Page 16 of Another Chance
“Come on, Teddy,” Eric coaxed, and he wrapped his hand around Theo’s wrist, tugging him out of the way of the ambulance, which had arrived on the scene in a blaze of flashing red lights. When he got to the grass, he stopped, and to Theo’s dismay, he released his grip on him. “Do I look like I’m hurt?”
Ignoring the bits of blood, and the state of Eric’s clothes, Theo couldn’t help but admit that Eric, by some miracle, seemed fine. He’d moved well, too, having no real trouble walking, and his arms weren’t hanging oddly.
“No,” he said quietly, and he didn’t realize how flirtatious the words were until they were out of his mouth. “No, Eric, you look damn good to me.”
Oh. Oh, that was way too flirtatious, and Theo knew it the moment that he saw the effect that those words had on Eric. He saw the surprise, and he saw that surprise melt away into a smirk, one of those ones Eric threw on as protection when he didn’t know what to do. Only there was pleasure, too, from hearing them, Theo would swear to it.
“Thanks, Teddy,” Eric said, and a silence fell between them a silence which maybe should have been uncomfortable but wasn’t. Not quite. There was a lot between them which wasn’t spoken, and maybe shouldn’t be spoken, or not yet, anyway, but it was a start.
“Look, man, I’ll take you home,” Theo broke the silence in a way that was almost desperate. “I won’t make you go to the hospital or to the doctor or whatever, but you have to let me stick around until I’m sure you don’t have a concussion or a broken bone or whatever.”
Maybe that was unfair, he realized, forcing his presence on Eric, and he sighed softly when he came to that conclusion. Part of him greedily wanted to be close to this man, close enough that he could smell him. He still smelled the same as he remembered from all of those years ago.
“Or you can call someone you trust if you want,” Theo glanced down, to the emerald green of the grass, scuffing the toes of his boots in them. “Just as long as someone is watching you.”
Eric made this weird little noise, it sounded like it could have been a huff of annoyance or amusement, and Theo wasn’t sure which. He was probably about to get punched after all for his presumption, but he was serious. Eric needed to be watched, after an accident like that, and if medical personnel wasn’t allowed to do it, then Theo or a friend—a girlfriend? That dark haired girl—would have to do it.
“I can see you haven’t gotten less bossy.” Eric’s voice was wry, and Theo raised his eyes from his own shoes to look into Eric’s eyes. It seemed that the man was, thankfully, more amused than anything else. “You’re just going to be a pain in the ass about this until I let you do it, aren’t you?”
Theo couldn’t help but laugh. It was, after all, hardly the first time he had been accused of being bossy. Maybe that was part of the problem with his father, now that he thought about it. They had pretty similar personalities, and they both wanted to be in control. It led to things being messy.
“Yeah, that’s right,” Theo admitted. “I will drag you kicking and screaming to the hospital so you might as well just make it easier on yourself.”
Grumbling under his breath in a way which was, like everything about Eric seemed to be, achingly familiar to Theo, Eric pulled out the keys of his truck and, much to Theo’s surprise, chucked them at Theo. Acting purely by reflex, he caught them and stared down at the gleaming silver in his palm. This car was not started by a fob, it had an actual old-fashioned key.
“Well get your lazy ass in gear and take me home, then,” Eric grumbled, and Theo wasted no time in obeying. This was amazing. Eric was letting him drive his truck? That hadn’t happened very often …
Of course, that brought him back to that brunette. The one who had driven Eric home the night before. Maybe Eric was just a little bit less picky these days about who drove for him.
It didn’t matter, he told himself. Actually, he hoped that Eric was with that girl, that he was happy with her because Eric honestly deserved that. And after running out on him, well, it wasn’t like Theo could ever expect to be anything other than a friend to Eric, and he figured he was probably looking at an uphill battle just to get that.
So quietly, keeping his thoughts to himself as best he could, he slid into the driver’s seat and socked the key into the ignition. As he started the truck, as she came to life with a low, satisfied rumbling purr of her engine, Theo couldn’t help a smile from crossing his face.
Maybe it wasn’t so hopeless after all. He couldn’t imagine that the Eric he knew had changed so much that he would let just anyone take the wheel. At the very least, he wouldn’t hand the key over to someone that he outright hated, right?
That smile lingered on his face for the whole drive home, and even though he and Eric didn’t say so much as a single word to each other, that felt okay. That had always been how they were.
