, what I’m hearing is that he understands .He understands how the wounds of my childhood, of being the disappointing daughter and watching everything I knew dissolve in a matter of days, led me to a life that was just good enough. I didn’t set out to be rich; I set out to be secure. I didn’t want to replicate the loveI shared with him; I looked for a weaker connection that wouldn’t be so devastating to sever.

Theo sees me.

He always has.

Gently, I extract my hand from his, only to reach up and press my palm to his cheek. He inhales sharply at my touch—eyes falling closed, lashes resting on his cheekbones, close enough to count.

The bill of his cap bumps me between the eyes. I should take that as a sign not to lean in any further, and I do; then he plucks it off his head and tosses it into the backseat, and I let out a little sigh of defeat as our foreheads join.

“Thank you,” I whisper, hoping he can hear all the meaning wrapped up in that single breath.

He nods, and with the movement, our lips brush. It’s just the slightest touch, but it’s enough for electricity to spark, and I’m not prepared for the lightning that zings down my spine and between my thighs. My mouth opens on a small gasp.

“What?” Theo asks. “What’s wrong?”

“I—I can’t.” I start to draw away, but he stops me with a callused hand behind my neck. “I need to figure out what the fuck I’m doing with my life, Theo. I can’t—”

“Okay," he says, immediately backing off. "Alright. I get it.”

“Are you sure?”

Unbidden, I remember a time just a few months ago when I refused sex with Daniel because I had a cold. He hadn't pushed, but he had clearly been upset, ignoring me for the rest of the night and most of the next day.

But when I search Theo’s face for disappointment, for anger, I don’t see any. He just nods, moving his hand from my neck to my shoulder and stroking down my arm. “Of course, Sass. I want you to get what you need, even if that isn’t me.”

I want to tell him that he has it all wrong. I do need him—that's the problem. If I kiss him right now, there is a ninety-nine percent chance that I will fall in love with him all over again. I will go back to that big, beautiful house— oh my god, did he build the house for me, too? —and completely forget about the concept of standing on my own two feet.

Or my biggest fear of all—something will go wrong, and I’ll lose him all over again.

I won’t do it.

“Is there something else you need right now?” Theo asks in a pitch that’s a couple notches below his normal. I follow his eyes into my lap, where I’m horrified to find that I’ve been squeezing my thighs together.

“No.” I rush to uncross my legs, trying to ignore the fact that my underwear is damp and my cheeks are hot. “No, I’m good. We can just go.”

Ever respectful of my boundaries —in my head, I hear the word in his voice, sarcastic lilt included—he nods and puts the truck in reverse, and we begin backing down the gravel road.

My regret is almost instant.

“Wait.”

He slams on the brakes, and for two seconds that feel like two years, we stare at each other in the charged stillness.

Despite all the reasons I shouldn’t, I’m the one who crosses the line.

Up on my knees, I maneuver myself over the console and into Theo’s lap. His pupils dilate, his hands instinctively coming up to my hips as I straddle him. I’m hesitant to put my hands on him, but with the two of us crammed into the driver’s seat, it’s hard to spread my arms out. I let my fingertips glide up his chest.

“You can’t kiss me,” I tell him. “This can’t be romantic.”

“I won’t kiss you.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “And will it be romantic?”

“No strings attached, Nina.” He strokes his thumbs along the bare skin at my waist. “I promise.”

He still hasn't answered the question, but with this painful throbbing between my legs, no strings attached is good enough for me. I fold my fingers beneath the collar of his polo and hold onas I shift my body so that my left knee is between his thighs, my right foot on the floor. I rock my hips once, barely holding back a groan at how good it feels. “I just—I need—”

My head falls forward, and I watch my lower body roll down against his leg. I do it again, my mouth popping open at that first mounting of pressure. With the full knowledge that I’m not going to stop until I’m in pieces, I look up at Theo, only to find that he’s already looking at me. His gaze skates over my face, lingering on my nose and the place where my birthmark should be. Quickly, I hide my face in his shoulder.

“You know what you need,” Theo husks, seeming not to notice my sudden self-consciousness—likely because he doesn’t share it. This isn’t like when he was eighteen and figuring things out alongside me; his words are commanding in my ear, his hands firm on my hips as he guides me into a slow grind against his thigh.“My Nina knows what she wants, and she takes it.”

I’m not sure that’s true. Twenty-seven years in, and there isn’t much evidence to back up his claim. What do I have that’s truly mine? Some cheap clothes? Abandonment issues? Estranged family?

“Take it, honey,” he murmurs, and his lips ghost over the crown of my head. “Use me. I’m all yours.”

Theo.

He didn’t even hear my question, but he's still managed to answer it.

I’m all yours.

I press my forehead harder against him, clutching at his shoulders. The seam of my shorts rubs my clit at just the right angle, and I let out a weak, “Oh.”

Quicker and quicker, my body moves over his; tighter and tighter, the pressure coils inside of me. Every time I rock forward, his erection bumps my thigh, covered but still evident through his jeans. Sensual memories come storming through my consciousness, and I dig my fingers harder into his shoulders, fighting the temptation to reach for his zipper.

“Yes.” Both of Theo’s hands are on my ass now, squeezing, encouraging me as I lose all semblance of control. “Yes, Nina.”

His permission is enough for me to let go, to let myself unravel right there in his arms. He holds me through it, murmuring in my ear all the while. When my breathing evens out and the world stops spinning, I relax into him, thinking I might stay there for a minute.

But he doesn't let me. He only holds on long enough to gently deposit me back in the passenger seat. I sit there, blinking as the world rights itself. Theo adjusts his pants, takes a deep breath, and sends me a small smile. “You still want Scoop Shack?”

It takes me a beat to catch up. "Yeah," I manage, an odd combination of satisfied and dejected. “Let’s go.”