37. Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Then
We called it a night when we got to Jacksonville. Not wanting to turn our phones on and subject ourselves to the barrage of messages that were surely waiting, we drove around until we came across a cluster of chain hotels. We picked the one we thought would be cheapest, and I waited at a side entrance while Theo got us a room.
By the time he came to let me in, I was hot and sweaty. “What took you so long?” I demanded as I stepped into the blessed air conditioning.
“The guy at the front desk was convinced my ID was fake.”
“Probably because you put your height down as six feet.”
“Hey.” Theo flicked my ear. “It’s not like he was standing there with a measuring tape. Good thing you didn’t come in, though. We’d be in the back of a police car by now.”
There was a vending machine by the elevator. I dug out every coin in the bottom of my bag, and we bought as many snacks and sodas as we could carry. My arms were so full that I had to use my elbow to hit the up button. When the elevator arrived and we stepped inside with our loot, I lost my grip on one of the soda bottles I was carrying.
“No!” I cried, watching it roll out of the elevator and across the tiled floor outside. I started forward, but the doors closed in my face.
Theo doubled over with laughter.
In our room, we piled everything in the middle of the giant bed and splayed out, eating our fill of junk food and shuffling through the TV channels. We were in our bubble, the same one we’d occupied together for our entire lives. Whenever my mind started to drift back home, all I had to do was look at Theo. I didn’t need to count stars. He was there to ground me.
When our stomachs were full and our eyes were starting to droop, we huddled together in the middle of the bed. I was cold in my t-shirt and shorts, but instead of getting up to turn down the air conditioning, I tugged the comforter over us and curled into Theo’s side.
“Your breath stinks,” I said when I got a whiff of sour cream and onion.
“Yours isn’t too great, either.”
I lifted a hand to my mouth and breathed into it. The scent came back to me, and I found that he was right. “We probably should have stopped for toothbrushes.”
“We’ll have to go to the store in the morning.” Theo wrapped both arms around my shoulders, pulling me more fully into his chest. I smiled when I felt his lips press into my hair. “I’m so fucking tired. I’d never be able to fall asleep in these clothes otherwise.”
I glanced at the local news channel we had left the TV on. It was muted, but I watched the weather woman move her hands over the coast of Florida, showing balmy temperatures for the next several days.
The map zoomed out to show the entire southeast region, and my stomach clenched, again, as I was reminded of home and everything that was waiting there. A thought that had been gnawing at me for hours rose up again, and I found myself shifting so I could see Theo’s face.
“Theo?”
He looked down at me, eyes half-open. “Yeah.”
“I don’t think Randi and Cecil would take that money.”
Theo grew very still beneath me. He paused before admitting, “I don’t, either.”
The implication was clear: the culprit was someone in my family. I knew it had to be. Theo’s family was the perfect one. His parents were still in love with each other. They supported Theo in everything he did and let him live his life. They were hard-working, honest people, and there was no way they would have tanked our business.
Not that my parents didn’t work hard. They certainly did. But honesty and integrity weren’t always there, and even though Dad and Cecil were best friends, I wouldn’t put it past Dad to do something like this if he thought it was for the good of himself and his own family.
“I don’t know anything about it,” I told him. “You believe me, right?”
Theo’s face softened. He brought a hand to my cheek, and I leaned into his palm. “I know, Sass. You love the store. You’d never do that.”
Even though it was true, his reasoning didn’t sit quite right with me. “I also wouldn’t do that to you , or your parents. If I knew what was going on, or who did it, I would have told you already.”
“I know.”
With a sigh, I let my eyes fall closed. I fixated on his warm touch, the callus on his thumb as it stroked my birthmark. “There’s just no way any of this is going to end well, is there?”
A few beats passed with no answer, and I opened my eyes just in time to see Theo rolling on top of me. His hands found mine. Our fingers interlaced together, and he pressed them into the pillow above me. His hips pinned mine to the bed, and the intimate position set off a few sultry flashbacks in my mind, but when Theo put his face close to mine, stopping just short of my lips, it was clear that wasn’t what he had in mind.
“I’m gonna be honest with you, honey,” he said, his nose brushing mine. “No, things with the store probably aren’t going to end well. Things with our families are probably not going to end well. Things for us aren’t going to be easy for a while.”
With every word he said, anxiety constricted my chest further. I had no idea what things would be like when we returned to Amity, but I did know that they would be unrecognizable. Our days at the store were over. Our days lived side-by-side were over. Our lives, as we’d known them, were over.
“But here’s what I do know,” Theo continued, squeezing my fingers with his. “We, you and me— we will end well. I don’t know how we’ll get there, but we will. When you’re ready, we’ll go back and deal with everything. Together. No matter what our parents say.”
“I’m scared,” I whispered.
It took a lot for me to admit something like that, and he knew it. Keeping our hands joined, he brought them to rest between us, right over my steady heartbeat. “So am I. But you know what?”
“What?”
“We’re not going back tonight.” Keeping his eyes up and trained on mine, Theo ducked his head to press a chaste kiss to the back of my hand. “We’re not going back tomorrow. All I’m really worried about right now is getting to fall asleep with you next to me. We’ve never done that before."
I wrinkled my forehead in confusion. “Yes, we have. We used to take naps in the back room and—”
He cut me off with a laugh. “I don’t mean when we were little kids, Sass. I mean since we got together. It never feels very romantic to have sex with you in the back of my truck and then drop you off a block from your parents’ house so they don’t know you were with me.”
“Oh.”
Theo kissed me gently. I extracted one hand from his hold and slipped it under his shirt. I pressed closer, jutting my hips up and letting my mouth fall open against his, but he retreated.
“Not tonight,” he murmured, forehead rolling against mine. “Just let me hold you.”
I let out a breath. “Okay.”
We shifted around so that we were on our sides, my back to his chest, one of his arms locked securely around my waist. I could feel his hot breath on the back of my neck when he leaned in and said the words that had been lighting me up inside for my entire life.
“Love you so much, Sass.”
I cuddled closer. “Love you so much.”
And despite everything, I thought that this might be our best night yet.