Chapter 20
Holly
Now
In a random alleyway with a very unfortunate man
This is ridiculous. With my hands raised on either side of my head, I turn around slowly.
“Your wallet and phone! Now!” The scraggly-looking man nudges his weapon in my direction, its tip falling inches away from the exterior of my green jacket.
I glance down. A standard Cutco kitchen knife.
I have the same one at home. Although mine’s sharper, shinier, and more lethal.
With this one, the steel’s a little rusted, the tip is blunt as hell, and it has a wide, curved cutting edge instead of narrow and sharp.
If he tries to stab me with this, all it’s going to achieve is some blunt-force trauma to my chest. It’d be painful, but I’ll live.
I bring my hand up to scratch the bridge of my nose and my perpetrator immediately flinches. Good god, if a small hand movement is enough to put him on edge, it’s obvious he hasn’t done this before. Do I really seem like the kind of girl an amateur mugger would practice on? That hurts my feelings.
“I don’t have my wallet on me,” I say.
The man’s eyes narrow into thin slits through the holes of his ski mask, and he shifts his stance. “Nice try, woman, but I wasn’t born yesterday.” He takes another step toward me, poking his knife at my chest. “Wallet, now!”
“Okay, okay. It’s in my pocket … just please don’t hurt me.”
The guy’s mouth twitches up in a smile. He’s obviously buying my bullshit doe-eyed act. His grip around the knife’s black handle loosens — just a smidge — and I don’t waste a single second.
Letting my phone fall to the ground, I turn my body to the side and grab his arm, yanking it forward.
“Hey!” he cries out as the knife falls from his hand, clattering on the hard tar surface. Using my other hand to hit his nose with the base of my palm, I step behind him and pin both his arms to the center of his back. “What the fuck — ow!”
I kick his shin and force him to the ground. Then I twist his arm, drawing another lamenting squeal out of his mouth.
“Shut the fuck up —”
Someone clears their throat.
I look up.
A tall silhouette leans casually against a streetlight pole at the alley’s entrance, one leg crossed over the other, and the world’s most annoying voice splices through our otherwise quiet surroundings. “Am I interrupting something?”
Of fucking course.
I bend down next to Ski Mask’s ear. “You still wanna mug someone? That’s your guy. I’ll even help you do it.”
Shaking his head, Theo walks toward us, one hand tucked into the pocket of his black suit jacket while using the other to smoothly unfasten its button. “Ever so eager to get your hands on me, aren’t you, love?”
The streetlight filters across his face, bringing his sharp jawline to life and I get a clearer view of his outfit.
He’s dressed in an all-black three-piece suit, his black shoes polished to a mirror finish.
Tiny gold cufflinks decorate his wrists, and his dark curls are styled in a classic, timeless slick-back.
The kinda style that makes him look like he’s just stepped out of a James Bond movie.
But it’s his headpiece that truly captures my attention.
Gold, with two horns on either side. Which, except for the extra horn, looks exactly like mine.
“What the fuck is that?”
Theo tilts his head to the side, a mischievous gleam lighting up his eyes as a rogue curl falls onto his forehead. “My flawless face?”
“That thing on your head. Why are you wearing that?”
“This?” He gestures to the golden headpiece with exaggerated flair. “It’s part of my costume, Hollister. And, might I add, while I do admire the effort you put into matching yours with mine, your headpiece seems…broken.”
“It’s supposed to be that way!” My patience snaps, and his mouth quirks up as he bites back a grin. He’s just been trying to get under my skin. And, evidently, he succeeded. “Why are you here, Theo?”
“I’m the best man.”
I frown as realization dawns. Of course. Parker invited him and failed to mention it to me, because why let poor, innocent Holly have even a single moment of peace? That slimy little rat bastard. I am going to cut his face.
Ski Mask squirms, trying to wrench himself free from my grip, and I dig my nails deeper into his sleeve, keeping my focus squarely on Theo, who now has a grin so wide it’s begging to be slapped off his face.
“Do you seriously have no other friends in this city? Why do you have to latch onto my sister and her fucking boyfriend of all people?”
“Fiancé,” he corrects.
“Go fuck yourself.”
“Mm, I’ve missed that mouth.”
I press my lips together, trying my best to look annoyed, even though his words, dripping with suggestion, stir something warm and low in my belly. “It’s been five hours since we last saw each other.”
“Glad to know I’m not the only one keeping count.”
Oh, I really, really want to stab him again.
We keep staring at each other, both waiting for the other to look away like it's some kind of contest neither of us wants to lose. Ski Mask squirms some more, muttering something I can’t quite hear, but the word “bitch” is loud and clear.
Theo's smile drops instantly, his gaze sharpening as he shifts his focus to the guy.
He takes a slow, deliberate step forward, then kneels to the ground, leveling himself with the mugger. “What did you just say?”
Ski Mask flinches. “Look man, I-I don’t want any trouble…”
“You should’ve thought about that before deciding to spend your evening picking on short, helpless women in dark alleys.”
“Excuse me?”
Theo glances up, his blue eyes piercing my own. “Yes, my love?”
“Short and helpless?”
He just stares at me. “You’re five feet tall.”
“Five-foot-seven.”
Theo stands slowly, his eyes never leaving mine.
God, he’s so close. Not close enough. I want to look away — I really do, but it’s as if there’s a sudden magnetic pull between our bodies, solely focused on tugging my gaze lower.
From his face to his torso. Then lower. And it’s not until I look back up that I catch the smirk tugging at his lips, along with the glint in his eyes.
He rolls his tongue against the inside of his cheek, biting back an obvious smile.
The movement is so casual, but the way it makes my stomach flip is anything but.
It makes me wonder what that tongue would feel like between my —
“Ow!”
Fuck. I glance down and realize that my nails have been really digging into Ski Mask’s threadbare sleeve. Painfully so.
“The fuck is wrong with you two! Just let me go, please!” he begs, his voice cracking.
I’m pretty sure my face is now the color of a ripe tomato. Begrudgingly I let go of the guy’s arm and he topples forward on his knees. “Run before I change my mind.”
He doesn’t even look back. He hurriedly gets up, stumbling a little more, and quite literally makes a run for it. My eyes stay put on him, watching till he disappears into an alleyway across the street, making his way past a shuttered liquor store.
“No stabbing?” Theo says, drawing my attention back to him. “I’m shocked.”
I pick up my phone from the ground. “Right now, the only person I want to stab is you.”
It’s possible his face actually lights up at the sound of that. He lifts the flap of his jacket, exposing the crisp fabric of his shirt beneath. “The left side of my torso is relatively free.”
I flip him off and start walking out of the alley, back toward the bar. But of course, Theo steps in front of me, blocking my path.
I exhale. “Are you really that desperate to feel my knife inside you again?”
His gaze slides down my body, taking in my outfit, almost as if he’s trying to catalogue every inch of it for later. “My pride does take a nosedive every time I’m around you.”
“Move.”
He doesn’t. “We should talk.”
“About what?”
He pulls out his phone, taps the screen, then turns it toward me. My eyes instantly land on the message displayed.
212-894-5092: leave her ALONE. this will be ur only warning.
“What the fuck is this?” The question is clearly rhetorical.
It’s pretty obvious the “her” in this context refers to me and even though the texts I’ve received on my phone have been way more graphic with literal death threats, this somehow scares me more.
It feels…different. More personal. Familiar in a way I can’t place.
“Holly!”
Both of us turn to the alley’s entrance to see April standing there. She’s swaying slightly on her feet and holding what looks like a penis-shaped balloon.
“Where have you been —” Her eyes land on Theo and her entire face lights up. “Theo! You’re here!” Then her brows pull together in dramatic drunken concern. She gasps. “Ohmygod, did I just…were you two about to kiss?”
“What?! Absolutely the fuck not!”
“A little bit, yeah,” Theo counters at the same time.
I whip around, glaring daggers at him. He just winks.
April stumbles toward me, looping her arm through mine. “We’re doing more shots. Parker thinks he can outdrink me, and for the sake of our future children, I have to prove him wrong.”
We head back into the bar. Theo trails behind us like some kind of an overbearing bodyguard. The place is a lot more packed than before. Louder too. Low, heavy beats vibrate through the smoky air. Some EDM crap. Low, red lighting casts everything in a shadowy glow.
Parker’s already waiting at the bar with a tray of four shots. I’m suddenly glad they’ve already booked a car service for their drive to Cooperstown tomorrow. My poor sister is a terrible driver as it is. She doesn’t need a hangover on top of that.
The moment Parker sees Theo, he leaps up to greet him. The two exchange a classic “bro-hug” complete with an unnecessary, bone-jarring pat on the back. Then he turns to April, pressing a quick kiss to her cheek as if to apologize for not greeting her first.
We each take a shot from the tray, raising our glasses.
“Wait, wait!” April protests. “We have to toast to something!”