Chapter Twenty #2
He sighed and shook his head. “The first time I tried a few months ago, I wasn’t ready yet, and I could barely grip the tube at all.
I couldn’t do anything. It was a nightmare.
I got so frustrated, I smashed the Lightm4st3r sculpture I’d been working on before my dad died.
And then I just…left it there for months, all the glass shards strewn about the floor.
It’s why I didn’t want you coming down here when you stayed over that first time.
I wasn’t kidding about it being a mess.” He eyed his work in progress.
It sat covered in a sheet in the corner, shrouded in mystery.
“I’m still not sure I can pull off this piece in time for the charity auction. It’s…not good right now.”
Audrey frowned. He was doing so much better, but it must have been bad for him to destroy the sculpture completely. “Is there anything I can do to help? Can I hold something steady for you, or…?”
Theo tilted his head at her. “That’s a good question. Wanna try it out? See what it’s like?”
She grinned and launched herself off of the table and straight into his arms. He smiled softly as he tucked her into his chest and handed her a scrap piece of glass while he reset everything.
“Okay. I’m going to work the air tube, and you’re going to try to bend a curve into the glass, just like the one on that pattern over there.
” He covered her hands with his, demonstrating how she would heat the glass over the flame, working it carefully back and forth.
“You want to bend it when it’s pliable enough not to snap or shatter, but not when it’s so hot that it just melts in your hands.
You want to stress it enough to bend, but not break. That’s where it transforms.”
“How am I going to know where that point is?”
He placed the air tube in the side of his mouth and smirked crookedly at her, one parenthetical dimple appearing in his cheek.
“You’ve gotta feel it. That’s where the artistry comes in.
” He huffed in amusement. “Well, one of the places, anyway. Artistry and skill.” He fired up the gas again and relit it before trailing his fingers gently along her hands.
“All right, sweetheart. Let’s see what you’ve got. ”
It was so much harder than he made it look.
Even though Theo’s hands guided her, even though she pulled the glass from the fire when he tapped her arm, even though she did her best to twist and bend the tube against the pattern laid out on the nearby table, her curve was still horribly misshapen.
After the sixth attempt, Theo took a look at her handiwork, raised an eyebrow, and tried—and failed—to suppress a grin.
“Ahhh,” he finally hummed. “Very kinky.”
“Hey! I tried!” She punched him in the shoulder for the dig, which only made his grin widen.
The glass did, in fact, have several kinks in it.
But she had a greater appreciation for the smooth beauty he wrought from nothing now, and she wiped the sweat away from her brow while glaring up at him in mock indignation.
“I know,” he purred. “And I liked it.”
The way he said that sent shivers down her spine, and she tried to escape back to her perch, cheeks blazing—but Theo didn’t let her.
He grabbed her and held her close, sweeping kisses across her neck and beneath her jaw, his eyes closed and mouth still stretched wide with pleasure.
She knew he wasn’t lying. She could feel how much he liked it pressing up against her back.
Fine.
She melted.
And let him bend her to his will this time.
He was very good at it, after all.
Three days she spent, playing with Theo and loving him like this, letting him love her like he did.
Three days they spent, with their phones quiet and dark, their notifications silenced, their focus only on each other.
It was the best weekend she’d ever had.
When the weekend was over, Theo walked her back to her tiny studio apartment where Violet was waiting anxiously to hear about how everything had gone.
But her roommate didn’t even know the half of it. There was no way Audrey could tell her who else Theo actually was.
Lightm4st3r was a big deal.
He didn’t want the attention.
They’d talked about it, though, and Theo wasn’t actually opposed to letting Violet in on the secret provided she could keep it—perhaps if she signed an NDA—but it was Audrey who wasn’t convinced.
Her best friend probably needed time to get to know him separately from the artist identity she idolized, and Theo promised to make friends with Violet. He was shy and nervous, but he’d try.
They reached the top of the stairs in Audrey’s building, and Theo slowed his ascent, stopping just short of the landing. Audrey turned and glanced down at him over her shoulder. He didn’t move, and she couldn’t quite interpret the look he had in his eyes.
“What is it?” she asked, stepping back down to stand with him. “What’s wrong?”
Theo shook his head. “Nothing. I—”
“Tell me.”
He ran a hand through his hair before ripping his mask away from his face while he mounted the last few steps with her to reach the landing. “Audrey, I, uh…” He drew in a deep breath. “I was just thinking about going back to my house.”
“Oh?” She raised an eyebrow. “Is that a problem?”
“Yes.” Theo rested his hands on her hips. “I can already tell, especially now that we’re here. It’s a big problem.”
“Why? Your house is incredible. I love it. It’s the nicest place I’ve ever been.”
“That’s just it: it’s a nice place when you’re there.
But you won’t be there when I go back.” He shifted on his feet, rolled his jaw, pressed his lips together, all the things he always did when he was anxious or reticent.
His fingers twitched and tightened at her waist. “I have to go back there alone, without you. And I know it won’t feel like home anymore if you’re not there.
Not now. It’ll be way too empty. Way too quiet. ”
Her face fell when Theo was the one to voice the same thought that had been plaguing her the entire walk back to her place.
She hadn’t wanted to leave his.
It was an odd feeling to realize that she’d started thinking of his house as her home.
Before she could say anything, Theo plunged his hand into his pocket and pulled out a familiar key. He set it in her palm and curled her fingers back over it gently.
“I wanted to ask you to move in.” The tips of his ears reddened as he blurted it out. “You don’t ever have to leave my house again.”
She stared down at the key in her hand.
“I know this is a big step.” He took her hands in his. “But I’ve thought a lot about it, and I need to be honest about what I want. And that’s you.” He leaned forward and pressed his forehead to hers. “You feel like home to me.”
“I know,” she whispered, pocketing the key before burying her hand in the loose waves at the back of his neck. “You feel like home to me too.”
“Will you think about it?” His lips brushed against hers, their softness and warmth tantalizing. “Please?” And when his thumb pressed firmly into her cheek, tilting her head to the side, his fingers tightening and curling against her neck just so, so urgent, so wanting, so—
Oh.
“Theo,” she breathed as she leaned into his touch, her mouth already instinctively chasing his. “You’re cheating.”
He pressed his lips to the corner of her mouth. “Cheating how?” Her nose was next, and then the other corner.
“You know how.”
Somehow, her chest was pressed all the way up against his.
When did that happen?
His right hand slipped beneath her sweater, vibrating against her skin as he nudged his fingers under the band of her bra and caressed the curve of her breast. “I’m not doing anything.” He was just as breathless as her, and she gasped as his thumb grazed across her nipple.
He swallowed it with a kiss.
“We could have this every day.” His voice rumbled deep in his chest, and all it did was make her want him a thousand times more. “We could have this all the time.”
Audrey drew his face into the crook of her neck, holding him tight and tucking him close.
But in the end, she sighed.
“I’ll think about it.” She could practically feel all the hope flee his body at her words, and she squeezed him tighter. “It’s not that I don’t want to—it’s just that it’s sudden. And I’d feel bad.”
He pulled away from her and frowned. “Bad? Why?”
She smiled sadly at him. “I come with a lot of baggage, Theo.” She swept some of the hair away from his face and tucked it behind his ears. “A lot of baggage, and a lot of loans.”
“So?” His frown deepened. “You can save money by living with me and pay them off. It’s not like you’ll have to pay me rent.”
“I don’t want to be financially dependent on you, especially not this early.”
“Well, then you could just let me pay your loans for you. Then you wouldn’t be financially dependent on anyone.”
She stared at him. “Theo, they—they’re six figures. I have well over a hundred thousand dollars of debt.”
Going out of state for school was expensive.
Flunking her first semester of college because she couldn’t cope with the change and losing her scholarship was expensive.
Living in New York was expensive, even if all of this had been her dream.
But he didn’t even blink.
“Okay.”
Okay?!
“No, you shouldn’t have to pay that for me. It’s not your burden, it’s not due to your mistakes, it’s not—”
“It’s not that much.”
Her mouth dropped open.
“No. No, it is, it’s so much, and then I’d be indebted to you instead.” She shook her head. “What if we broke up? What if—”
“I’d still feel good about doing it even if we weren’t together.”
“No, I couldn’t do that, that’s far too generous, I—”