Page 88 of Make Me Mean It

I take his hand, expecting a quick shake, but his warm grip lingers. His eyes linger too, moving openly over me before returning to my face with enough appreciation that understanding finally clicks into place.

“You here with anyone, Connor?” Darren asks, already turning to signal for the bartender.

My eyes find Theo again, the blond still beside him, talking, but Theo doesn’t seem to be hearing him anymore. His drink hangs loose in one hand while he watches me from across the bar, jaw set, all that lazy attention he’d been giving the guy beside him completely gone.

Our eyes meet, and a strange shiver works its way down my spine.

“Uh, no.” I drag my gaze back to Darren. “Not really.”

Darren smiles.

It’s a nice smile. Friendly. The sort that should make some of the tension wound through me ease.

“Let me buy you a drink?” he asks, although he’s already ordering by the time I open my mouth to refuse, the bartender sliding a glass in front of him.

“Oh, uh, thanks, but I don’t-”

It sticks in my throat, heat flooding my cheeks.

Darren reaches for the glass as someone squeezes between us and the couple beside him, shifting it out of the way before it gets knocked. His hand closes around the top for barely a second, fingers spread over the rim as he pulls it closer to himself.

“I don’t swing that way,” I manage eventually, the words leaving an uncomfortable weight behind them.

Darren doesn’t seem to notice anything wrong with the statement, his expression softening with a short nod.

“That’s okay.”

No judgement. No awkwardness. Nothing that should make this feel like the ground has shifted slightly beneath my feet.

His hand settles against my bicep with a gentle squeeze, my body turning rigid beneath it.

“Have the drink anyway.”

“Thank you,” I mutter.

I wrap both hands around the glass, mostly because it gives them somewhere to go.

Around us, the bar keeps moving, music pounding through the speakers, people shout over one another, bodies pressing shoulder to shoulder.

I barely register any of it, my pulse too loud in my ears.

I lift the glass and barely get the cold rim against my lips before a large hand slams over the top, knocking it straight back onto the counter.

My heart lurches as liquid sloshes over the rim and across my fingers.

I turn, Theo crowding into the space behind me. His chest rises hard beneath his open shirt like he crossed the room at a sprint, but his hand doesn’t move from the glass, palm sealed over the top while his fingers curl around the sides.

“Theo, what are you-”

My voice catches in my throat at the look on Theo’s face.

I’ve seen Theo angry plenty of times. At Marcus. On the ice. At me. I know the exact shape of the grin he gets when someone pisses him off, the reckless amusement that usually comes right before he does something stupid.

None of that is there now.

His face has gone frighteningly still, jaw locked tight enough to sharpen every line of it, and he hasn’t looked at me once.

“What the fuck are you playing at, huh?”