19. CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CONNOR
Footsteps pad across the kitchen floor, soft against the tile, pulling me out of the fog of notes I’ve been staring at for long enough that the words have started bleeding into one another.
The end of my pen is caught between my teeth, rolling absently as I chew at the plastic, and I glance up.
Theo stands at the counter with his back to me, one hand braced against it while the other stirs something into a mug.
My teeth stop against the pen as I stare at the broad stretch of his back, ink curling over his shoulder and down to his waist, and the memory of my fingers digging into that same skin comes far too easily.
I pull the pen from between my teeth and close my textbook, stuffing both into my bag before I can make the mistake of looking at him again.
I’ve been staring at the same paragraph for the last five minutes anyway. There’s no point sitting here pretending any of it is going in when I could study literally anywhere else.
Somewhere quieter, with fewer distractions.
I freeze with my fingers around the zip. Distractions. Jesus Christ.
He’s making coffee.
That’s it. He’s standing in a kitchen making coffee, and I’m apparently incapable of acting normal because he’s decided to do it without a shirt on.
I push my chair back and barely make it halfway up before Theo’s hand closes around my shoulder and puts me straight back in the chair.
My head snaps up. I expect green eyes and that irritating smirk, something familiar enough that I can snap at him and get this whole thing back onto ground I actually understand.
But Theo isn’t looking at me.
“I’m leaving,” he says stiffly, eyes finally finding mine. “Stay.”
My lips part, but before I can come up with anything, Theo’s hand slips from my shoulder.
He pushes it through his sleep-mussed hair instead, shoving the dark strands away from his face, his jaw clenching as he steps around me.
“Theo-”
I don’t even know what I was going to say, and apparently it doesn’t matter because he keeps walking without so much as glancing back at me.
No stupid comment thrown over his shoulder. No princess. None of the usual bullshit he uses to make sure he gets the last word.
He just leaves.
I stare at the spot he left, an uncomfortable ache beneath my ribs.
His mug is still sitting where he left it, steam still curling faintly from the top.
I’m leaving.
Stay.
Not can you stay. Not wait for Marcus. Just one quiet word before he walked out.
I press my lips together, staring at the abandoned mug.
He wanted me to stay.
He just didn’t want to stay with me.
“Con.”
Fingers snap directly in front of my face, startling me, my chair scraping against the floor.
“Don’t do that,” I bite out.
Marcus shrugs, his attention already drifting past me, towards the doorway I was staring at. His brows draw together before his eyes slide slowly back to me.
“You seeing ghosts now or something?” he asks.
His voice is light, but his eyes stay on my face too long before he turns towards the coffee machine.
I exhale slowly, forcing my shoulders to loosen.
“Something like that,” I mutter.
My textbook is already in my bag, which is irritating because now leaving would look like I’m leaving because Theo left, and I absolutely refuse to let Marcus make that connection.
Even if it only exists in my own head.
I yank the book back out of my bag and drop it onto the table with a heavy thud.
I flip back to the page I was on and start from the top, making it through the first paragraph before realising I haven’t absorbed a single word. I try again, slower this time.
It makes absolutely no difference.
Theo’s hand is still there, warm and heavy against my shoulder, his fingers pressing through my t-shirt as clearly as if he never moved them.
Marcus drops into the chair beside me with his coffee, kicking his feet up onto the table and nudging my textbook sideways.
I look at his shoes, my skin prickling at the dirt caught in the grooves of the soles barely inches from my book.
Then at him.
He takes a drink.
“Seriously?”
“What?”
“Your feet.”
Marcus glances down at them as if he’s only just realised they exist, and I shove his ankle away from my book.
He lets me, completely unconcerned.
“What is going on with everyone?” he mutters, rubbing a hand over his face before reaching for his coffee again. “I swear, between you and Theo I’m gonna have a nervous breakdown.”
My pen stops, ink pooling beneath the tip.
“What?”
My head snaps up.
You and Theo.
The lake comes rushing back, Theo’s mouth beneath mine, the feel of his body when I dragged him against me.
Marcus can’t know.
Except Theo is his best friend. They were together yesterday. Theo could have said something. Marcus could have seen us leave the club the other night. He could have noticed something this morning, could have-
I cut the thought off before I make myself insane, my hand clenching around the pen until the plastic digs painfully into my skin.
“What do you mean?”
Marcus looks at me properly, one brow lifting.
“You seriously haven’t noticed?”
My leg bounces beneath the table, heel tapping against the tile as I stare at him, trying to work out what he could possibly mean.
Marcus snorts. “He’s been playing like shit all week.”
The breath I’ve been holding slips out, my fingers relaxing around the pen, relief coming so fast I almost laugh.
Except then the rest of it catches up with me.
Theo’s been playing like shit.
“Couldn’t hit the fucking net if you paid him,” Marcus continues, taking another drink. “He’s been fucking useless.”
I saw it yesterday. Watched him send the puck wide and nearly lose his shit at Marcus afterwards, all that anger written across his face right up until he looked towards the stands and saw me.
I shift in my chair, pressing a hand over my knee to force it still. “Why would I notice that?”
I lower my head and start writing, copying the next sentence straight from the textbook without taking in a single word.
“You’ve been coming to practices more,” Marcus says with a shrug. “Kinda hard to miss the way he’s snapping at everyone.”
“Yeah, well, I haven’t.” I turn the page, still having no idea what was on the last one. “I don’t go to practice to watch Knox.”
A low whistle curls past Marcus’s teeth, and I already hate whatever’s coming next.
“What’d he do to piss you off?”
My teeth press together.
Theo hasn’t done a thing. That’s apparently the game now. Barely look at me, barely speak to me, tell me to stay and then walk straight out of the door himself.
My chair scrapes across the tile as I shove away from the table, knocking Marcus’s feet down with it.
“You think I’d waste my energy on someone like Theo Knox?” I spit, snatching up my textbook and pulling it against my chest.
It tastes wrong coming out of my mouth.
I hate the way Marcus is looking at me as though there’s something here for him to figure out, but he’s been playing like shit all week has already lodged itself beneath my ribs.
Theo’s game has nothing to do with me.
So there’s absolutely no reason for yesterday to keep replaying in my head, or for me to be wondering whether he was already playing badly before the lake.
“I have better things to do.”
Marcus’s gaze drops to the textbook I’ve practically folded around my ribs before coming back to my face.
“Yeah,” he snorts, mouth twitching. “You seem super chill.”
I glare at him, walking out his words still pounding inside my skull. And despite every sensible part of me insisting it has nothing to do with me, one question refuses to leave.
Since when?