29. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
THEO
The silence has been crawling under my skin since we pulled away from the house, Connor angled towards the window beside me and refusing to even look in my direction.
He watches the buildings blur past outside, streetlights sweep through the car every few seconds, catching pieces of his face before they disappear again, and despite every effort not to, I keep looking.
I tighten my hands around the steering wheel and flex my fingers against the leather, already feeling that familiar restless itch beneath my skin.
This is exactly why I fucking smoke.
A cigarette would give my hands something to do. Something to put between my lips instead of whatever stupid comment keeps threatening to come out just to break the silence.
Because Connor sitting there refusing to look at me shouldn’t bother me.
But I want him to turn around. Say something. Start an argument if that’s all he’s willing to give me. At least then I wouldn’t be sitting here catching glimpses of his face every few seconds and wondering what the hell is going on behind it.
My hand leaves the wheel long enough to switch on the radio, and quiet music fills the car without making the silence between us feel any less obvious.
I tap my fingers against the wheel.
“Who is it?” Connor asks, breaking the silence, and my hand freezes.
I glance over, but Connor keeps his face turned towards the window like the question came from anywhere but him. A streetlight sweeps through the car and catches the flush sitting high across his cheek, and I have to fight the twitch at the corner of my mouth.
“Tristen.”
Connor’s head whips towards me, his brows pulling together.
“Tristen?”
I bite the inside of my cheek, keeping my eyes on the road. “Yes, Tristen.”
“Tristen?” he repeats, somehow managing to make the name sound worse the second time.
A laugh starts pushing at my chest as I glance across at him. “How many times are you planning on saying it?”
Connor huffs and shoves a hand through his hair, pushing it away from his face. His fingers settle at the back of his neck, rubbing there while he looks anywhere except at me.
“Why him?”
The amusement drains out of me as I turn my attention fully back to the road, knuckles turning white around the wheel.
I could give him any number of answers. He’s hot.
We’ve fucked before, which means we both know exactly what tonight is and neither of us is going to wake up tomorrow expecting it to be anything else.
It’s easy, uncomplicated, exactly the kind of thing I’ve always been good at.
Exactly the kind of thing Connor isn’t.
“What?” I ask.
Connor shakes his head, retreating from the question. “Nothing.”
He turns back towards the window, but there’s no pretending I didn’t hear it now. Three days ago he stood in his flat and told me fucking me was a mistake, and tonight he’s sitting beside me wanting to know why I’m going to fuck someone else.
I run my tongue over the inside of my cheek, staring through the windshield as a slow, unwilling satisfaction starts working its way beneath my irritation.
Nothing, my fucking ass.
“Why aren’t you taking your bike?”
The corner of my mouth twitches at how quickly the question comes, especially after he’s spent most of the drive acting like looking in my direction might kill him.
My fingers flex around the wheel as I keep my eyes on the road. “I don’t really do passengers.”
“I don’t really do passengers.”
The words come out rough, catching strangely in the quiet car. My fingers tighten around the wheel as Connor keeps looking at me, and when I finally glance across, his lips are parted slightly, eyes fixed on mine.
Connor’s lips press together, colour climbing into his cheeks, and I force my attention back to the road.
By the time I pull up outside his flat, everything we haven’t said has packed itself into the car with us. I cut the engine, and the silence only makes it worse, stripping away the last bit of noise until I can hear Connor shift beside me.
He turns, mouth opening, and my chest swells around the stupid hope that this time he might actually say whatever has been fighting its way out of him all night.
But instead, he reaches for the door and gets out.
I watch him start towards the building, irritation crawling beneath my skin because apparently we’re going to add that to the growing list of things Connor refuses to fucking say, and before he’s made it more than a few steps, I’m out of the car and rounding the bonnet after him.
Connor turns at the sound of my footsteps, surprise widening his eyes. “What are you doing?”
“Walking you to the door.”
His gaze flicks towards the entrance barely six steps away before coming back to me. “Why?”
Excellent question.
One I ignore by moving closer.
“Your brother will have my ass if something happens to you.” I shove my hands into my pockets and shrug. “Humour me.”
Connor looks down, lingering on the open front of my shirt.
His eyes flick back up to my face, his throat working around a swallow that sends a mean little pulse of satisfaction through me.
“What could possibly happen between here and there, Knox?”
He’s aiming for irritated, but there’s too much tension beneath it now, and my eyes drop to his mouth as I close another fraction of the space between us.
“I don’t think you really want me to answer that, princess.”
Connor’s whole body tenses.
“Don’t you have a date to get to?”
I press my tongue against the inside of my cheek and stare at him. Another pointed question from someone who’s spent the last three days acting like he couldn’t care less what I do or who I do it with.
“You seem awfully fucking worried about my date for someone who thinks sleeping with me was a mistake.”
“I’m not worried,” Connor grits out, jaw clenching.
A hollow laugh slips out as I shake my head and step away. “Unbelievable.”
I barely make it half a step before Connor fists the front of my shirt and yanks me straight back towards him, pulling me up short as my eyes drop to his hand.
“What the-”
It dies in my throat when, instead of letting go, Connor catches the two sides of my shirt and starts buttoning it.
I stare down at his hands as he lines up the first button and pushes it through, brows pulled down with concentration. His knuckles skim my stomach as he reaches for the next one, warm against bare skin, and a shiver threatens to follow the touch.
I could stop him. Probably should, considering I’m supposed to be leaving for a date, and Connor’s already made it perfectly clear what he thinks about the two of us.
His fingers keep moving steadily upwards, closing the shirt over skin he hasn’t managed to stop staring at all fucking night. Every brush of his knuckles leaves goosebumps in their wake, and by the time he reaches my chest, I’m barely paying attention to the buttons anymore.
I’m watching him.
He reaches the last open button and his fingertips graze my collarbone, my pulse jumping beneath them.
For the first time since he grabbed me, his eyes lift to mine, but he doesn’t let go. Both hands stay curled into the edges of my shirt as the last scraps of space between us disappear, and when he leans closer, rising slightly onto his toes, his breath catches warm against my mouth.
Fuck. Three days of avoiding me, calling what happened a mistake, and now he can’t even let me walk out the door with my shirt open.
“Why won’t you just admit you don’t want me to go?”
Connor sucks in a breath and releases my shirt, backing away from me like I’ve finally said the one thing he couldn’t pretend not to hear.
“Why would I care if you go on a date?” he scoffs, his eyes falling to the ground.
I catch his chin, tipping his face back towards me. “Then why do you care if my shirt’s open?”
“Because it looks ridiculous.”
“Right.” My thumb brushes slightly over his jaw. “So you don’t care if I take Tristen home?”
Connor’s lips press together, his eyes flicking between mine, and I lean closer. “Well?” I push.
“Is he your type?”
I blink at him, and Connor’s eyes widen slightly. Normally I’d have a dozen answers ready, something filthy or obnoxious enough to make him blush and regret ever fucking asking, but my fingers are still curled beneath his chin, and I’m looking at him from this close, and none of them come.
Instead, I give him the one answer I probably shouldn’t.
“My type can’t be trusted.”
Connor’s breath catches against my fingers, my stomach dropping.
“Theo-”
I slap my hand over his mouth before he can get another word out.
“No.”
I shake my head as a laugh drags its way out of me, hollow enough that I barely recognise it.
I can’t fucking do this again. Can’t stand here while Connor looks at me like he wants to tear Tristen apart, puts his hands on me because he can’t stand the thought of someone else seeing my chest, then waits for me to politely ignore all of it because he’s straight and I’m still the mistake he wishes he hadn’t made.
“You don’t get to make it this hard for me to see someone else,” I grind out, my hand falling from his mouth.
I step forward, Connor matching me with a step backwards.
I follow until his shoulders meet the wall and his eyes narrow, flicking over my face before dropping briefly between us.
“I’m not making anything hard for you,” he scoffs, turning his head away.
I close the last of the distance, and his palm lands against my chest.
“Stop.”
The word has more force behind it than his hand does.
I look down at his palm pressed flat over my heart, barely holding me back, before lifting my eyes to his face again. His cheeks are flushed, lips parted around breaths coming faster than they should, and there’s so much conflict written across him that I’m sick of pretending I can’t see it.
I shift my thigh between his legs.
Connor sucks in a breath, and his hands jump to my shoulders, bunching in the fabric of my shirt as he rises slightly onto his toes.
“Stop what?” I breathe.
His eyes snap to mine. “S-stop touching me.”
“Why?”
“Because-” His fingers bite into my shoulders as another breath catches. “Because I can’t fucking think.”
He shoves at my chest, but there’s barely enough force behind it to move me, and I stay exactly where I am, tongue catching restlessly against my lip ring while I watch him struggle with whatever he’s refusing to say.
“Tell me you don’t want me to go.”
I lean closer until my nose brushes his, not giving him anywhere else to look. “Tell me something honest for once.”
“I-”
His mouth closes.
“I-Theo-”
The same wall comes down between us the second he gets too close to saying anything real.
Frustration flashes across his face, his head tipping back towards the brick, and my hand shoots behind it before he can connect, the impact biting across my knuckles instead.
Connor squeezes his eyes shut.“I hate you,” he breathes, voice breaking.
My thumb brushes over his nape. “I know,” I murmur, my hand falling away, but I can’t make myself move. “Tell me not to go.”
It’s too close to a plea.
A frustrated sound tears out of Connor, his hands clamping around my waist, yanking me forward and flipping us until my back hits the wall.
“I don’t want him to fucking touch you.”
He crowds straight into the space I left behind, his forehead dropping against mine, his hand sliding up to grab my jaw, tipping my face up, and after everything I’ve been fighting him on tonight, I let him.
“But, I-I can’t tell you not to go.”
And just like that, the warmth flooding my chest turns cold.
“I can’t-” His jaw works as he finally releases me, stepping back far enough that cold air rushes into the space between our bodies. “Nothing’s changed.”
I stare at him as the little bit of hope I shouldn’t have let anywhere near me dies. After everything he’s done tonight, every jealous question and lingering look, putting his hands on me because he can’t fucking help himself, we’re still right back where we started.
A hollow laugh catches in my throat as I nod. “Of course not. You’re straight, right?”
I put my palm against his chest and push him back before I do something infinitely more pathetic than asking him once.
Connor’s eyes stay on mine, searching my face while his mouth opens like maybe, finally, he’s going to give me something I can actually use, but nothing comes.
My fingers go to the buttons of my shirt and start undoing the careful work he did minutes ago, because I need something to do with my hands and right now spite is about the only thing keeping them from reaching for him again.
I’ve barely opened the second one when Connor’s hand closes over mine.
His palm is warm against the back of my hand, fingers curling around mine to keep me from moving, and all the fight leaves me.
My eyes close. “This isn’t fucking fair,” I breathe out, low and exhausted, nothing left in it to hide behind.
I pull my hand slowly from beneath his and force myself to step back, his hand falling away.
Far enough away that I can’t feel his breath against my face or the heat of his body or fool myself into thinking any of this is something Connor is actually willing to give me.