Page 130 of Caught Stealing

Of course, I couldn’t pry any details out of him other than Phoenix is okay and working through things as best he can, all things considered. Which I’m glad to hear, but I’d much rather be hearing those things fromPhoenix’smouth. Not Theo’s.

As if reading my mind, Theo’s lips lift in a sad sort of smile.

“He’s doing fine, Hold. I’d tell you if he wasn’t.”

“Would you, though? ‘Cause you’ve been tight-lipped anytime he comes up in conversation. He could be dead on the side of the road right now, and I doubt you’d say anything more than ‘he’s taking somehim time.’”

Theo tries and fails to hide the smirk growing on his face, and the sight of it makes my irritation flare. But not as much as what he says next.

“Well, that’s certainly not the case, seeing as he was just here half an hour ago, alive and well.”

I press my tongue to the inside of my cheek, hating the knowledge that he was so close yet still not making any attempts to contact me directly. Because it hurts as much as it pisses me off.

Especially when it feels like Theo is using it for a gut punch.

“Now I really am just ignoring you,” I snap before gripping the doorknob in my palm, ready to rip the thing off its hinges.

“Hold,” Theo calls, and I don’t know why, but some part of my intuition tells me to stop. Begs for me to turn around and hear what he has to say.

So I do.

Theo’s pale green eyes soften. “He’ll choose himself. You just need to give him time.”

Those ten words—three in particular—breathe new life into me. Shoves air straight into my lungs, filling them with the oxygen I’ve been missing since the moment I walked away from him in Nashville.

Yet I still can’t bring myself to believe it. Not until I hear the words from Phoenix himself. Not until he’s back in my arms and this entire shitstorm is put behind us, and that’s something I don’t see happening anytime soon.

“You don’t know that,” I mutter, shaking my head. “You don’t know.”

Theo offers yet another half-smirk. “I know a lot more than you think.”

I roll my eyes, once again irritated with him. Nevertheless, hope and relief rush through me, despite how dangerous it is.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I say before shoving the door open and heading out into the pouring rain toward my Jeep.

Water soaks my head and the tops of my shoulders by the time I reach the driver’s side door, and I silently curse Theo for distracting me from grabbing my jacket. The last thing I wanted to do was take this final, and now I get to do it while also dripping wet.

I’m about to slip into the driver’s seat when my heart lurches in my chest, causing me to freeze on the spot. Because there, balanced precariously on the top of my steering wheel, is a little pink duck.

One that looks awfully like…a flamingo.

What the hell?

I pluck it from where it sits before climbing into the vehicle and letting the door fall closed behind me. My stomach somersaults as I turn it over in my palm, the note attached to its neck brushing against my knuckles as I do.

I don’t even need to read it to know it’s from Phoenix.

Theo mentioning he was here and my keys being mysteriously moved are enough to give it away. Besides him, who else would leave a tiny pink flamingo duck in my Jeep? It’s too ironic, considering Francesco the Flamingo from our time in Florida.

Then there’s the couple of times he’s ducked me before this.

He might not admit to it, but I know the first one—the punk-rocker duck after the Icarus Ignites concert—was him. Then there was a second one a couple of weeks after the Super Bowl—when things were starting to get better between us—dressed as a little black sheep. His nickname for me plenty of times in the past.

It would only make sense for this to be him, too.

My heart twists and my stomach knots as I flip the paper over and read the message in the messy scrawl I’d recognize anywhere.

H—

---