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The resignation and sadness in his voicekilledme. “People care about you, Theo. I bet if you opened up to them, you’d see that. You’re so liked and respected by your teammates, and I’ve never heard anyone say a bad word about you…unless it involved me.”
I brushed a soft kiss over his lips, and he sighed. “Maybe you’re right. I just…I never really felt like I fit in anywhere. There was never anyone I was close to. Then I got my place on the team and I thought, finally, maybe I’ll fit in here. Then you came along, and the rug was pulled from under my feet.”
“Fucking hell, Theo. Come here. No, lie down.” My eyes opened to find his were wet, and it made my heart fucking hurt. I pushed him down onto the bed and wrapped my arms around him. “You do fit in. The guys love you. We’re working on our issues, aren’t we? We’re gonna be proper besties when we get back, not just me telling you you’re my bestie because I love to watch the way you get angry when I say it.”
My words earned me a tremulous smile. “You’re such a wanker.” His voice was soft. “I had… This morning’s session with Dr. Ross was heavy. I think—I think I want to talk about some of it with you.”
“’Course. You know I won’t share anything with anyone else. You can trust me.” I kissed the side of his head. It felt so right to be here with him, in our own little world, opening up to each other in a way I’d never experienced before.
“Yeah. I can.” He closed his eyes. “I’ll give you the highlights. I didn’t exactly grow up in a loving home. Yes, from the outside, it looked good—two parents, a beautiful manor house in the countryside, no money worries. But my parents…to them, I was a commodity. Or so it felt. If I didn’t toe the line, didn’t follow the exact path they’d planned out for me… Well. The threat of being disowned was a constant in my life.”
“Fuck, baby.” Now I was the one using that word. “I’m sorry for all the times I called you ‘my lord’ and all those other things I accused you of.”
He smiled. “I don’t mind it, coming from you. But you weren’t wrong. I did have a sense of entitlement, especially when I was younger. It was soon knocked out of me when I joined the youth academy. It was pure luck I was able to do so, and my parents had no inkling that it would ever be more than a teenage hobby. But when I was there, I found that my upbringing set me apart from the other boys in the academy. I didn’t know how to act any differently, and so I…I shut down. I put on a front, acted as if I were untouchable. You were the only one who ever managed to get past my defences, and you did it so effortlessly. What is it about you?”
“I guess I’m just that good.”
He smacked my arm. “Sometimes I think your sole purpose in life is to irritate me until I snap.”
“Sometimes it is.” I shrugged and then kissed the spot just below his ear. “Tell me more. I want to know everything.”
“Okay. As I just said, my upbringing set me apart from the other boys at the academy. But I soon found that football set me apart from the boys at my school. My school was probably just as you imagine—a boys’ school filled with the sons of politicians and lords and other influential figures, costing thousands of pounds a year to attend. No one could seem to understand my passion for football and my disinterest in a career in law, or politics, or any number of other ambitions that I had no interest in. All I wanted was to play football, and there was no one in my life that understood that.”
“Theo. I wish I’d known…I might have—”
“There’s no use in thinking about what might have been. All we can do is acknowledge the past and move forwards. My parents certainly didn’t understand. Do you know, they’ve never been to any of my games? Not one. They refused to support that part of my life. I’m now estranged from them, for the most part.” He laughed bitterly. “So that’s my life in a nutshell. My sleeping issues stem from my childhood nightmares, which I already told you about, and ever since, I’ve had trouble switching off my thoughts when I go to bed. I always spent my nights tossing and turning, and when I joined Glevum and sleeping pills were casually dropped into conversations, it seemed like a miracle solution. I started out taking them the night before a match, as some of the other players do, but I soon grew to rely on them. Getting a full night’s sleep without my thoughts troubling me…it was…well, it became an addiction. Dr. Ross is helping me to learn techniques to deal with everything, and the aim is that I’ll eventually be able to fall into a regular sleep pattern, but for now, all I can do is try to get through one day at a time. One night at a time.”
I wrapped my arms more tightly around him. I wanted to take all that pain from him, to make it better, but all I could do was trust that Dr. Ross knew what he was talking about, and eventually, Theo would be able to sleep properly again. And I’d do whatever I could to help that happen if he’d let me.
I didn’t know how to articulate the things I wanted to say, but I had to try. “You don’t have to go through this alone anymore. I’ll be here. Even when we get back, and we’re, y’know, back to being teammates. I want to be your friend, Theo, and I’ll be here to support you. You can talk to me about anything. Anytime. Okay?”
He stared at me for a moment, and then his whole face just crumpled. “Fuck. You have no idea.” Burying his head in my throat, he breathed in and out, short, fast breaths, and I rubbed my hand up and down his back, doing my best to soothe him. When his breathing slowed, he spoke again. “I’ve always been lonely. It sounds ridiculous, I know. I’m doing my dream job, getting paid more in a week than some people make in a year, and yet—”
“It doesn’t sound ridiculous. To tell the truth, I’m lonely, too. I mean, I have Rory and my dad and the guys on the team, but. I dunno…it’s different. What we’re doing now…I can’t imagine experiencing all this with anyone else. Let alone doing this.” I placed a kiss to his lips. “Or this.” I kissed him again.
“Or this,” he agreed, taking control of this kiss and rolling me onto my back, his body pressing me down into the bed. “I think you mentioned that you like feeling me on top of you, didn’t you? And there was something about thinking I was hotter than the sun?”
I glared up at him when he smirked at me. “I wish I’d never let you read that.”
“I’m glad you did.” His expression became serious. “And just so you know. I think I like you, too, Jordan.”
26
JORDAN
The paddles of my kayak cut through the turquoise waters with barely a ripple. Next to me in his own kayak, Theo’s brow was furrowed in concentration as he focused on dipping his paddle into the sea at the perfect angle, pulling slightly ahead of my kayak. I glanced up at the cliffs. There was the tree shaped like a dancing figure, just as the staff member I’d bribed with my natural charm had described, which meant that the cove should be just around the next corner. Sure enough, as we rounded the cliff edge, there it was—a small crescent of soft white sand surrounded by cliffs, the waves lapping gently at the shore.
“There.” I inclined my head towards the cove, and Theo gave me a short nod, steering his kayak towards it. We pulled the kayaks up onto the beach, removing our life jackets, and then flopped back on the sand.
“So you really want me to break the curfew rules to come back here after dark?” Theo glanced around us. It had taken me a good few days to talk him into my plan, which he’d been hesitant about when I told him that it involved “borrowing” the kayaks from the lockup, i.e. stealing them. Except it wasn’t stealing if you were putting them back, right?
“We only have two more days left here. We have to do this. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.” I sighed heavily, pouting my lips and lowering my eyes. “I guess I can come back on my own if you don’t want to.”
He leaned over, tugging my earlobe between his teeth. “I know what you’re doing, brat. Stop trying to manipulate me.”
I turned my head, darting forwards to bite at his lower lip. “Is it working, though?”
“Yes.” His eyes narrowed. “You’d better make it worth my while.”
