He lets out a half-laugh against my jaw.
I open the truck door. He gets in. I toss the duffel in the seat beside him. I slide his seatbelt across him with my own hands because I don't trust him to do it and I need to be the one who does it.
I shut his door and walk around to the other side. I’m feeling thankful that Phoenix drives an extended cab so there’s not three of us crowded across the front.
I look at Paul.
I tip my head once, quarter inch.
Paul tips his back. A quarter inch. It's everything.
Diane mouths,Be safe.
I get in and shut the door. Phoenix meets my eyes in the mirror before pulling away from the curb and taking us back to his place.
The first block, Theo doesn't talk. He's got his forehead against the window and his hand on my thigh and he's breathing in long shaky pulls. The second block, he looks over at me.
“You're really…? We're really…?”
“Yeah.”
His thumb starts moving on my thigh, small circle.
“Blackridge.”
“Blackridge.”
He breathes out.
“Orrick laughed?”
“He laughed.”
“Because the pass is good, or because the whole thing is insane?”
“Both.”
He lets out one sound that's part laugh and part sob and all relief, and his hand on my thigh goes tight.
“Maddox?”
“Yeah, kid.”
His head tips sideways against the headrest. He's watching me.
“Say it again,” he whispers.
“I love you,” I whisper back.
He swallows. His eyes close.
“Again.”
“I love you, Theo Laurent. All the way to Blackridge. All the way through it. Every mile.”
He leans his head against my shoulder. The city slides past in the blue of a Sunday dusk. The streetlights come on one by one along the avenue in winter fashion, early, the sky still lit but giving up. Somewhere behind us is Paul, still on a porch with his sister's hand on his back. Somewhere forty-eight hours from now, I am going to stand in a Blackridge press conference in a team tie I don't own yet, and Theo is going to sign his first real contract in a room with a notary, and we are going to go find an apartment with two bedrooms we don't use and a kitchen I haven't cooked in and a bed I haven't put together.
“Maddox?”
