novelxo : Chapter 15
I’m downstairs at the bar if you’re up.
I stare at Theo’s text, perched on the edge of my hotel bed. It’s nearly eleven, but I’m wired. I’ve been sitting here for an hour, uploading Yosemite photos in preparation for my next TikToks. I lingered on a video of Paul and Theo at a picnic table, looking like a split screen sixty years apart—they have the same smile, the same hunched motion in their laughter. Even their legs are positioned the same—left straight out, right bent, foot balanced on its toe.
It reminded me so much of Gram and me. I’d look at pictures of us and laugh because we were mirror images, smiling our wide smiles, that tooth-snagged one, our eyes nearly closed with the force of our happiness. I sense the same pure joy in the connection between Theo and Paul, and I can’t wait to introduce them to the world.
But not tonight. Not with this text waiting for me.
I reread the invitation. Nonchalant as it sounds, that’s exactly what it is. I just don’t know if it’s an olive branch or something else.
I’m crouched over my suitcase before my brain catches up. I packed one semi-appropriate Vegas outfit, and I shimmy into it now—the black sleeveless bodysuit that dips low in front, revealing the subtle slope of my breasts, the jeans that lift my ass into outer space. I layer a couple of delicate gold chains around my neck, pull my hair out of its haphazard ponytail and finger-comb it into a hot, careless tousle. I even put on mascara, tame my brows into submission with brow gel, and use a cherry red balm to flush my cheeks and lips.
I look like I just had sex and had to quickly put myself back together. Mirror-me’s grin is diabolical.
Theo said he wanted to look. I’ll give him something to look at.
Instead of texting him back, I slide my phone into my pocket, slip into my strappy sandals, and make my way downstairs.
The bar is in an open-concept area not far from the check-in desk, curving sleekly around a towering display of liquor bottles. It’s quiet, even for a Monday.
Theo’s seated at the bar with his hand curled around a glass. He’s watching a baseball game, eyes glazed with boredom. He looks down at his phone, illuminating the screen with his knuckle. Whatever he finds there—or doesn’t—makes his mouth pinch with displeasure. His attention drifts back to the television.
Until it snags on my approach.
Surprise flashes across his face, his eyebrows pulling up. But he recovers quickly, and watching the awareness sink into his gaze sends white-hot power surging through my veins.
There’s a confidence in the way his eyes drop down my body, a confession that he’d know exactly what to do with me. That I’d like it; he’d make sure of it. He traces the shape of my hips from twenty feet away. My breasts and neck from ten. By the time I’m standing next to him, his gaze is bouncing up from my mouth.
It pulls up under his attention. “Hello.”
“Hello,” he echoes in a smoky voice. “Couldn’t manage a text back?”
“Figured it’d be redundant, since I made it down here so quickly.” I slide into a seat, tilting my head to appraise him. The sweep of my hair over my bare shoulder pulls goosebumps onto my skin. “Unless you were checking your phone waiting for my response or something.”
He grins, caught. “Such a little stalker, Shep.”
I give him a cheeky wink. “What’re you having?”
“Bourbon.” His dimple pops as his mouth pouts into a smirk. “Two fingers.”
I lift my hand to get the bartender’s attention. “I don’t respect a man who can’t handle three.”
Theo chokes on a laugh as the bartender approaches. If this were a tennis match, the point would go to me.
I nod toward Theo’s glass. “I’ll have what he’s having.”
He leans in as the bartender moves away, his shoulder grazing mine, breath brushing my ear. “Two fingers are enough to satisfy you tonight, huh?”
A quiet chuckle follows the shiver I fail to stave off. I dip my chin, leveling him with a look. “We’re supposed to behave, Spencer. Don’t get all riled up.”
He grins. “Who’s riled?”
Our noses are practically touching. He has the faintest scar just above the severe stroke of his right eyebrow.
A glass slides into my periphery—my drink. I pull it toward me.
Theo mirrors me, pressing his glass to mine with a soft clink. “Cheers, Shepard.”
“What are we cheersing to?”
“Looking, I guess.”
I can’t help my laugh. “To looking.”
With our eyes locked, he takes a slow sip. I follow, imagining the bourbon on my tongue is from him.
Theo breaks the connection first, setting his glass down and swiping his tongue along his bottom lip. I shove my hand under my thigh so I won’t run my thumb over his mouth to feel the dampness there.
“Have you recovered from the excitement of today’s letter?” he asks.
My chest warms at the question. Maybe he’s simply moving us into neutral territory, but at the very least he cares enough to want to hear my answer. “Mostly. Is this boring for you, since you know their story?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t really. Like I said, Kathleen wasn’t a secret, but my granddad didn’t go around dropping tons of details.” His gaze moves up to the TV. “I like learning about it like this. On the road, I mean, with him.”
His eyes move to me. He doesn’t say it out loud, but I can read it on his face anyway: with you.
Another little pebble. My heart shimmies nervously. “When you say she wasn’t a secret, what do you mean?”
“She was a point of contention between Granddad and my biological grandma, apparently. He met her right after he graduated.” One side of his mouth quirks up. “It was supposed to be a one-night thing, but she got pregnant.”
My eyes widen. “With your uncle?”
He nods. “They had to get married. I don’t think Granddad was over Kathleen by that point, even though it’d been a couple years.”
“I’m pretty sure Gram had met Grandpa Joe by that point.” They got married New Year’s Eve in 1959. If she’d stayed at UCLA, she would have graduated the previous spring. “So, not the best start for Paul and . . .”
“Anne,” Theo says. “Not the best start and it never got better. They tried. Back then you did your best to stay in a marriage, but eventually it was too toxic.”
“Paul told you all this?”
Theo pauses, taking a sip of his bourbon, a long, slow one. When he sets his glass back down, his eyes stay focused there. “My granddad told me some of it, and my dad . . .” He trails off, his jaw going tight.
I let my knee fall against his, just to watch the tension briefly flow out of him.
With a smoky-scented exhale, he shakes his head. “My dad grew up with parents who never loved each other. He held a lot of shit against my granddad, his feelings for Kathleen included, and aired all his grievances to me. He knew how much I idolized Granddad and he wanted to punish him. After a while the punishment wasn’t very distinguishable between Granddad and me.”
I rub a hand over my chest, wishing I could rub it over his instead. Is it the alcohol making him so willing to share right now, or is it me?
“He seemed hard on you,” I venture. “The times I saw him.”
Theo’s laugh is humorless. “Still is. If I fuck up, it goes in his told ya so file. I remind him too much of his dad, I guess.”
“What about your mom?” Theo’s dad has always loomed so large that she’s an underexposed image in the family portrait stored in my mind.
“She intervened sometimes, but my dad can argue a person into exhaustion, and she never had the stamina for that.” His thumb arcs slowly across his glass. I can see the memories playing behind his eyes. “Now that I’m an adult, she lets us work it out ourselves.”
I try to imagine how lonely that must be, to not have a reliable parent for comfort or support. It’s not something I’ve ever had to deal with, and it leaves me scrambling for a response.
But he’s clearly done with the subject. With a hard swallow, he pushes his glass away and runs a hand over his mouth, as if wiping away the words. “Anyway, that’s my secret for today. If we’re still playing the game.”
“Always.” Somehow, I don’t think we’d ever run out of things to confess. It scares me as much as it thrills me. We have ten days left; how much could we fit in if we really cracked ourselves open?
His gaze sharpens at the sadness in my voice. “Tell me one of yours.”
“I thought your life was perfect,” I admit. “You drove me batshit with your perfect grades and that nasty serve—” He laughs, his eyes crinkling. That amusement breaks a wave of relief over my heart. “The spread in Forbes.”
“You’ve got that page bookmarked, don’t you?” The cockiness is back in his voice, in the upward curve of his mouth. His lips are so perfectly shaped for kissing, biting, sucking on.
“You wish I did.”
Theo shakes his head, his smile quieting as the moment between us extends, then shifts. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that the more perfect it looks on the outside, the messier that shit is on the inside.”
I let him see the understanding in my eyes, even if I can’t reveal my secret entirely. Then I lift my glass. “Cheers to that.”
Theo kept his hands to himself, but not his shoulder or thigh or knee, all of which pressed against me when he’d lean in to murmur some quip in my ear. When I swept my hair over my shoulder, his eyes zeroed in on that spot he claimed. I don’t know why I never noticed him looking before; it was so hungry I felt it in my stomach.
Now, as he leads me out to the lobby, his palm curves into the small of my back.
When we step into the elevator a minute later, he presses the button for my floor, but not his. I slide him a look.
“I’m going to walk you to your room, since you’re at the end of that long-ass hallway.” He wanders to the other side of the car, hands in his pockets. Earlier, when he helped me with my luggage, the walk to my door took decades. “I’d be annoyed if I had to go looking for you because you got stolen.”
Despite his innocuous words, my heart starts up at a furious pace. “How chivalrous of you.”
“Only the best of intentions.” His eyes glint underneath the lights. He looks wolfish, and suddenly I’m playing the part of Little Red Riding Hood. Only difference is, I’d love to get eaten up.
But I can’t. I pinch my thigh, turning back toward the doors so I won’t back Theo further into the wall he’s leaning against.
The ride up is too fast and excruciatingly slow. The hallway is lined with plush carpet that muffles our footsteps; it’s so silent that I hear Theo’s soft exhales beside me. They’re a little fast, and when I look over, his gaze moves up from somewhere south of my eyes.
The butterflies in my stomach migrate south expediently. “You’re not coming into my room.”
“I didn’t ask to,” he murmurs.
“Right. Because we agreed we weren’t going there.”
“Zero interest in that.” He grins at my disbelieving look, a mischievous one I haven’t seen in years. “I mean it. I wouldn’t want to do anything you weren’t enthusiastically into.”
“It’s not about enthusiasm.”
“Right. It’s about my granddad.”
“It’s about everything except my enthusiasm.”
I shouldn’t have said that out loud, though it’s not a secret anymore. He looks at me like it was, and my body heats in response.
We’re at my room now. I should shove my keycard into the slot, shut the door behind me, and double lock it. But I don’t. My self-control is crumbling, and it falls apart completely when I turn and find him too close, looking down at me with eyes on fire.
“My brother made a bet with his girlfriend. I mean, my best friend. She’s both things.” I’m babbling. “Whatever. My pride depends on not giving in to this.”
One of Theo’s eyebrows arches in amusement. “What were the terms of the bet?”
Oh god, what have I done? My brain is lust addled.
“If we hooked up on a certain day, one of them would win money. Thomas already lost.”
Theo moves in closer. His lashes lower with the meandering path of his gaze. The thick sweep of them over his skin looks almost sweet. I wonder what they’d feel like on my skin—on the back of my neck if he kissed me there.
“What was his bet?” he asks, his voice low.
“Three days. Sadie’s is ten.” I won’t tell him about the other bet. It’s not going to happen.
But this might: Theo’s mouth on me. I want it so badly I’m nearly panting. I grip the door handle just for something to hold on to.
“What do you mean when you say hook up?”
“Why are you asking so many questions on a throwaway bit of information?” I ask, irritated with his pressing and his closeness.
“It’s not throwaway and you know it. What does it mean?”
“Sex.” I say it like we’re in the middle of it.
His eyes darken. “So if we just . . .” He trails off, staring at my mouth.
“Kissed,” I manage.
“Yeah,” he murmurs. “Then it doesn’t count. For the bet.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“And we’re in Vegas, so what happens here—”
“Stays here.”
“Yeah,” he repeats, his voice going hoarse. Our gazes lock and he won’t ask or push, but if I want it, then—
I let out a breath. “Just once. It could be our secret.”
The silence stretches out unbearably.
When Theo’s hand slips across my collarbone, resting there, every part of me pulls tight. And when he pushes me back against the door with the slightest pressure, I stop breathing altogether.
His thumb grazes the base of my throat, right where my pulse is beating wildly. For him, and he knows it. Everything he’s doing is just a suggestion, the lightest touch, but he might as well be gripping me.
“Do it,” I whisper.
“You,” he demands, so I grab handfuls of his shirt and pull him tight against my body, lifting up to take his mouth.
He opens up for me immediately and at the first slide of our tongues, lets out the softest, most aching groan. His hand moves into my hair, the other cradling my cheek. And then he takes over, tilting my head exactly the way he wants it. Even though I started it, it’s Theo in charge now.
He kisses like some people fuck: slow, deep, and dirty, with bitten-off noises that broadcast his need. The damp slip of our mouths, the occasional click of our teeth, the way we’re tasting each other—all of it feels like we’re doing this with our clothes off. His body on mine against the door feels like his body in mine in the bed just beyond the wall.
I turn wild at the thought, knowing I can’t have it, knowing this is it. Our shared secret, a truth we’re only telling each other. My fingers slip into his hair and tighten, and he groans so deeply I feel it between my legs. I press into him, where he’s hard for me already.
“Fuck,” he says against my mouth, dragging his hands down my body until they’re at my hips. His fingers dig in hard, then he pushes, pinning them against the door. “Just kissing.”
“Sorry,” I groan.
He moves his mouth from mine, across my cheek, panting against the spot where my ear meets my jaw. “Your rules.”
Right. Kissing, just this once. Dry humping is not on the approved list, but god, it felt good.
We have to stop, though. Eventually I’ll remember why.
I rest my head against the door, staring up at the fire alarm blinking silently down at us. “Okay. Okay. That was—okay.”
“Is okay your review, or did I kiss you into speechlessness?” he whispers into my neck. I feel his smirk against my skin.
I groan. “Oh my god, you have to leave.”
He goes still before pressing a soft kiss to his spot. No one will ever be able to touch me there again. When he pulls back, mouth damp, his expression is unreadable.
“You have to leave,” I repeat, “because I’m going to shove you into my room otherwise.”
The naked lust on his face is devastating. I should have a street named after me for all this control I’m showing. “And we can’t do that.”
“No.”
“Because of the . . .”
“The everything.”
“Right.” He blows out a breath, running a hand through his wrecked hair. “Okay.”
“Yes, okay.”
Tucking a strand of wild hair behind my ear, he says, “Okay to the other stuff, not the kiss.”
“Yes, the kiss was five fucking stars, Spencer, now go away.”
I push at his shoulder, laughing in exasperation as a smile spreads across his face when he stumbles back. His mouth is swollen, shirt wrinkled where I grabbed it. He looks like a mess, like he belongs in Vegas. He’s all sin.
He walks backward as I stick my keycard into the slot. “You never answered my question earlier, by the way.”
I pause halfway into my room. “What question?”
“Whether two fingers would be enough to satisfy you tonight.”
It’s a good thing he’s too far to grab. “I’ll let you know tomorrow.”
And then I shut the door, locking it behind me.