Page 23

The knock on my office door came at exactly the right moment.

“Come in,” I said loudly, dropping Theo’s file aside with all the rest. The door opened, and Theo let himself in, shutting the door behind him. Ah, fuck. Speak of the devil. Or, more accurately, the little wolf. The pet name surfaced automatically, and I hated how quickly something in me responded. I stood with a sigh and shoved my hands in my pockets. “Theo, how can I help you?”

“Is your phone broken?” he demanded.

“No.” Though I wished it was. His expression hardened at my answer.

“So, then you’re just ignoring me.”

I took a long moment to consider him—to consider his words. At least I wanted to, but I got distracted by him all over again. It wasn’t the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last. Theo McLaughlin wasn’t just attractive. He was beautiful in a way that had made ignoring him damn near impossible from the very beginning. Bright blue eyes that gave away almost everything he felt before he said a word. Dark hair that never quite stayed where it was supposed to. Tanned skin. Hard-earned muscle. Dimples that appeared whenever he smiled wide enough and made him look younger than I liked to remember.

But it wasn’t any of that that had fucked me over. It was everything underneath. Theo felt things openly, even when he tried not to. He filled space without apologizing for it. And right now, every inch of him was silently screaming at me.

“Theo—”

“Don’t start that condescending, careful answer bullshit again,” Theo said over me. That flash of anger in his eyes sent an entirely unwanted spark down my spine. Fuck. I liked his fire. I craved it. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“The Dean only came to me this morning. I had a few hours at most to get my shit together and get to the field,” I told him.

“And again, is your phone broken?” he demanded. I kept my mouth shut. There was no point answering a question when we both knew the answer. “You could’ve said something, Rhodes. Instead, you blindsided me and then what? That was a good enough break-up?”

“I’d hardly call this a break-up, Theo,” I replied quickly. The words came with more force than they needed to because break-up implied a relationship. It implied commitment when everything had been entirely casual. That was the arrangement. That was what made it safe.

Except for the moments that it didn’t quite feel that way. Birthdays, dinners, helping him study, the evenings he stayed after sex because neither of us made any effort to leave, the nights we talked until one of us realized it was after two in the morning, the coffee I started buying because I knew what he liked, the toothbrush that had somehow appeared in my bathroom. I ignored all of that because I wasn’t ready to face what any of those meant.

“I know I’m inexperienced, but I’m not an idiot,” he said. He gestured between us as he crossed the room. “This was something, even if we didn’t use the labels. This was more than just fucking—”

“Watch your volume!” I hissed. My gaze immediately flicked toward the door. The walls here weren’t exactly designed with secret relationships in mind. The last thing I needed was for someone walking down the hallway to hear Theo loudly explaining our sex life on my first day as head coach.

“You can pretend all you want, Rhodes, but you know I’m right,” he continued without acknowledging me.

The problem was: he was right.

I knew it. I’d known it for longer than I wanted to admit. Something had changed between us. Maybe slow enough that neither of us had noticed until it was already there, or maybe Theo had noticed long before I did. Maybe I was the asshole still pretending it hadn’t.

Either way, it had been a mistake.

Making him understand that would be the problem.

“You and I never should’ve happened,” I told him. “And that’s my fault. It was a mistake.”

Theo’s expression changed instantly, filling with hurt and anger so fast it made my stomach drop.

“Don’t act like I wasn’t a willing participant,” Theo snapped. “Take your it was a mistake and shove it up your ass. You and I both know you’re full of bullshit. Yeah, you took the job, but the way you went about this? That’s bullshit, and you know it. If you wanted to end this, you should’ve had the balls to talk to me yourself instead of just showing up. You just hoped I’d roll over and fucking take it. I deserved better than that.”

Every instinct I had told me to defend myself, but nothing I said would change the only thing that mattered. He was right, and he deserved better.

“Yes, I should’ve let you know before showing up on the field today.” I could give him that. “But no matter how it went down, Theo, you and me are done. I’m your coach, you’re my student. There’s nothing more to it than that.”

The lie tasted bitter even as I said it. Not because the coach part wasn’t true. Because there’s nothing more to it than that wasn’t. There was already too much more, and that was exactly why this had to stop.

“You can keep saying whatever the hell you want, Rhodes,” he replied, “but I don’t believe you. And I don’t think you believe you either. I think you’re too damn scared to admit that you liked being with me more than you thought you would. I think you’d rather make me push you away than face it yourself.”

I said nothing. What the fuck was I supposed to say? Congratulations, you figured me out? I was painfully aware of how emotionally unavailable I was. It wasn’t new information. It’d been a recurring problem throughout my entire adult life. I had Sariah, and that was about it. She was the one person who’d survived every defense mechanism I’d ever thrown at her until I eventually gave up trying to make her leave.

Then Theo came along. In ten months, Theo had weaseled his way under my skin. I didn’t like it. More importantly, I didn’t know what to do with it. He had disarmed me without even trying. He asked questions and listened to the answers. He noticed when I was tired. He laughed at my dry jokes, even when nobody else understood I was making one. He made himself comfortable in my house and somehow made it feel less invasive than it should have.

And even now, with him furious at me, everything inside me wanted to cave. I wanted to apologize. I wanted to tell him I’d handled this like a goddamn coward.