Page 156 of Stop and Seek
Theo froze mid-motion, one foot planted on the floor, carpet rough under his toes. His glasses and phone a little out of reach to his right.
Hewasout of coffee. He’d thrown the empty can across the room this morning and almost cracked the balcony window.
“How do you know that?” he asked, barely above a whisper.
Noah went quiet. Theo shifted his weight, the creak of the floor too loud.
“You’ll hate me.” Noah’s voice cut through the silence. He sat up suddenly, and Theojumped.
Theo took a breath, trying to keep his voice steady. “What do you mean?”
“I jus’,” Noah hiccuped. “I jus’ wanted to make sure you were okay.”
Again—not an answer.
“How?”Theo snapped, harder than he meant to.
“Iknow almost everythin’ about you. Like… I know you didn’ eat breakfast last mornin’, which is why I—” Another hiccup. “—why I sent muffins to the library.”
Theo’s heart skipped. Part of him recoiled. The other part—the part that never stopped craving that thingjustout of reach—shuddered in a different way.
Creepy. It was creepy.
But also kind of sweet?
He couldn’t deal with that combination. It made his chest feel too tight, his thoughts spin out.
Maybe the cops weren’t the answer. Maybe Noah needed help. Real help.Professionalhelp. Theo couldn’t give that to him. Hell, he couldn’t take care of himself on a good day.
Reaching over, he patted around for his glasses. Slid them onto his face.
When he looked back, Noah smiled at him, happy and drunk as shit. Theo had to squash the tiny butterfly crawling out of his stomach.
He broke in. He fucking broke into my apartment. Stop it.
“Why are you here, Noah?”
“I missed—” Noah started.
“No. I mean,howare you here? How did you getin?”
“You have to promise you won’ be angry with me,” Noah said, grabbing Theo’s hands. His palms were damp and cracked at the creases, calloused in all the wrong places.
“I’ll try my best.”
“When I dropped you off the Friday after the bar, I saw the inside of your place and it—it made me sad. I wanted to fix it.”
Fix it?
Theo blinked. “You’re the one that cleaned my apartment,” he said flatly.
Well, that was one mystery solved. He couldn’t tell if he was mad or what, especially with the soft look on Noah’s face.
The whole night was a disaster. It couldn’t get worse.
“I didn’ clean,” Noah said, swaying a little. “I’m not that good at cleanin’. But your landlord gave me a copy of your key.”
That made Theo sit up straighter. “And you kept it all this time.”
