Page 121 of Make Me Mean It

CHAPTER THIRTY

CONNOR

Marcus’s head appears around the corner as I step into the entryway, his brows pulling together when he sees me. His eyes drop to his watch before coming back to my face, and I immediately regret not waiting at least another ten minutes before coming back.

“Theo took you home, right?” he asks, pushing fully into view and leaning one shoulder against the wall. “Didn’t just leave you on the side of the road or something?”

“Yeah, he took me home,” I answer too quickly, Marcus’s eyes narrowing on me.

“It was too quiet,” I add with a shrug, my solution to sounding suspicious being to just keep talking until I make it worse.

Marcus hums, tilting his head, studying me close enough that standing still gets harder by the second. His gaze moves over my face, and I have the ridiculous urge to wipe a hand across it, like Theo might have left something there Marcus could read.

I don’t want him to fucking touch you.

Heat crawls up the back of my neck at the memory of saying it with Theo pressed against me, his face barely an inch from mine.

What the fuck was I thinking?

“You look ill,” Marcus says eventually.

I glare at him, grateful for the interruption even if I want to punch him for it. “Thanks.”

His mouth twitches as he lifts his hands in surrender. “Wanna watch a movie?”

Marcus has been asking me some version of that my entire life. When I was twelve and sick enough that Mum kept me off school, he spent the day complaining about every film I picked while watching them anyway. When I was fourteen and pissed off enough that I didn’t want to talk, he threw a blanket at my head, sat down beside me and never asked me to.

He’s always known when to just be there.

I want to say yes so badly it almost comes out.

I want to drop onto the couch beside him and let some shit film fill the next two hours, let Marcus talk over half of it and complain when I tell him to shut up, until my head is full of something other than Theo standing outside my flat asking me not to let him go.

Except Marcus is the one person I absolutely cannot sit beside right now.

Not when every time I look at him, I remember exactly whose best friend I had my hands all over a few nights ago.

Not when Theo is probably on his way to Tristen. My stomach lurches so violently I have to swallow against the nausea.

“I’m good.” I lift the textbook slightly, forcing my fingers to loosen around it. “Need to study.”

Marcus watches me for another moment before nodding. “Okay.”

Marcus doesn’t move, and when I make the mistake of looking at him again, the teasing has disappeared from his face.

“Sure you’re good?”

My knuckles blanch around the edge of my textbook. “I’m good,” I lie.

I move before he can keep looking at me like that, squeezing his shoulder as I pass. “Just been spending too much time around you and your obnoxious friends.”

Marcus snorts and shoves lightly at me. “The only obnoxious one here is Theo.”

My stomach sinks at his name, but I manage a laugh and keep walking. “Yeah, right. Look in a mirror sometime.”

Marcus chuckles behind me, but when I glance back, the smile has already faded from his face. He’s still watching me, brows drawn together in a way that makes my skin prickle because Marcus noticing something is wrong is the absolute last thing I need right now.

I turn into the kitchen before he can decide to follow me and drop my textbook onto the table. I came back here to study. That’s it. Something normal that I actually understand, with answers that don’t change depending on who’s asking.