Chapter Ten #2
Audrey’s mouth went dry.
Theo was…
He was practically naked, and his black boxer briefs did nothing to minimize the massive bulge between his thick, muscular legs.
She didn’t know much about these sorts of things, but she did know he was big in more ways than one.
Her heart raced while she thought about what that thin fabric was concealing, and what Theo had demanded of her right before dropping her onto the bed.
But she must have been staring, because he cleared his throat and ran a hand through his thick hair, sending it swirling around his jawline like liquid silk.
“Happy now?” he asked with a shrug, a single dark eyebrow raised.
“Uh…” She swallowed and simply chose to nod. “Yes?” Did her voice sound a bit too high? Maybe it sounded too high.
Theo snorted. “All right then.” He flicked his hand at her while he pulled back the covers again. “Scoot over. I can’t sleep on my right side anymore, I wake up hurting if I do.”
Audrey made room on the bed and he finally slid under the sheets, turning out the light as he did. They were plunged into complete darkness, and she gasped and squeezed her eyes shut, curling in on herself when it suddenly swept over her like a death shroud.
That happened faster than she thought it would. She’d be fine, it’d be fine, she just had to—
Theo’s warm arms wrapped around her and pulled her close to his chest. “Come here,” he whispered. “Cuddling is half the fun of a sleepover. At least, I think so, anyway.”
But it was too late. The fear had already overwhelmed her. “Theo?” Her voice sounded thin and shaky in the dark, even to her own ears. “You wanted another secret?”
“Yeah, I did. What is it?”
Her eyes hadn’t adjusted to the deep blackness of the room, and she couldn’t even make out his outline. She turned over and tried to trace it in front of her by running a trembling hand along where she thought his face might be, desperately shoving the panic down.
It wasn’t working.
“I’m still afraid of the dark.”
“Oh shit! I’m sorry.” He pulled away from her and the light popped back on.
She blinked rapidly and tried to still her racing heart.
Theo was facing her again in an instant, his eyes wide and his expression worried.
He tucked her under his chin, making soft shushing noises while she trembled. “I’m so sorry, Audrey. I didn’t know.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t tell you,” she finally managed to whisper between deep, calming breaths.
“I just didn’t think you’d turn the light out that quickly.
Didn’t even have time to prepare myself to fake composure.
” A laugh bubbled up in her chest and mixed with a sob.
“Boy, you’re getting to learn all the most embarrassing things about me all at once, aren’t you?
First that I’m a huge failure in relationships, and now that I’m a baby who can’t even handle the lights being out.
God, are you sure you’re still interested? I’m actually kind of a mess.”
Theo smirked at her with only the slightest wicked gleam in his eyes. “Honestly? I’m glad it’s not just me for once.” He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “And besides, do you think I’m not one giant, lumbering ball of anxiety? Have you met me?”
“That’s true.”
“You weren’t supposed to agree so quickly.”
She burrowed into his chest while she laughed, and his own chuckle rumbled while he gently stroked her hair. “So what do you do at home?” he asked. “Tell me how I can make you comfortable here.”
Audrey glanced up at him from beneath the curtain of her hair. Not a single ounce of judgment was reflected in his gaze while he watched her and waited.
“I have dimmable fairy lights strung through my bed frame. Battery operated, and we put blackout privacy curtains around each of our spaces so the light doesn’t leak out and bother Violet.
” She paused and felt her cheeks burn for what seemed like the thousandth time tonight. “And I also have Petey.”
“Petey?” Theo tilted his head curiously.
“Oh no, this is so embarrassing.” Audrey hid her face in her hands. “He’s my stuffed puffin,” she mumbled. “They’re my favorite animal. Have you ever seen one?”
“Yeah, on Animal Planet and in pictures, probably. Maybe not in person.”
“Well, I love them. They’re quirky, happy-looking birds, with striped beaks and vibrant mouths. I like how scrappy they are, and their beaks have my favorite colors—shades of yellow and red and orange, all bright like sunshine.”
She peeked at him through the spaces between her fingers.
“When I was around four or five, my foster parents at the time took me and their other kids to the zoo. I’d only just been taken from my mom, and I was having a lot of trouble adjusting to…
well, everything, really. I don’t remember much from that time other than crying a lot and having constant nightmares—of all kinds of terrifying things, twisting and lurking and growling in the dark of my room when I was alone.
I’d wake up screaming, and trying to go back to sleep was useless.
I still don’t usually sleep that well, or that deeply. ”
She sighed. “I don’t remember much else, though, including my mom.
I can’t see her face in my mind’s eye anymore.
I know I saw it, I know I knew her, but it was so long ago, I wouldn’t even recognize her if you were to show me a picture.
I only know a handful of details about her situation from having read my file.
“But the one big thing I do remember is when my first foster parents took us to that zoo. They had some Atlantic puffins there in an enclosure with a pool behind glass. I loved them, how cute they were, hopping around on the rocks—and how elegant and sleek they looked when they swam in the water, like they were made for that. Even though they could technically fly in the air, they didn’t need to because they could in the water. They were free there.
“When we got to the gift shop, I begged for a stuffed puffin to take home with me, and my foster dad bought me one. I was only in that house for a few months before I had to go to another, but Petey went with me everywhere, to every new foster home, every new school, all of it. And he’s still there. Maybe the only constant I’ve ever had.”
“What happened to your mom? Do you know?”
Audrey bit her lip. “She died, maybe around when I was six or seven. Opioid overdose. She was a drug addict, and someone called CPS on her to come take me away when I was about four. According to my file, I was starving—too skinny, the neighbor said. My mom was so strung out, she wasn’t feeding me properly. ”
It hurt telling him this. It was one of her wounds that was always the most raw, always perpetually tender, at least a little, even when she didn’t necessarily feel it there.
She didn’t poke it as often these days, but whenever she did, it ripped right open again, hurting just as deeply and bleeding just as much as it had the first time.
Theo didn’t say anything.
He only listened.
“She didn’t fight them when they took me.
That’s always hurt the most, that she didn’t try to keep me, that she didn’t ever try to get clean so she could get me back.
She just…let me go, signed me over to the state like I was nothing.
Like I was no one to her.” Audrey closed her eyes and shook her head.
“I’ve been to therapy. I know that’s what drug addicts do: nothing matters as much to them as their next fix.
I could never compare, no matter how much I might have loved her.
But I still think some part of her must have cared about me—or at least I really want to think so. ”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because while she might not have fought for me, while she might not have wanted to take care of me—or couldn’t—my mom still cried really hard when they took me away,” she whispered.
“At least, that’s what I was told. I talked to the social worker who was there when I tried to find her after I turned eighteen, and that’s what she said. ”
“What about your dad?”
“No idea who he is. There’s no record of him, no name on my birth certificate. Maybe he didn’t want me either.”
Audrey had never said that out loud before.
A knife twisted in her heart.
Theo stayed quiet. He only gazed at her, his eyes deeply sad, until he sat up sharply and ran a single hand over his face with a sniff.
He pushed himself off the bed and limped over to his shelves, opening one of the fabric storage boxes and digging around in it for a moment before replacing the top.
He limped back over to the bed with something held behind his back and grabbed the remote for the shades, holding down a button briefly before releasing it.
The blackout shades lifted and revealed some of the lights of Manhattan in the distance, twinkling like stars in the night sky, and only partially obscured by the lingering storm clouds.
He slid back into bed and revealed what it was he’d retrieved: a woolly stuffed teddy bear, well loved, but still in good shape. One of his eyes was mismatched, lost long ago but lovingly repaired with a black button sewn expertly into place.
“This is Roo—short for Roosevelt.” He smiled sadly. “My dad gave him to me when I was little to help keep the monsters in the dark away.” He laid down and held it out to her. “I’ll keep them away from you now, but you can borrow him if you want.”
Roo and Theo suddenly blurred in front of her, and Audrey sniffed as she took the bear and held him to her heart.
She couldn’t stop the tears anymore, and her chest was wracked with horrible, gut-wrenching sobs as Theo turned out the light again and gathered her in his arms. He kissed her gently through her tears, holding her tightly to his chest and stroking her hair with trembling hands while she cried in his beautiful bedroom.
“I want you, Audrey,” he whispered softly. “I want to keep you. I’d never let you go. I promise.”
Eventually, she quieted, soothed by Theo’s warmth and the gentle lights of the city she’d decided to call home.
But even though she’d lived there for six years, it had never quite felt like it all the way; she’d always been a foreigner in New York, a transplant.
It was just the latest in a long string of temporary places she gave the moniker to briefly before it was ripped away from her again by the ever-changing currents of life.
But here in Theo’s arms, maybe her definition of home had begun to change. Just the slightest shift, bit by bit, now that she’d revealed herself, and he had too.
Maybe home had never been a place, like she always thought it was.
Maybe it was a person.
The strength of her feelings about that truth could have scared her. Should have, perhaps.
Instead, the heat Theo radiated from holding her so closely, so quietly while she cried only warmed her all the more.
It lit something inside of her.
A tiny flame of hope for something more.
Something new.
And something just as beautiful as the man resting quietly beside her.