Chapter Eighteen
Theo grabbed his beer off the counter, nodding at the bartender in thanks.
“So, let me get this straight,” Finn muttered, placing his own beer down and turning to his friend. “You set her up with Edward, the dickhead company lawyer you can’t stand and she left you a voice message saying it was the best first date she’d ever had in her life.”
Theo gave Finn a pointed look before responding with a curt, “Yeah.”
“Sorry for rubbing it in… but you’re fucked. Wait, didn’t you choose the location, and the movie? Why didn’t you just take her out?”
“We made an arrangement, Finn. One that only you, me and her know about. I’m to help her find a leading man, and she’s coming to Georgia’s wedding with me.”
Theo didn’t miss the wince Finn let flash across his features at the words, before he picked up his beer and took a long and hard swig.
“I just didn’t thing she would actually - Theo’s phone rang, cutting off his next sentence. Looking down at his phone, he saw Olivia’s name light up.
He immediately answered, lifting to his ear just as Finn laughed. “Dude, you’re whipped.”
Theo sent him a harsh glare before speaking. “Hey Olivia.”
“Hey, Theo. You’ll never guess what happened.” Olivia’s voice was filled to the brim with excitement, her tone overflowing so much he had to turn the volume down on his phone.
“You woke up and reflected on the date to realise it wasn’t as great as you let on?”
I wish, he thought.
He could almost feel Olivia frown. “What? No. It was great. In fact he wants to see me again. Can you believe it?”
Theo winced. “Well, don’t fixate too much on Edward. I’ve got another date for you coming up.”
“Another one?”
Finn frowned. “Another one?” he whispered.
Returning the frown Theo spoke into the phone. “Uh, yeah. Another one. His name is Tommy.”
He hadn’t worked out the logistics of it, and the spontaneous words just spilled out of his mouth like water out of an overflowing glass. He would work something out.
“Tommy?” Finn’s eyes widened, shaking his head at Theo.
Theo merely shrugged and gazed away, rattling off the details to Olivia before hanging up the phone.
“I think you’ve officially gone insane.” Finn lifted a hand and gesturing to the bartender.
Insane? Have I gone insane? Theo thought.
Sure, Tommy was a unique individual, but maybe he and Olivia could find common ground.
Common ground long enough for her to end the date by calling and confiding in Theo about how terrible the date was.
That’s what he really wanted. He wanted her to come and talk to him.
To need him. To realise that he had been perfectly capable of being her leading man all along. “Why?” Theo said, the corners of his lips tilting up slightly at what had just unfolded.
“Setting her up with Tommy is going to go terrible. The man is insane.”
Theo sent another knowing look at his friend.
Finn caught on quickly. “Oh, mate. You want it to go poorly, don’t you? You plotting arse. She’s going to hate you.”
“She’s not going to find out. Plus, she’s already been on two bad dates, what’s the harm of one more?
” Theo said, nodding as a burly, overweight bartender made his way towards the two friends.
Blame it on the alcohol, blame it on being green, but in that moment, it seemed like it was the only plausible way for her to run back into his arms. Where she belongs, he thought as he finished his drink.
Finn’s gaze lingered on his friend for a few more moments before he turned to the barman and said, “Give me something strong.”
After her terrible date with Tommy, she had messaged Theo asking for a debrief ASAP, with the words:
I need to eat too much candyfloss and ice cream and go on a roller coaster until I feel like throwing up. Carnival. 7:00 p.m.
He had texted her immediately with a simple:
I’ll pick you up.
The county was putting on a springtime carnival, an unusual, but welcome event for when the sun finally began to shine in England.
“The date went downhill though, just as dessert was served.” Olivia tore some candyfloss from the cone and placed it in her mouth.
Theo frowned. “What happened with dessert? Did he not let you order the cheesecake?”
Olivia turned and looked at him with amazement.
She couldn’t believe he remembered the small detail from their coffee meetups.
Whenever she ordered a coffee, a fruit muffin or sweet slice of cheesecake always accompanied it.
A detail she had scribbled down in her green notebook way back during the night of their first meeting.
Wiping the surprise off of her face, she shook her head. “Worse. Guy tried to woo me. Guess what he did?”
“Humour me.”
“Oh, I will,” Olivia said, stopping suddenly and sending Theo a knowing glance. “Don’t laugh, okay?”
Theo made a cross symbol on his chest. “I would not dare.”
“He pulled a bouquet of flowers out of his sleeve. All neon yellow, red and blue.” Olivia once again picked at her pink candyfloss.
There were a few beats of silence before Theo’s shoulders began to shake. “Hey, you promised you wouldn’t laugh!” She began her own round of laughter.
“Did I?” He laughed. “I don’t recall any pinky promises made. I am terribly sorry you had to sit through an impromptu magic show; it must have been torture.”
“Are you really, though?” Olivia stopped walking, and turned to see Theo’s shoulders shake once again. He had paused in his step, clasping a hand to his muscular pec, and was leaning back slightly.
She had never seen something more magical than the way his dark curls were illuminated by the moonlight behind them, the neon signs flashing around them in a heartbeat of colour and transcendent light.
The subtle tip of his head backwards, his lips stretched in a wide smile. One she had never seen before.
It was her new favourite thing about him.
“Nah, not really.” His baritone laugh was rich and deep, making her cheeks hurt with the contagious nature of it. Her cheeks had begun aching minutes ago, but she revelled in the pain as her smile matched his.
“You were the one who set me up with him. Didn’t you screen him beforehand?”
“For magic extracurricular activities?” Theo teased, smacking his hand to his chest, and turning towards her. “I’ll add it to my to-do list.”
A group of young teens passed them, swinging stuffed toys in their grasp and laughing with glee. The sounds of pinball machine and food cart fryers were alive and thrummed in the air around them. The smell of deep-fried churros and melted chocolate smothering the smell of British countryside.
Olivia aggressively ripped another sugary cloud of candyfloss off the cone and placed it onto her tongue.
“I’m assuming Naomi’s leading man is not going to be a magician, then?” Theo chuckled. Olivia shoved his shoulder as he let out another round of husky laughter.
She enjoyed this playful side of Theo. “No, definitely not.”
“No closet magicians. Got it.”
They walked for a bit in silence, both gazing forward into the bustling crowd swarming the Ferris wheel line, and food carts.
The breeze flipped her hair across her face.
She felt the soft grass under her Converse; the small cardigan draped over her frame doing little to stop goosebumps from flittering over her skin in waves.
“Well, how would you do it, then?” Olivia broke the silence.
“How would I do what?” Theo watched as Olivia pulled a strip of candyfloss from the cone and placed the pink fluff in her mouth, licking her thumb and forefinger.
“Woo me.”
They stopped in front of the spinning saucers, the entrance to the clown maze tucked to their left-hand side beyond the purple tent housing a psychic reader.
“Woo you?”
“Yes. If you were madly in love with me, theoretically, how would you make a move?” Olivia bumped his side with hers, before glancing up at him, her face glowing in the neon lights. “What’s your game? It’s your time to humour me.”
He hummed, eyes narrowing as she looked up at him with determination.
Fine, if she wanted to know what he would do, he would tell her.
In all the over-the-top and conniving ways he’d already used – spoil her, open the door for her, affirm her.
He would play the same game he had been all along, since that first night in the bistro when he watched her chat up eight different men in the same night and, despite having made the effort to look gorgeous in a tight black dress and red lipstick, not leave with any.
All those men – no, boys – were idiots. That’s why it had been so easy to talk to her and convince her that he was the man to help.
A true man who wanted to devour every inch of her body.
He would address every love language and pretend he wasn’t already halfway to falling madly in love with this spitfire of a woman. Theo could do that. He knew he could.
“Assuming we were already together?” Theo snagged a small cloud of candyfloss, squashing it between his fingers before throwing it in his mouth. He noted the way her eyes followed the action.
“Yes. How would you take care of me?”
Theo liked that question a lot.
How would you take care of me?
He looked over her body, scanning upwards from the scuffed converse on her feet to the floral summer dress that brushed the middle of her thighs teasingly, all the way up over the wrap cardigan, to her golden curls and the brilliant blue of her eyes.
Quirking his eyebrow, he gave her a small suggestive smirk. “How would I take care of you?”
In all the dirty, sexual and romantic ways I know how, he wanted to say, and with her blue eyes shining under the multicoloured string lights of a carnival stall, it was if she saw right through him.
His eyes had said it all.
“Oh, keep your head out of the gutter, Mr Constantine.” Olivia gave him one hard shove on the arm, the beginning of a smile lingering on the corner of her mouth.
Theo let out another booming laugh, before turning to her accusingly, lifting his hands is surrender. “Hey, I didn’t say anything…”
She gave him that knowing look, the one that lifted the corners of his lips in return. Jabbing him in the ribs with a pointed finger, her own smile slipped out.
“You… it was implied…” she stuttered. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what? How did I look at you?”
But Theo knew he was gazing at her like she was the whole world, and like that floral summer dress she had been teasing him with all evening would look better hiked up over her hips while his wide palms squeezed the soft curves of her sides..
Or, even more honestly: on the floor.
Her words came out breathy and stilted, as though his thoughts had permeated her and sent her the visuals of what exactly he had on his mind. “Like you want to rip this dress off of me and get down and dirty in the clown maze.”
A rush of warm filled his cheeks at her words. They had stopped to the right of the rotating cup and saucers, and a small ball throwing game. Theo glanced at her and blinked. He hadn’t expected her to be so blunt in her answer. She was right, that was exactly what he wanted to do to her. And more.
He would take care of her in many ways. Kiss her. Comfort her. Worship her.
Glancing at the clown maze across from them, he gave her another devilish look, the image of having her pressed up against a mirrored wall, the thrill of getting caught with her smooth legs around his hips, and her hands tangled in his hair, their lips locked in a mess of lipstick made his breath falter halfway to his lungs.
Candyfloss and her light rose perfume. The mere thought of just tasting her. Licking the pink sugar off her plump lips.
It all ran through his mind like a movie, the front of his jeans growing tight in anticipation. “I mean, you’re not wrong…”
“Oh shush, you.” She looked away from him bashfully.
How he was fascinated by that brush of red spreading up her neck and across her freckled cheeks.
When he had first met her in the bistro, he hadn’t noticed the small dots that painted a constellation over the bridge of her nose and across her high cheekbones.
Now, in the dim light of the evening and with little make-up on, she still looked undoubtedly beautiful.
He found himself constantly playing connect the dots, noting how the golden-brown freckles made her blue eyes shine brighter on her face.
After all, he thought, if I were to fall in love with her, surely it wouldn’t be that hard, he was already completely infatuated with her. He was supposed to help her. What if he could be that guy? He knew he could, now all it would take was for him to try to convince her.
After all, what could possibly go wrong?