Page 161 of Scrum Heat

“You think this is about the comments?”

I nod once, and he swears under his breath.

“Guess we’re about to find out how deep it goes.”

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Frankie

The moment Theo shuts the door behind us, I know something’s off.

The thing is, Theo’sneverquiet. He’s the guy who hums when he walks, who whistles when he’s nervous, who once narrated my entire breakfast routine in a David Attenborough voice just to see if he could make me spit coffee. He's chaos wrapped in charm, noise bundled up in a hoodie; but now, he’sstone.

No humming. No smirk.

Not even an off-color joke to cut the tension.

“Theo?”

He doesn’t answer, and my chest tightens as I watch him head to the kitchen table and pull out a chair for me.

“Okay,” I say slowly, sitting down. “This feels…ominous. Are we about to file joint taxes or hide a body? Because I didn’t emotionally stretch for either.”

He doesn’t smile. Not even a flicker.

Shit.

Theo sits across from me, and it hits me how still he is, howserious. I’ve only seen him like this once before—when Jax took that shoulder to the ribs and couldn’t get up for a full minute—but this feels so much worse.

“I didn’t want to do this today,” he says finally. “Not when we’re still on such a high. But… I can’t sit on it.”

“Sit onwhat?”

I watch as he pulls a folded piece of paper from the front pocket of his hoodie. “I got the report back,” he says quietly.

My blood goes cold. “You mean… the IP stuff? From the comments?”

He nods.

“So you found something?”

Another nod. Slower this time—like it weighs something.

“That’s… I mean, that’s great, right?” I say too quickly, my voice pitching up. “You’ve done exactly what you promised, and you—we—I…”

I trail off. The words run out, and my brain stutters.

Because I can’t figure out why he’s not smiling.

This is what he’s been chasing for weeks; months, even. Proof. A lead, a name, an answer. He should be smug right now. He should be rubbing his hands together and sayingtold you I could crack it, sweetheart.

But he’s not.

I try to laugh, but it catches halfway up my throat. “Okay, you’re freaking me out. Theo. Say something. Just—sayanything.”

He finally looks at me, and it’s not relief I see in his eyes. It’s something so unfamiliar from him, something so strange.

It’ssadness. Tight and reluctant and soft in a way that makes it worse.

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