38. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CONNOR
Ifollow Marcus into the living room and watch him throw himself down onto the sofa, the cushions dipping beneath him. For a second, I just stand there staring at the side of his face, still trying to reconcile my brother with the guy who was throwing punches at Theo less than twenty minutes ago.
Then I drop down beside him, our shoulders knocking together.
“Why would you do that?” I sigh.
There’s no anger left behind it. I think I used all of that somewhere between watching Marcus split Theo’s lip and seeing Theo look at me like touching him hurt worse than the punch did.
Marcus twists towards me as much as the cramped space allows, his brow lifting like I’m the one being unreasonable. “He broke your heart,” he snaps, throwing his hands up. “What the fuck did you expect me to do?”
A breath slips out of me that almost sounds like a laugh, except there’s nothing fucking funny about any of this.
“I broke my own fucking heart, Marcus.”
The words come out so quietly I almost wish he doesn’t hear them.
He does.
Marcus goes still beside me, the argument already sitting on his tongue disappearing as his brows pull together. “What?”
I sink farther into the sofa and drag a hand over my jaw, staring somewhere past him because I don’t know how the fuck I’m supposed to explain something I still don’t fully understand myself.
“I couldn’t,” I swallow, trying again. “I don’t know how to be,” My hand lifts uselessly between us, gesturing at myself because apparently that’s the best explanation I’ve got. “This.”
Marcus sucks in a sharp breath through his teeth.
I glance over just in time to catch his eyes widening before he lets out a low whistle and shakes his head.
“Messy,” he mutters.
My eyes narrow. “Fuck you.”
He winces slightly, but the bastard still shrugs like he stands by it.
I look down at my hands, catching a loose thread at the cuff of my hoodie and winding it around my finger. I pull it loose, then tighter, watching it bite into my skin while the question that’s been sitting in my chest since Marcus found Theo’s jersey claws its way back up.
“You really don’t care?”
It comes out quieter than I mean it to.
Marcus doesn’t answer immediately, and that tiny stretch of silence is enough to make my stomach tighten.
I keep my eyes fixed on the thread.
I don’t know what I’m expecting. Marcus has never given me a reason to think he’d care about that, but knowing something and saying it out loud are apparently two completely different fucking things.
Everything felt easier when it was just Theo.
When I could convince myself that if nobody knew, I didn’t have to work out what any of it meant.
Marcus’s hand closes over mine, stopping me from picking at the thread.
“The fact that you’re into guys is the least of my concerns, Con,” he huffs, like I’ve asked him the stupidest question he’s heard all day.
My head lifts.
He’s looking at me exactly the same.
No disgust. No shock. Not even the confusion I’ve been carrying around for weeks.
Just Marcus.
Something in my chest loosens so suddenly it almost hurts.
“I’m more concerned about your taste,” he adds, narrowing his eyes at me as the corner of his mouth twitches. “Did it have to be Theo?”
A laugh slips out of me before I can stop it, small and shaky and a little too close to something else.
I look down again.
“Yeah.” My throat tightens around the word, but there’s no hesitation behind it this time. “It did.”
Because that part I know.
Whatever the fuck the rest of this means, whatever I am or what happens now, it was always going to be Theo.
Marcus drops his head back against the sofa with a groan, dragging both hands through his hair before gripping it like he can physically rearrange whatever’s happening inside his head.
“Well, shit.”
I glance at him.
He turns his head slowly towards me, studying my face for a second too long.
“You’re in love with him.”
My entire body goes cold.
“No.”
It comes out so fast it practically trips over itself.
Marcus’s eyebrows lift.
“No, I...” I shake my head, pulse suddenly hammering against my throat. “No. I’m not. I—no.”
Except the denial feels different now.
It doesn’t settle neatly into place the way it usually does. It just hangs there, flimsy and fucking useless, while every memory I have of Theo seems to shove itself forward at once.
Theo on the ice.
Theo laughing at me.
Theo calling me princess just to piss me off.
Theo beneath me.
Theo asking me not to leave.
Theo standing outside the house with tears in his eyes while he told me he’d taken every scrap I gave him and convinced himself it was enough.
The ache beneath my ribs pulls so tight I press a hand against it without thinking.
Fuck.
“M-maybe.”
The word cracks on the way out.
Marcus stares at me.
I stare at the floor.
“Fucking hell,” he breathes eventually, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“He’s your best friend,” I mutter, because apparently if I’m going to make this worse, I might as well really fucking commit to it.
“I’m aware.”
“I didn’t mean for—”
“Connor.” Marcus groans and drops his hand. “Please stop reminding me you’ve been screwing my best friend. I’m already going to need fucking therapy.”
Another laugh tries to escape me, but it doesn’t make it very far.
Because all I can see is Theo pulling away from my hand.
You don’t get to do that. Not anymore.
My chest tightens again.
“I hurt him, Marc.”
Marcus goes quiet.
“I really fucking hurt him.”
There’s no hiding from it now. No telling myself Theo knew what this was, because he didn’t. Neither of us did. I kept dragging him close whenever I wanted him and shoving him away the second wanting him meant something I wasn’t ready to look at.
And Theo let me.
That might be the part that hurts the most.
He let me because having whatever pieces of me I was willing to give him was better than having none at all.
Marcus exhales beside me, long and slow, and some of the tension finally seems to drain out of him. He doesn’t tell me it’s okay. Doesn’t try to make it smaller than it is.
He just shifts and lifts his arm.
That’s all it takes.
I fold into him without thinking, dropping against his chest and tucking my head into the familiar space between his shoulder and chest. The same place I used to hide when I was younger, when everything felt too fucking big and Marcus could somehow make it manageable just by being there.
His arm closes around me.
And for the first time in days, I stop trying so fucking hard to hold myself together.
Marcus’s arm comes around me automatically, pulling me tighter against him, his hand moving slowly up and down my arm in a steady rhythm. He doesn’t say anything for a while, and I’m grateful for it. I don’t think I have anything left to say without making myself feel worse.
“Well,” he says eventually, quieter now, the anger from earlier finally gone from his voice. “What are we going to do then?”
I frown against his chest, not bothering to lift my head. “What?”
Marcus shifts slightly beneath me. “You’re not seriously just gonna let him go, are you?”
That gets me to look at him.
He’s staring down at me like I’ve just said something fucking ridiculous, and I blink back, trying to work out when exactly Marcus went from punching Theo in the face to apparently trying to save whatever the fuck is left between us.
“He told me to stay away from him,” I say slowly.
Marcus scoffs. “So?”
My brows pull together. “So?”
“Ignore him.”
A weak huff escapes me, something caught between a laugh and disbelief, and I drop my head back against his chest. “You literally punched him twenty minutes ago.”
“Yeah, well.” Marcus tightens his arm around me, apparently deciding that part isn’t relevant anymore. “I was missing some pretty fucking important information.”
“Like what?”
“Like the fact that you’re an idiot too.”
“Fuck off.”
He laughs under his breath, and I elbow him weakly in the ribs without actually moving away. His hand goes straight back to my arm afterwards, rubbing slowly over it, and the tiny bit of humour drains out of me almost as quickly as it came.
Because Theo still told me to stay away.
He meant it too.
I can still see his face when he said it. The way his voice broke even while he was trying to make it sound final. The way he pulled away from me every time I reached for him, like he knew if he let me touch him, one of us would cave.
“Now,” Marcus says, suddenly firmer, “how are we going to get your man back?”
Your man.
My chest fucking aches.
I rub both hands over my face, pressing my palms into my eyes until colour bursts behind them. “I don’t think there is any getting him back,” I rasp, and my breath catches embarrassingly halfway through, something dangerously close to a hiccup breaking out of me. “I really fucked up.”
And saying it out loud makes it feel even worse.
Because I did.
Theo gave me chance after chance to be honest with him. He practically fucking begged me for it, and every time things started to feel too real, I panicked and shoved him away again.
Marcus sighs, the breath stirring my hair as his fingers trace absent patterns against my arm.
“He’ll come around.”
I scoff thickly and scrub beneath my eyes before anything else can escape. “You have to say that. You’re my brother.”
“I really don’t.”
I glance up at him.
Marcus’s mouth twists as he looks down at me. “In fact, I’d rather my little brother stayed far, far away from my best friend.”
Despite everything, the corner of my mouth twitches.
Marcus catches it immediately.
The bastard grins and ruffles his hand roughly through my hair, messing it up even more than it already is.
“Fuck off.” I swat at him, ducking away as he laughs.
“Just stating the facts.”
“You were literally asking how we get him back five seconds ago.”
“For you,” Marcus says, like that makes all the difference. “Personally, I’d like to go back to a time when I didn’t know Knox had ever seen you naked.”
“Marcus.”
“Actually, I’d like to go back to five minutes before I found the jersey.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
He laughs again when I shove at him, and this time a small one escapes me too, weak and rough from crying, but real enough that some of the pressure sitting on my chest eases with it.
Only slightly.
Because underneath it, Theo’s words are still there.
Just stay away from me.
And for once, ignoring what Theo wants might not be something I have the right to do.