Page 70 of Stop and Seek
Noah glanced over and the smug grin slid off his face. “It was a joke, Theo. I’m sorry. Did I say the wrong thing or..?”
“Just forget it,” Theo mumbled. He set his chin on his hand and looked out the window.
The crickets and cicadas were too damn loud. They still had a couple months until autumn came around and the bugs went back to hell where they belonged.
Noah took a deep breath, his voice soft.
“Why’re you such a miserable person?”
The words hit sharper than they had any right to.
Theo’s throat tightened, and he kept his gaze fixed out the window when the light changed, watching the empty, colorful buildings crawl by.
Miserable.
Yeah, no shit.
Like he hadn’t figured that part out already.
He was fuckingtrying. He wasn’t Ethan or Rachel.
They were all perfect-shaped, and his corners didn’t exactly smooth out.
The burn in his eyes was the most embarrassing part.
As Noah parked the car, Theo had almost shaken off the urge to crawl into a hole and never come back out.
“Are you going to invite me up?” Noah asked, sliding the key out from the ignition.
“You piss me off—tell meyou realize this. Did the steroids mess with your brain?”
“Do I?Really?What happened in the classroom tells a different story.”
Theo scoffed. “You came onto me, not the other way around.”
“You got me there.” Noah paused. Laughed. “But I thinkyoucame onme.”
Theo clicked the seat belt off. He popped his fingers.
Nothing he said ever irritated Noah. No matter how much he tried. Like he was talking to a happy, perverted,brick wallthat spat bad sexual innuendos whenever it felt like it.
Any other time, he would’ve been all for that.
Theo turned in the seat, Pepsi bottle in the middle console digging into his knee. “Why’d you tell me Alyssa asked you to take me home last night? She didn’t.”
Noah leaned back, chewing on his thumbnail. He ran his other hand over the steering wheel, and the pause lasted longer than it should have.
Did the why actually matter?
No.
People who lied once kept lying. They always did. Watching them grapple for excuses, digging themselves deeper into a pile of bullshit—it felt good.
Was it a power trip? Maybe.
“I wanted to get to know you after I realized who you were,” Noah finally said. “You knew me, and I—I didn’t know you.”
“Could have fuckingaskedme.”
