Chapter 39
THEO
He sits at the edge of the bed with a towel-wrapped ice pack strapped to his calf, the sting of the slapshot throbbing beneath his skin like a slow-moving fire.
It’s going to bruise like hell tomorrow, deep purple and angry.
His whole body hums with soreness from the game, shoulders stiff, thighs aching, a dull throb pulsing behind his left knee.
Three full periods of grinding defense will do that to a man.
Especially one who already spends half the season stretched across thin, lumpy hotel beds, and folded into a packed bus to travel across the country.
Theo has decided he hates all hotel rooms that do not contain naked Mila. He hates the recycled air and bland furnishing. He hates the way they all blur together, just different shades of the same nothing.
He misses her with an ache that borders on pain, more torturous than the throb in his calf.
The space where she should be is a hollow drumbeat under his skin, louder in the quiet.
He misses the silk of her voice in the dark, the way she looks at him like he’s never been broken, never been less.
He wants her here, pressed up against him, so he can breathe her in like an addict.
She’s on speaker now, her voice soft and tired in the quiet room. She’s just finished telling him everything—Richard’s demands, the threat hanging over her head. And all Theo can do is sit there and listen, pulse pounding, fists clenching around the ice pack.
“Absolutely not,” he growls into the phone, louder than he meant to. “You worked too hard for this. He doesn’t get to take that from you.”
“It’s fine,” Mila says, maddeningly calm. “We’re together now. Me stepping back from the Whalers wouldn’t change that. Plus, Naomi’s still around. It will be okay.”
“That’s not the point.”
He knows she’s trying to be reasonable. Knows she’s trying to protect him as much as herself.
But the fury blooming in his chest is molten, scorching every rational thought.
If Richard were in the room right now, Theo isn’t sure he’d be able to hold himself back.
He wants to drive a fist through the cheap hotel wall, or, ideally, into Richard’s goddamn nose.
But his temper is what landed Mila in this hell to begin with. And that knowledge is the only thing keeping his knuckles gripping the ice pack.
“This is my fault,” he says, voice thick with regret. “I made it worse. I threatened him, and now he’s taking it out on you.”
“Theo—”
“No.” He sits forward, elbows on his knees, the ice pack slipping off his leg, forgotten. “I should’ve let you handle it. I shouldn’t have gone after him like that. I just—he insulted you, and I snapped.”
There’s a pause on her end, like she doesn’t know what to say.
“I even thought about calling my other brother Quentin,” he adds ruefully, half-laughing but also very much not joking, “to see if he knows a guy.”
“Your brother the venture capitalist?” she says gently, like she’s trying to tug him back from the ledge.
“Don’t let the suit and ironic glasses fool you. Quentin has friends in strange places.”
Mila chuckles, but it’s soft and fleeting.
He leans his head back against the headboard, jaw tight. “I’m sorry. I made it harder for you, and now you’re the one paying for it.”
“You were defending me,” she says softly. “I don’t regret that.”
But he does. Every fiber of him regrets putting her in this position. She deserves a clean slate, not a battlefield. She deserves everything.
They talk for a while longer—about nothing and everything. And before they hang up, they make a plan. She’ll fly down and visit next weekend. They’ll steal whatever moments they can, pretending the rest of the world doesn’t exist for a little while.
When the call ends, Theo stares at the ceiling, jaw tight, chest hollow. His phone rests heavy in his palm.
His fingers hover over a contact he’s been avoiding all night.
He knows who he needs to call. And it’s not even Wednesday.