10. CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER TEN
THEO
The tape pulls tight around the blade, tacky against the pads of my fingers as I wind it around, bring it to my mouth and bite through it.
I smooth the end down with my thumb before starting another pass.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the tape already on there, but my hands need something to do, and this is better than sitting here listening to the shower running.
Another pass around the blade sits wrong, loose where it should be tight, and I yank the tape harder on the next turn to compensate. It pulls crooked instead, overlapping the edge and leaving a ridge beneath my thumb.
I know how to tape a fucking stick.
My heel taps against the floor until I plant it flat and pull another length of tape around the blade, concentrating on the familiar drag against my fingers, the stretch, the press of my thumb smoothing it down.
The shower hisses behind me.
I hear every second of it.
Water sprays against tile, running into the drain, the steady rush changing every time Connor moves beneath it. Louder for a second, then softer, then steady again while I wind another strip around the blade.
The water shifts again and my hand stalls halfway around.
For fuck’s sake.
Why the fuck am I still here?
I should’ve given him the clothes and left. That would’ve been the normal thing to do. Shove them at him, tell him where the showers are, get on my bike and let him deal with whatever the hell was going on with him without me sitting outside waiting.
And yet I’m still sat here, wasting half a roll of tape on a blade that didn’t need touching in the first place while Marcus’s little brother showers behind me, apparently determined to prove I’m capable of making worse decisions sober than I usually make drunk.
I pull another length from the roll.
Apparently I’ve lost my fucking mind.
I throw the stick aside, letting it crack against the locker before it drops to the floor between my feet.
“Fuck’s sake.”
I scrub both hands over my face and push off the bench, crossing the narrow strip of rubber flooring before turning back, only to stop halfway when pacing starts to feel even more stupid than sitting there taping the same blade for the third time.
I wrench my locker open instead, reaching inside. My hand closes around my hoodie, let’s go again, drifts uselessly towards the shelf above it, and I end up standing there with one arm buried in my locker and no idea what I came over here for.
Water hammers against the tile behind me while I work my thumb around the battered edge of the puck, until a foot squeaks against the wet floor and I’m already turning, shoulder pulling away from the locker, before I stop myself.
The puck slips from my hand as I turn back, planting both palms inside the locker and dropping my forehead against the cool metal.
“Fuck,” I groan, closing my eyes. “You fucking idiot.”
I shove a hand into my hair, catching a fistful at the roots and giving it a sharp tug.
The water cuts off, and my hand stills between the strands.
One drop hits the tile, then another, the gaps stretching longer until even those disappear and fuck me, the silence is worse.
The cubicle door clicks.
I straighten, dropping my hand from my hair and shoving the puck back into the locker before folding my arms across my chest and leaning into the metal, forcing the tension out of my shoulders as I cross one ankle over the other.
Connor eases the door open with the towel bunched between his hands, and my ankle slips from where I’d crossed it.
His hair is still wet, darkened several shades until there’s barely any blond left in it, damp strands falling unevenly across his forehead while water gathers at the ends. One drop breaks free, sliding slowly down the bridge of his nose until it catches against his bottom lip.
His tongue flicks out to wipe it away.
My teeth sink into the inside of my cheek as I tear my eyes away, landing on a crack in the wall somewhere over his shoulder and fixing them there with far more concentration than a bit of fucked-up plaster has ever deserved.
“Took you long enough.” The words come out rough, forcing me to clear my throat before I add, “Princess likes her showers, huh?”
“Ha.”
The towel flies at my face, and I catch it on instinct, damp fabric bunching between my fingers with the heat of his body still trapped in it.
“That joke’s getting old.”
bite the tip of my tongue and make myself look at him again, because standing here holding his warm, damp towel while deliberately staring anywhere else is starting to feel a hell of a lot more suspicious than just looking at him.
The second my eyes land on him, I remember exactly why I fucking stopped.
The hot water has left colour high across Connor’s cheeks, the flush making the blue of his eyes brighter against lashes gone dark and wet. A few of them have clumped together at the corners, and I’m still looking when he swallows.
The collar of my hoodie shifts against his throat.
My hoodie.
On Connor.
The sleeves hang past his wrists, the shoulders too broad for him, dark fabric falling loose over a body I’ve spent far too much time thinking about already.
“Still gets under your skin though, doesn’t it?”
I push away from the lockers and step towards him, watching those blue eyes follow me as I close the space.
“Princess.”
It comes out low, the teasing edge slipping away, Connor’s lips parting.
I take another step, breathing in.
He’s standing there in my clothes, smelling like me, hair still dripping onto the collar of my hoodie, and the combination lands with a possessive little kick I have absolutely no business feeling.
I roll my tongue against the inside of my cheek, breathing out through my nose, forcing the sound into a scoff.
Connor rolls his eyes, but his gaze slips away from mine a fraction too quickly, colour still sitting high across his cheeks.
“For a moment there, I thought you might actually be tolerable,” he mutters, catching the sleeves of my hoodie and starting to roll them up his forearms until his hands finally emerge from beneath the fabric.
Fucking thing swallows him.
I bite down on the inside of my cheek, refusing to spend any more time on why I like seeing him buried in something that belongs to me.
“That’s your mistake.”
Connor mutters something under his breath while he finishes with the second sleeve, and I don’t catch a fucking word of it, but the look he gives me when he’s done tells me enough.
My mouth pulls into a grin, some of the restless energy that’s been riding me since he walked out of that shower finally finding somewhere useful to go.
“Hmm?” I lean closer, lifting a brow. “Wanna repeat that?”
Connor’s eyes narrow as he folds his arms across his chest, shifting my hoodie around him in a way I very deliberately don’t follow with my eyes.
“If I wanted you to hear it, I’d have said it louder.”
The grin comes easier this time. This version of Connor I can handle. I can piss him off, make those blue eyes narrow, keep pushing until he gives it straight back instead of standing there smelling like my body wash and making me think about things I have no business thinking about.
“Don’t get shy on me now, Reid.” I exaggerate the pout just to watch his irritation sharpen.
“You’re the most insufferable—”
The locker-room door bangs open, metal rattling behind me as voices spill through the doorway with the heavy thud of gear hitting benches.
My head whips around.
Shit.
I know those voices.
I look back at Connor and nearly fucking groan.
He’s standing three feet away from me with his hair still wet from the shower, cheeks flushed from the heat and my hoodie hanging halfway down his thighs, looking for all the fucking world like he’s just climbed out of my shower and pulled on the first thing of mine he could find.
“Oh, fuck me.”
I drag my lip ring between my teeth and glance back towards the doorway as another bag hits the floor, followed by a laugh I recognise immediately.
Marcus.
Move.”
I step into Connor’s space, expecting him to take the hint.
His chest bumps mine instead, blue eyes narrowing as he plants himself there, and over his shoulder the open shower cubicle sits barely a few feet away.
“What—”
I crowd him backwards before he can finish, but Connor catches the edge of the doorway and pushes back against me, his shoulders squaring.
Marcus laughs somewhere around the corner.
My hands land on Connor’s hips, and whatever half-formed plan I had disappears as I grip him and drive him backwards into the cubicle, following him straight in when his back meets the tile with a dull thud and a grunt punches out of him.
I kick the door shut behind me, the latch clicking into place just as another voice carries into the locker room.
So apparently my solution to Marcus seeing his little brother fresh from the shower in my clothes was to shove said little brother back into the shower and climb in after him.
Outstanding work, Knox.
I keep as much space between us as the cramped cubicle allows, fixing my eyes somewhere above Connor’s shoulder while the locker room fills with voices outside.
“What the fuck—”
I slap my hand over his mouth.
Connor’s eyes fly wide, his next breath hitting hot against my palm as I lean closer.
“Shut up,” I whisper.
He glares at me over my hand, and fuck me, there is nowhere to go. My arm is already straining from keeping my chest off his, one hand covering his mouth while the other is still wrapped around his hip, warm through the hoodie I gave him.
Marcus laughs again.
Connor’s lips move against my palm, and I press my hand more firmly over them and lower my head.
“Unless you want your brother opening that door, stop fucking talking.”
“Knox?”
Marcus.
Connor tries to shove me off, his body driving forward into mine, and my hand clamps down on his hip, pushing him back against the tile.
“Yeah,” I call, forcing my voice even while Connor fights me beneath my hands.
Fucking normal. Sound fucking normal.