9. CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER NINE
CONNOR
Icheck my watch for the third time in less than a minute, as though the numbers might have somehow changed in my favour since the last time I looked.
Shit.
Thirteen minutes is plenty of time. I know exactly how long it takes to get across campus from here, and I left enough room for this. What I didn’t account for was half the campus apparently deciding to wander aimlessly through the middle of the corridor.
I quicken my pace, hitching my backpack higher when it starts slipping down my shoulder. The strap catches awkwardly against my t-shirt, but I don’t stop to fix it properly. I can still make it if I cut through the athletics building and don’t get stuck behind anyone on the stairs.
Knowing that doesn’t stop the tension creeping higher along the back of my neck.
I shift my coffee into my other hand, curling my fingers more firmly around the warm cup as I recalculate. Four minutes to clear this building, six across campus, two to get upstairs. That still leaves me a minute.
Twelve minutes.
Ten if I cut through the—
The impact knocks me backwards, my coffee crushing between us, the cup buckling beneath my grip as heat floods through my t-shirt and a solid body drives into mine, sending my feet scrambling for purchase.
My eyes snap up, landing on a pair of familiar green ones already staring back at me.
Theo.
He looks almost as startled as I feel, his hand shooting out when my footing slips, tattooed fingers closing firmly around my forearm and pulling me steady before I can go down.
Wet fabric clings to my chest, coffee cooling against my skin, and my attention drops straight to the dark stain bleeding through my t-shirt.
It spreads while I’m looking at it, soaking into clean fabric in uneven patches, the edges creeping wider while coffee sits cold and sticky between the material and my skin. I tug the shirt away from my chest, but it falls straight back, wet fabric sticking to me all over again.
No.
No, no, no.
Theo’s fingers are still around my arm.
I yank myself free.
“My bad.” He lifts his hands, wincing when he follows my stare down to my shirt. “Although I’m pretty sure you’re the one that ran into me.”
My head snaps up. “Seriously?”
Theo’s fingers catch the bottom of my shirt, knuckles brushing my stomach as he tugs the wet fabric away from my skin.
“It’ll dry.”
I rip the fabric out of his hand, only for the damp cotton to settle straight back against my skin, cold and sticky and wrong in a way that makes every muscle in my body pull tighter.
It’ll dry.
Right. Because that’s the problem.
I can feel every uneven patch of coffee soaked into the fabric, every cold inch clinging where it shouldn’t, and now there’s a crease where Theo had it bunched in his fist. My fingers smooth over it, pressing the fabric flat against my stomach before running over the same spot again when the crease refuses to disappear completely.
All I manage to do is press the cold coffee harder against my skin.
I grab one of the napkins wrapped around my cup and press it against the stain, scrubbing over the darkest part until the paper softens beneath my fingers and starts breaking apart.
It isn’t lifting.
I rub harder, dragging the napkin back and forth over the same patch, but the coffee only bleeds further through the fabric, spreading the wetness wider while little scraps of white paper catch against my shirt.
“Come on,” I mutter, picking them off with fingers that aren’t quite as steady anymore before going straight back to the stain, scrubbing until the fabric pulls beneath my hand and the napkin starts disintegrating completely.
This is making it worse. I can see that it’s making it worse, can see the dark edges spreading and feel the cold fabric sticking over more of my skin, but stopping would mean leaving it like this and I can’t leave it like this.
My breathing has gone too shallow, every inhale catching high in my chest while I rub harder, chasing one edge of the stain only for another to spread beneath my hand.
Theo’s hand closes over mine, the ruined napkin crushed between our palms while my fingers keep twitching uselessly beneath his, still trying to scrub at the stain even though he’s stopped me.
“Christ, princess.” His thumb presses firmly into the side of my hand. “It’s only coffee.”
“It’s not only coffee.”
My voice breaks around the words, and Theo stills.
His hand stays over mine, holding it against my chest while every shallow breath moves our knuckles with the wet fabric, in and out, in and out, and I can’t seem to pull enough air past the vice of my throat.
I fist the front of my shirt, pulling it away from me while my brain races ahead to the lecture, to sitting beneath those bright fucking lights for an hour with a stain spread across my chest, knowing it’s there even when I’m not looking at it. I’ll smell the coffee every time I move.
I need it off.
Theo doesn’t say anything, the silence stretching long enough that I finally look up and find him staring at me, green eyes moving over my face before dropping to the fist I still have twisted in my shirt.
Theo’s brows pull together, his eyes lingering on mine before he mutters, “Ah, shit.”
His hand closes around my wrist, warm fingers firm against my skin.
Come on.”
He turns and pulls me into motion with him, and somehow I’m already following before it occurs to me that I have no idea where he’s taking me.
“What?” I stumble after him, tugging uselessly against the hand locked around my wrist. “No.”
He doesn’t even slow down.
“Don’t make me regret this more than I already do, princess.”
“Regret what? You’re the one who—”
Theo pushes through a door and drags me in after him before I can finish, the familiar locker room opening up around us as I finally manage to pull my wrist free.
“I’m fine,” I insist, even though he hasn’t asked, the words rushing out quickly enough that I hear exactly how unconvincing they sound.
Theo turns to face me, and whatever argument I’m preparing catches when I realise he isn’t laughing. He looks at me too long, green eyes fixed on mine in a way that makes me want to look anywhere else.
“Wanna try that again?”
I shove my hands into my pockets before he can see them properly, and my shirt pulls tight across my stomach. My fingers are halfway back out before I stop myself, burying them deeper into my pockets.
It’s coffee. A wet shirt. That’s all this is, and I don’t need to touch it again or smooth it out or get it off right this second. I can leave it exactly as it is.
Theo turns towards one of the lockers and starts digging through it, apparently unconcerned with the fact that I’m standing in the middle of a hockey locker room I have absolutely no business being in.
I keep my eyes on Theo as he digs through the locker, following the careless sweep of his hands as he shoves things aside, the scrape of plastic against metal and the heavy thud of something hitting the bottom when he drops it.
He mutters a curse and reaches further in, knocking something else over in the process, and I latch onto every fucking sound.
The scrape. The bang. Theo swearing under his breath.
Anything except the cold drag of my shirt every time I breathe.
The locker slams shut and I flinch, my attention snapping back to Theo as he turns towards me with a bundle of clothes tucked beneath one arm.
“Maybe make it actually believable.”
“I’m fine,” I grit out, holding his gaze because looking away will only prove his point.
Theo scoffs. “You’re a terrible liar.”
His eyes skim over me, and I brace for that slow, obnoxiously obvious look he keeps giving me.
But there’s no smirk when his attention catches on my hands buried in my pockets, no teasing when it moves to the shirt still plastered against my stomach. By the time his eyes lift back to mine, I almost wish he’d looked at me the other way.
I know what to do with that.
Theo’s eyes stay on me, and my nails bite into my palms, heat burning its way up my neck.
I open my mouth, desperate to say something that will put the usual irritation back between us, but I don’t even manage the first word.
“Save it.”
A bundle of clothes flies at me, and I barely get my hands free in time to catch it against my chest.
Soft fabric bunches beneath my fingers, dry enough that the first brush of it against my damp shirt makes my grip tighten. Then the smell reaches me, clean detergent mixed with whatever cologne Theo wears, warm and familiar enough that I know exactly who the clothes belong to before I look down.
T-shirt. Joggers.
His.
When I look back up, Theo has already turned away, dropping heavily onto the bench and leaning forward with his forearms braced against his thighs, his attention fixed somewhere on the floor between his feet.
“Go shower.”
My fingers twitch around the clothes. “I’m not showering here. The coffee’s practically dry already.”
I straighten as I say it, only for the damp fabric to drag across my stomach and send my arms shifting instinctively away from my sides.
Theo’s eyes lift, dropping briefly to the space I’ve put between the shirt and the rest of me before meeting mine again.
“No, it’s not.”
Theo hums and leans back against the lockers, settling further onto the bench. His legs stretch out in front of him, completely relaxed, while I’m standing here feeling increasingly ridiculous.
“You trying to convince yourself or me, princess?”
My jaw tightens.
“‘Cause you’re trying real hard not to touch your own shirt.” His eyes drop pointedly towards it. “Doesn’t exactly scream fine.”
My breath catches, fingers shifting against the clothes in my arms, and a crease catches beneath my thumb.
I’ve crushed half the t-shirt in my fist.
flatten my palm over it, smoothing the fabric once and then again, but there are too many folds now, too many places where it isn’t sitting right, and the coffee is still cold, and Theo is still looking at me.
I take a step backwards.
Theo blows out a breath and raises one hand.
“I don’t care.”
I look at him, finding no smirk this time.
“Whatever’s got your brain tied in knots is none of my business, and I don’t want it to be,” he says bluntly, “but you’re clearly fucking miserable, so just take a damn shower.”
He doesn’t ask.
That’s the part that gets me.
No why are you freaking out? No demand for an explanation I don’t know how to give without sounding ridiculous. He sees me standing here barely able to tolerate my own shirt and, for once, doesn’t turn it into another joke.
My eyes drift towards the shower cubicles.
They’re empty.
Clean enough from here. White tile, silver fixtures, doors between each one. Water drips steadily somewhere further down the row, the quiet sound repeating through the room.
I could wash it off.
The thought hits with enough force that my entire body seems to react to it.
Get the shirt off. Get the coffee off my skin. Stand beneath the water until I don’t feel sticky anymore.
I catch my bottom lip between my teeth, biting down until the sting gives me something else to focus on.
When I look back at Theo, he’s stopped watching me.
He reaches for the hockey stick propped beside the locker, turning it between his hands with his attention fixed on the tape around the blade, his posture loose again.
My lips part around a thank you that never quite makes it out.
I don’t know why it feels so difficult to say.
Instead, I lower my eyes to the clothes gathered in my hands, my thumb pressing into the soft fabric. They’re clean and dry, still carrying the faint smell of Theo beneath the detergent.
I swallow, holding them a little closer before finally turning towards the showers.