Page 42 of Twisted Shot
Mila tilts her head, studying him. “You don’t owe me an explanation.”
“Yeah,” he says. “But I wanted to give one.”
Another beat of silence, but it doesn’t feel empty. Just full of things neither of them knows how to say yet.
Mila looks down at her coffee. “I had fun. Before you left.”
“Me too.”
And he means it. Every awkward second he spent beside her had been perfect. The way she laughed. The way she looked at him, like he wasn’t invisible. She’d been funny, brilliant, and so distractingly beautiful he could barely think straight.
But when his words got in the way and he bailed, he needed to find another way to connect with her. Without all the pressure and prying eyes that tied him in knots.
He’s had a crush on her since they'd met at Jesse’s apartment last Christmas. And now she’s here. In his kitchen. In her barefaced, sleepy Sunday morning glory. Damn him if he did not shoot his shot.
“I like this better,” he says.
“What?”
He gestures vaguely. “This. You. Me. Not Sexy Luigi.”
Mila considers this, eyes twinkling. “Sexy Luigi wasn’t so bad.”
Theo swallows the knot in his throat. He wants to say something more about last night. Something clever. Something funny. Anything.
Instead, he pretends to be engrossed in his coffee while Mila blows on hers, her lips pursed slightly.
She glances up at him, casual. Too casual.
“So,” she says, tracing her finger along the rim of her mug, “was everyone accounted for last night?”
Theo blinks. “Accounted for?”
“You know. Players, staff... masked strangers lurking indark corners.”
He clears his throat. “Uh, I guess? Jesse invited half the city. Hard to say who was actually here.”
She hums thoughtfully, eyes sharpening just a fraction. “Right. Any idea who the man in black was? He was in a suit and a black mask.”
His spine goes rigid, heat creeping up his neck.
“I mean,” she continues, the picture of polite curiosity, “he seemed to know a lot about me. Where I was staying. Who I was there with…”
Theo lifts his mug a beat too late, trying to hide behind the rim. The ceramic sears his palm, but he clings to it like a lifeline.
“Do you think,” she tilts her head, “it could’ve been someone I already know?”
He almost chokes, letting out a noncommittal grunt that he hopes she interprets asmaybeand notplease stop talking before I spontaneously combust.
Because this—this is torture.
She’s right there, knees tucked under her on his barstool, leaning just close enough for him to catch the summery scent of whatever shampoo she uses, looking at him like she already has the answer and is daring him to say it out loud.
Tell her.
The urge is sudden, hard, almost physical. He wants to. God, he wants to. To admit it was him. That the mask didn’t hide a stranger—it hid every aching, messy, wanting part of him. That those were his hands, his lips, his voice she whispered to in the dark.
But saying it would mean explaining why he bailed. Why he changed into his backup costume—the one he’d planned to wear before his numbskull roommate strong-armed him into being Sexy Luigi, making him so anxious and stupid in a way he can’t bear to unpack.
