Page 123 of Caden & Theo
Theo leans in, grin tugging his lips. “Yep. He never let me off easy. I can still hear him yelling about rebounds when I close my eyes.”
“Somebody had to keep you honest,” I shoot back automatically, the words falling into the groove of old rhythms.
Ollie smirks at me, shifting into his next exercise. “Explains why your accent’s thicker now. Thought I was hearing things when I walked in.”
Theo bursts out laughing, and I shake my head. He’s right, though. The drawl always bleeds harder around Theo. My body remembers before my brain does.
We cycle through the exercises—rotator work, wall slides, stability drills. Theo jumps in, handing Ollie bands, spotting him when he presses, listening with rapt attention when I explain cues. He’s not just humoring me. He’s genuinely interested. And it shows in the way Ollie warms to him immediately, tradingbanter with Theo like they’ve known each other longer than an hour.
And under it all, my thoughts snag where they shouldn’t. Watching Theo joke with Ollie, watching him fold so seamlessly into this space, I wonder,could he really fit here? Could he build something with me in this city?
Then the flip side hits. Could I ever give this up, move back to Gomillion, start over again just to be with him?
The envy I feel for Ollie gnaws harder now. Not just because of his career—the years, the games, the glory, the fact that he walked away on his own terms—but because for so long, I thought he had everything I wanted. Only later did I—as well as the rest of the world—learn he was living a lie to keep it. While I crashed and rebuilt in the open, he stayed hidden until retirement gave him permission to breathe. I used to tell myself I’d do the same—come out once I was done, unless someone else in the league beat me to it. Now there’s a whole wave of out players changing the landscape. And me? I never even got the chance.
But Theo’s bright and easy laugh cuts through the noise, and for a second, it feels possible again—that he might fit, that we might figure this out.
Ollie groans through his last set, sweat beading on his temple. I clap his good shoulder, hand him a towel, and mark down his next plan.
“Good work,” I tell him.
“Coming from you, I’ll take it,” Ollie says, then nods at Theo. “Nice meeting you, man. Don’t let him undersell himself. He’s the best there is.”
Theo meets my eyes, something soft and proud in his expression, and my chest knots all over again.
When Ollie leaves, the silence that follows isn’t empty. It’s thick with everything I can’t quite say yet.
Theo sidles closer, bumps his shoulder into mine. “You’re good at this,” he says simply.
The words burn through me in the best way. I want to believe them. I want him to see me the way he used to, as well as the way he seems to now.
I smile, the knot in my chest loosening just a little. But the questions linger, heavier than any weight I lifted this morning.
We stepout into the San Francisco night hand in hand. Not walking close, not brushing shoulders like we might’ve done when we were younger, but really holding hands. Palm pressed to palm, fingers threaded together, the kind of grip that makes no room for second-guessing. It’s the first time we’ve ever done this in public—not counting our entrance into my reunion prom.
I half expect to feel eyes burning into us, to hear whispers sharpen behind our backs. Instead, all I feel is Theo’s warm and steady hand and the easy cool of the evening air. People pass by, caught up in their own lives. No one gives us more than a glance, not here in San Francisco. The city hums around us, a living, breathing thing.
We find a small restaurant tucked into a corner street, a cozy space with flickering candles on each table and wood beams crossing low ceilings. The host doesn’t glance at our hands, and not for the first time, I’m thankful that I moved here. We’re seated in a booth near the back, with mostly empty tables around us. It’s private enough to feel safe, intimate enough to feel like the world has shrunk to just the two of us.
Theo slides into the booth opposite me, and for a long moment, neither of us says anything. The silence isn’t sharp like it was in the car a couple of days ago, or heavy like it sometimesis when my thoughts drift too close to what we lost. It’s full and expectant. Like both of us know this is the moment we’ve been circling all night.
Our menus sit unopened between us. His eyes flick over mine, unsteady and then not. He draws a breath, then lets it out slowly. “We should talk.”
“Yeah,” I say, my voice low. I toy with the edge of the menu, though I don’t look away from him. “We should.”
For a second, I think he’s going to dodge, to circle around what he means. But Theo’s never been one to dance forever around the truth. Not when it matters.
“The accident,” he says finally, his voice rough.
My chest tightens. The word still feels like a blade sometimes, even now.
He swallows, eyes dropping to the table, then finding mine again. “I know you said it was an accident. That you don’t blame me. But I blame me. Every day.” His voice catches. “I was driving. I closed my eyes. I?—”
“Theo.” I lean forward, closing my hand over his where it rests on the table. His skin is warm, trembling under my touch. “Stop.”
“I can’t,” he says, voice breaking. “I wrecked us. I wrecked you. You trusted me, and I?—”
“You think I don’t know what it was like for you?” I cut in, sharper than I mean, but I don’t let go of his hand. My throat feels raw. “I lost my leg. But you lost us. You lost me. And you carried that alone for fifteen years.”
