Chapter 17
Theo
I’m barely done coming when her phone starts screaming from her bag by the front door.
She doesn’t move, even though she’s on top and could easily get up.
Instead, she ignores it and remains crumpled and sweaty on top of my chest, my shuddering cock still engulfed in her wet, warm heat.
My hands tangle in her bed head. “You’re ringing. ”
“I’m vibrating. Everywhere,” she murmurs, her breathing still uneven. I made her come hard. There’s no denying it. I feel really fucking great about it too. And she returned the favor.
I swear if I’d known sober sex would be this good, I would have never picked up a drink. I move one hand from her hair to her ass and give it a little slap. She jumps and lifts her head from my shoulder to glare. I grin at her. “Your phone. It’s ringing.”
Of course, just as I say that it stops. She shrugs and drops back down onto my chest. I kiss the top of her head. “That had to be a ten.”
“Mmmm…” I’m about to pump my fist in victory. “Mmm… nine. Nine point five.”
“No fucking way!” I argue, and I would laugh, but this is serious business. “You’re being tougher than a Russian figure skating judge.”
“I am unaware of the villains of the figure skating judging world,” she says casually as her phone starts ringing again. She groans.
“I’m not going to stop fucking you until I get top marks,” I warn her, and she sighs dramatically.
She gets off me and grabs the Vipers T-shirt I pulled off of her earlier and throws it back on as she runs barefoot to the front hall to find that incessantly ringing phone.
“I don’t want to release you into the world until you get that perfect ten, Theo.
I have a responsibility to women everywhere. ”
I smirk at her, and she winks. “What is it, Cal?”
I jump out of bed and cover my cock like her brother—my teammate and D partner—will somehow see me through the phone. It’s not a video call, and she lets out a breathless laugh as I scoot to the bathroom to get rid of the condom, but I leave the door open so I can hear her conversation.
“Why are you calling? It’s the crack of ass, and you never call. You always text.”
I give myself full marks. I’m competitive to a fault. But at the same time, a part of me is kind of relieved I haven’t scored it yet because then I don’t have an excuse to keep being with her. And I want to keep being with her. The sex is, whether she admits it or not, top-fucking-notch.
“What? No. I’m fine. Calm down.”
Oh shit. I freeze in the bathroom. I suddenly remember that she lives with Callan, and he probably realized she didn’t come home last night or call. “Yes, I know we have breakfast with Mom and Dad in an hour. In Portland. Where I currently am. So chill.”
I head to the small walk-in closet off the bathroom, grab a fresh pair of workout pants, and tug them on.
I walk back into the main space and find her by the windows, head down and brow furrowed.
“Well, what did they say?” There’s a pause.
“Callan, you’re not my mother. I don’t have to tell you if I decide to…
Yeah, well, the police could have called instead of just showing up. ”
Lola glances up at me and covers the mouthpiece with her hand. “The police came to the apartment this morning to talk about—”
She stops, but it’s okay, I know what she was going to say. To talk about the car being vandalized. “What? Yeah. I can talk to them now if they’re still there.”
“Speaker!” I whisper-demand because I’m invested in what happened. The look of shock and fear on her face when she saw her car is something I will never forget.
She hits the speaker button. I hear the tail end of Callan muttering something, and then a voice I don’t know. “Miss Casco? This is Officer Baldwell.”
“Yes. Hi, it’s Lola Casco. Sorry, I wasn’t home. I wasn’t expecting you.”
The policeman on the other end clears his throat. “Yes. Well, we thought we would swing by and tell you in person that there is no evidence to support the idea that it was Pete Wallace who vandalized your vehicle.”
“Oh.” Lola blinks and stares at the screen. “Well, is there any way to find out who did do it?”
“No. We checked the cameras at the parking garage, but they’re only in the stairwells, and since your car was on the first floor, they didn’t take the stairs,” he says swiftly, his tone aloof, which is probably normal but irks me. “At this point, we have to chalk it up to being a random act.”
“Why?” Lola blurts out, pauses, takes a deep breath, then releases it. “Why do you think it wasn’t Pete? He and I had had an altercation that night, and he was upset with me. He had also been unable to read boundaries with me in the past.”
“Well, he says he didn’t do it,” the officer replies simply. “In fact, when we brought your name up… well, it took him a minute to remember you. Said you and him… well, that it was nothing serious.”
“He’s lying,” Lola says.
“We investigated him, believe me. He’s got a full-time job with an environmental advocacy corporation, Miss Casco. He’s saving sea turtles. He has no criminal record and used to be captain of U Maine’s water polo team for crying out loud. A stand-up guy by all accounts.”
Lola’s face goes red, I’m sure with anger because the dude is lying his face off. “I saw him try to confront her that exact night, so he’s lying. I’m your proof.”
The words fly out, and it isn’t until Lola glares at me that I realize my mistake. I shouldn’t have spoken.
“And who are you?”
“I’m… I’m Theo Richard. I was there when she found her car destroyed.
I was there with her the night before when this Pete guy confronted her on the street outside the bar, trying to get her to go home with him.
” I try to ignore the withering stare Lola is throwing my way.
“So he’s lying to you. He most definitely remembers who she is, and he may have also been stalking her last night at the bar where she works. ”
“Theo!” Lola hisses.
“How so? Miss Casco, is there more you need to share?” Officer Baldwell asks, his tone stern, like we’re the problem.
“Well, last night as I closed up there was someone…” Lola pauses and closes her eyes. “There was someone on the sidewalk staring into the bar, but I couldn’t see their face. They just stood there staring for a really long time.”
“And you think it was at you, specifically?”
“No one else was there.”
“Did they try to get in? Confront you? Say anything?”
“No.” Her shoulders sag.
“Well, there’s nothing I can do about a non-incident,” Officer Baldwell says tersely.
“Please do let me know if it happens again or if this Pete person actually does anything. I assume if this is the Theo Richard I think it is, the same one who plays with your brother, Miss Casco, that you are with at eight in the morning, then you’re in good hands. ”
“She’s not in anyone’s hands,” I find myself saying, my voice hard. “What you have here is basically a stalker situation, so—”
“Thanks for following up, Officer Baldwell,” Lola cuts me off, and she’s glaring at me again. “Have a great day.”
Lola ends the call, and we stare at each other. Clearly, she’s trying to get me to understand a point I’m completely missing. “Why did you not fight him harder?”
“So he could call me an irrational woman? So he could make me feel worse?” Lola shakes her head. “And he said your name, so Callan knows I’m with you right now. Maybe you should spend your time figuring out how to handle that.”
She stomps off, grabbing her clothes, and moving toward my bathroom, closing the door when she gets there.
I stare in her wake, not sure what the fuck I did wrong.
I mean, sure, now Callan knows she stayed here, which is a bit of a can of worms, but I can handle that.
What I can’t handle is that cop believing this Pete asshole over Lola. How did I become a bad guy for that?
She steps out of the bathroom in her clothes from last night. She folds the Vipers shirt she was wearing and leaves it at the foot of my rumpled bed. “I have to meet my family for brunch before my parents fly back to San Francisco. Thanks for… last night.”
“Lola,” I say her name softly, but the urgency is clear. I don’t want this to be weird. “Tell me how I fucked up.”
“You…” She exhales and folds her arms before shaking her head. “You didn’t. I know you meant well. But nothing was going to change that policeman’s mind, and now I’m gonna have to deal with Callan knowing about this.”
“Maybe he left so the cop could talk to you, and he didn’t hear my name mentioned.” It’s a long shot, but it could have happened. She looks at me like I’m insane, and I get sheepish. “I’ll talk to Callan if you want. But the fact is, that cop wasn’t taking this seriously. And Pete lied to him.”
“And he didn’t believe me,” she says flatly. “I’m just a woman being hysterical and jumping to conclusions and accusing a stand-up guy. He’s on a water polo scholarship!”
“He didn’t believe me either.”
“But if he had, do you see the problem there?” Lola sighs. “I have to go.”
“I don’t like you leaving like this,” I confess.
“Neither do I, but I don’t like a lot of things about life right now,” she mutters as she shrugs into her jacket and puts on her boots.
I watch her silently as she picks up her bag at the front door. I don’t know how to fix this. “Where are you parked?”
“A few blocks up. I figured street parking was safer than a garage. More witnesses if something happened to the car again,” she explains and reaches for the door.
“Lola.” She pauses, but then pulls the door open anyway.
“Thanks. Honestly, thank you. Last night was fun.”
And then she leaves.
And I let her.