Page 101 of Caden & Theo
Soren mutters something under his breath and turns away, cutting through the crowd with his shoulders tight.
Theo watches him go, then glances at me. Not the quick once-over of a ref checking a player. This is slower, deliberate. His eyes lock on mine, holding just long enough for the noise ofthe gym to blur into the background. There’s no smile, but the message is clear as day.
I’ve got you.
It hits harder than I expect, settling deep in my chest. I give the smallest nod in return, the kind that says,I know.
A hand claps my back—a teammate, I think, though I don’t turn to check—as Theo stares at me, backing away, holding the whistle in his mouth for a beat before he blows it, signaling the second half.
I don’t watch the court. The game.
I watch Theo.
Every movement, every pivot, every time the whistle hits his mouth. I track him like he’s the only thing worth paying attention to in this gym. Because right now, he is.
I’m so full of shit. He always has been.
TWENTY-TWO
THEO
Whistles are supposedto make you heard. Mine barely cuts through the noise in my head.
I’m moving up and down the sideline, tracking feet and hands, counting three seconds in the lane, but all I really see is Caden’s gaze every time he glances my way. It sits under my skin like heat, steady and unblinking, and it makes the court feel two sizes too small. I keep my calls clean, my voice even, but Soren’s bullshit is still humming in my bones, and I can’t shake the image of Caden’s jaw tightening when he swallowed his temper.
By the time the final horn sounds, my smile is on autopilot. I blow the whistle once, give the players a quick “Good run” and a nod to the bleachers, and then I’m moving—off the floor, through the side door, past the trophy case with our dust-fogged faces trapped behind glass. I need air. My whole body feels buzzy and wrong, like a radio between stations.
I want to reach for him. That urge is so strong, it’s almost a pain. I want to find him in the crowd, touch his wrist, say something stupid like “You were beautiful out there,” because he was. I want to say I’m sorry again, as if repetition could sand down the edges of what happened. But I can’t. Fifteen years is a canyon you don’t jump because you feel brave for five minutes.
So I walk.
The corridor to the lot is quiet, dimmer than the gym, smelling like floor wax and old paper. My sneakers scuff the tile. My heart does this uneven stutter-step that has nothing to do with running the baseline and everything to do with the man who just played ten of the most breathtaking minutes I’ve ever watched.
He was strong. Not in a trying-to-prove-it way, but in the way a tree looks strong after a storm—roots deep, trunk scarred, still standing. The first time he planted on the prosthetic and rose for that elbow jumper, the whole gym inhaled at once. When the ball dropped through the net clean, the sound that followed wasn’t just cheering. It was relief. It was pride. It was awe.
Mine most of all.
And I still saw it—the exact second he reached his limit. The tiny change in his footwork, the half beat he needed to reset. The small protective shift in his shoulders when he came down from a rebound. Ten minutes. I should have been savoring them like everyone else. Instead, guilt hooked into me because I knew that threshold like my own heartbeat. I’m the one who put it there. I can call it an accident until I run out of breath, and it will still be the single worst choice I’ve ever made: believing I could keep us safe on a road I was already losing to fatigue.
He’s lived with it every day since. Learning to stand, to walk, to run again. The phantom pain he likely pretends isn’t bad when weather rolls in. The way people stare, or don’t, as if looking might be a verdict. What I felt in the gym wasn’t pity. It was awe and love and the kind of pride that makes your chest hurt. It was also the same old gnawing guilt with new teeth.
No wonder he cut me out. No wonder he had to. I wouldn’t forgive me either.
Sun hits me square in the face when I push through the doors at the end of the hall. The parking lot is a flicker of chrome andwhite gravel glare. I walk until I hit the thin shadow thrown by the flagpole and stop there, dragging air in and out until my pulse stops punching.
I should go home. Shower. Pretend I’m excited about volunteering at a “Totally ’80s” prom. I should find the box of neon headbands Maddie dropped in my room and practice not dying of secondhand embarrassment when I hand them out tonight. Mostly, I need to get my head straight enough not to say something catastrophic the second I see him again.
I make it three steps toward my truck before Justin Kirkwood comes striding across the lot like a man with a plan alongside three backup plans in his pocket.
“Theo!” he calls, that deep voice of his carrying without effort. He looks like every spreadsheet ever made decided to become a person: neat, capable, built like a brick wall in a button-down he somehow hasn’t sweated through. He breaks into a jog for the last few feet. “Hey, hey—hold up.”
“Hey, Kirkwood.” I force a grin. “If this is about the icebreaker supplies I ‘lost’ last night, I have no comment.”
He huffs a laugh and studies my face. “I’m actually checking on you.”
“I’m good,” I lie, then soften. “I’m… upright.”
His eyes flick toward the gym doors, then back. “You were somewhere else for half that game. Not a complaint. Just an observation.”
