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I appreciated every single one of them, but by the time warmups started, I was already drained. I desperately wanted everyone to stop talking about it. To avoid everything, I buried myself in literally anything that kept me moving. If I was moving, it was harder for someone to stop and ask how I was doing.

And in doing so, it took me embarrassingly long to notice Theo was missing. I checked the time on my watch. He was more than half an hour late. Theo was never late, not without giving a reason. I checked my phone, but there were no texts from him either. Shit.

Something uneasy settled in my stomach as I sought out Wyatt and Jude on the field. Theo missing practice without warning was already unusual enough. But Theo missing practice after everything that had happened over the last few days made every worst-case scenario scream in my head. I gestured for them to follow me.

“Where’s Theo?” I asked when we were far enough away from everyone else that I didn’t have to worry about someone overhearing.

“I don’t know,” Jude said, shrugging.

Great. I’d been counting on Jude to know, considering they were practically attached at the hip.

My gaze flicked to Wyatt, who looked uncomfortable. That alone was enough of a bad sign to make my anxiety spike. Wyatt normally had no problem saying exactly what was on his mind, whether anyone wanted to hear it or not. Watching him become suddenly fascinated with the grass beneath his cleats made my chest tighten further. I crossed my arms and stared hard at him.

“Wyatt?”

“I can’t… exactly tell you,” Wyatt began. He made a face. “There are things about Theo that you don’t know, and it’s not my place to tell you those things, but I can’t tell you the other thing without telling you the first thing.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I muttered. My patience was already nonexistent, and whatever convoluted moral equation Wyatt was trying to solve was quickly making it worse.

“Rhodes knows he’s gay,” Jude told him. I glanced at Jude, surprised. I knew my brother knew Theo was gay, but I didn’t know Wyatt did—honestly, though, it shouldn’t have surprised me so much.

“Oh, okay then. That makes it easier,” he replied. “Theo came out to his parents yesterday, and they kicked him out.”

“They what?” I demanded. The words came out harsher than I intended them to as anger surged through me. I wanted details, I wanted to know exactly what had been said, and I also wanted five uninterrupted minutes alone with his fucking parents.

Unfortunately, none of those reactions were appropriate for the middle of football practice. That, and Wyatt didn’t know about Theo and me—at least I didn’t think he did—which made all of this more difficult.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Jude exclaimed simultaneously.

“It’s not my place to say what happened, but he asked me to pick him up, and he had two bags with him,” Wyatt continued, sounding far too diplomatic for the circumstances. “I took him back to the house, and he just asked to be left alone. He wasn’t there last night, and he didn’t come back today. I tried calling him, but it went straight to voicemail. I don’t know if one of the other guys in the house knows something.”

Each new piece of information made the pressure in my chest worse. I forced myself not to pull out my phone and call him right there. Coach concern could only explain so much of my urgency.

“Why the hell wouldn’t he tell me?” Jude snapped.

“He said he was going to, but he also felt bad because you had so much going on, so he wanted to wait.”

I sighed with frustration. That sounded like Theo all right. Of course he’d been kicked out of his own home and somehow decided the biggest problem was that telling us might inconvenience one of us. He’d spent the last week taking care of Jude and me, but apparently, that meant there wasn’t enough room left for us to take care of him as his life fell apart.

My jaw ticked as I processed that. I couldn’t even be mad—not at him anyway. Hadn’t I done exactly the same thing? I ran after Thanksgiving. I shut him out after my mom died. I tried to make him leave after the funeral. It was no wonder he turned around and did the same thing.

Maybe Theo and I had more to work on relationship-wise than I’d realized.

While Jude continued to rage about why Theo hadn’t said anything, I strode to the middle of the football field and blew my whistle, the sound cutting through the chatter. Everyone stopped moving and turned to look at me.

“Listen up!” I yelled to be heard. “Does anyone here know where McLaughlin is?”

Hopefully, Theo had told someone else where he was going. More than half the team lived in the GOAT house. I had to believe someone knew something. The alternative—that he’d disappeared after being kicked out and no one knew where the hell he was—was an option I refused to accept.

I wasn’t sure what I’d do if he was just… gone.

“Oh!” Terry’s hand shot up—this goddamn kid and his hand-raising.

“Just talk, Terry,” I ordered.

“Rodney knows something,” he replied. Oh, for fuck’s sake.

“Rodney! Where are you?” I practically shouted as I rotated slowly, my gaze drifting over the team as I searched for him. Rodney waved at me as he separated from one of the scrimmage groups. “What do you know?’