Page 41 of Another Chance
She was gone before Theo could say anything, but honestly, he probably wouldn’t have even tried to follow that up. What could he say after a confession like that? So he let her walk off and then turned slowly to Liam, who was glaring at him, his face set in a pouty frown.
“So it wasn’t her. It’s that guy. Eric, she said, right? You’re going to some fucking redneck over me? Teddy, that’s just not fair.”
Theo shook his head, and it was like the fog had lifted from his mind. All of a sudden, he could see clearly, as he hadn’t in years. Maybe ever.
“Liam. It’s over. It doesn’t matter if it’s Faith, or Eric, or no one. I’m not going back with you to New York. It’s over. Forever.”
With that, Theo stood up and left the silent bar. He walked up the stairs to the rooms, and into his own, and then he shut it firmly behind him. While he was there, he took just a second to pull out his phone and delete Liam’s number. He should have done that ages ago. It’s just that he had never known just how obsessed Liam would get.
“Theo! Teddy?” There was a knock at the door, and Theo took a deep breath. He let it out slowly, then went to the door but didn’t even crack it open.
“Go home, Liam,” Theo said, and then he added, “And don’t call me Teddy. There’s only one person who gets to call me that and it’s not you.”
There was a pause and then the sound of footsteps walking away. Liam was gone. Hopefully gone for good. Theo really hoped that he didn’t have to get a restraining order or something, but in all honesty, he didn’t think it would come to that. Liam was far too proud to put himself out there so much for someone who didn’t even want him.
Glancing down at the bright screen of the phone which he still clutched in his hand, Theo noted the time, just after two in the morning. It took him a second to see the date, too, and when he did, he smirked a little.
“Happy Birthday to me,” he realized. What with one thing or another he’d been completely busy, getting the house ready to go, dealing with Eric and Faith and Liam. He hadn’t even thought about it being his birthday.
It was too late to go see Eric that night, and he knew it. It was tempting, but the conversation was likely to be a bit strained, and it was going to be awkward enough without both of them exhausted and with Theo, at least, half drunk.
So he did the right thing, and he lay down and closed his eyes. Sleep was a long time coming. Eric’s brilliant green eyes shone in his mind, and he ran over the conversation he hoped to have in his head until he finally dropped off into a light, exhausted drunken doze.
The next morning, Theo was woken up by the beeping of his phone. It blared through the silence of his room, waking him, but once he was awake, he found that he couldn’t make himself close his eyes and go back to sleep.
It was his birthday, and it was either going to be the best one, or the worst one, of his life. That depended on Eric, and on how persuasive Theo could be.
“H’lo?” Theo mumbled into the phone, realizing that it was an actual call. Someone was phoning, and that was a pretty rare occurrence for him. It was mostly all texts for him.
“Your house is ready.” Theo recognized the voice. It was Carlos. He’d never met Eric’s second in command, but he had spoken to him a few times since Eric had refused to be involved at all in the repair of Theo’s house. Carlos, luckily, seemed to be a bit more pragmatic, and he had all of the same contacts as Eric did.
“You mean you guys can start repairing the hole?” Theo asked, clearing his throat with a low rumble so that his voice was a bit less indistinct.
“That’s right. The moldy furniture is gone. The house has been cleaned and exterminated. The carpets have been cleaned, though you might need new ones later. But the house is safe to be in now. We can start anytime.”
Theo took a second and breathed deeply. This was his last chance to back out, and he knew it. He could still just tell Carlos to demolish the whole thing and sell the land. But was that even what he wanted?
New York had been good to him, and he’d learned more than a few things about himself there. Had he ever actually been a city boy, really, though? At heart? There were things he would miss about the big city, like getting food delivered at any time of the night or day, but that didn’t mean anything when compared to the way he felt about this tiny little town.
Even if Eric didn’t want him, even if his final appeal went horribly and Eric slammed the door in his face, would Theo go back to New York? No. He would want to live in his house, the house he had grown up in, the house where he hadn’t been able to look at anything in it without seeing the life which he and Eric had shared together.
It was about family. Theo’s dad didn’t see it. He had been more than willing to sell the place to Theo and just wash his hands completely of it. For Theo, though, it meant something, and that was something worth fighting for.
“Yeah. Sounds good, man. Let me know when you guys can start the repairs,” Theo closed his eyes as the words left his mouth, his heart hammering in his chest. It was potentially going to be very awkward to live across the street from Eric, but he was sure, more than sure, that it was what he wanted.
“This weekend. We’ll be there,” Carlos promised, and Theo hung up the phone, already gripped with optimism. Either way, it would be over soon.
As he looked down at the shining screen of his phone, he saw what he thought just might be a sign. He was no oracle, but as he stared down at his email inbox, when he saw the long list of comments from people on his Facebook wall, wishing him a happy birthday, he saw one name that stood out from all the others as though surrounded by flashing neon lights.
Eric Parker had commented on his wall, Facebook announced to him, and the computer which had sent out the email had no idea just what it was telling him, or what that meant to him. When Theo clicked on the link, when he read the message and saw Eric’s face staring moodily out at him from the screen of his phone, it was ridiculous, but tears actually came to his eyes. Tears of pure joy, which until then, Theo hadn’t even known was a thing.
Happy Birthday, Teddy.
That’s all it said. Those three words could have been nothing, were nothing to most of the people who had bothered to comment. From Eric, though, it meant everything. It was the first contact of any sort that Theo had had in weeks, and it meant that Eric had remembered his birthday. Even with everything else going on.
It was a typical rainy day in the Pacific Northwest, but all of a sudden, the clouds didn’t seem so dark. In places, the sun shone through and made them glow almost silver, and here and there, little beams of sunlight struggled to make it through, to light up a world which seemed much less dreary than it had even half an hour ago.
Eric would be at work. So all Theo had to do was find something to occupy himself with for the next seven hours or so, and then he could find out just what he meant to Eric instead of them both assuming all over the place.
