Page 90 of Make Me Mean It

Darren stumbles backwards, and a breath leaves me in a shaky rush.

Theo’s eyes find mine, not Marcus, or anyone else on the team. Me.

My hand is still half lifted between us, reaching for him, and an ache spreads beneath my ribs, because Theo listened to me.

He barely listens to Marcus when he gets like this. I’ve watched Marcus physically drag him out of fights before, watched Theo fight him every inch of the way.

I’m still staring at him when Darren surges forward.

His fist catches Theo clean across the jaw, the crack of bone against bone cutting through the music as Theo’s head whips sideways. For the briefest moment, everything around us seems to stall with him.

Then a low, breathless laugh slips out as he slowly turns his head back, and my stomach twists because there’s something completely fucking wrong about hearing Theo laugh with blood already spreading across his mouth.

He turns back slowly, working his jaw, his tongue running across his teeth, and spitting blood onto the floor. He wipes the back of his hand over his split lip, smearing red across his mouth as a grin starts to spread.

I’ve seen that face cocky, amused, furious, but never like this. There’s an eager gleam in his eyes now that makes a shiver tear down my spine and turn strangely hot somewhere near the bottom.

I press my thighs together against the heavy pulse that goes through my balls.

“You picked the wrong fucking night,” he spits, the gin disappearing.

Theo grabs Darren by the throat and drives him into the wall.

People surge backwards when Darren swings, and Theo ducks beneath it, catching him around the middle and driving him back hard into the edge of the bar.

Marcus’s clamps a hand around my shoulder, hauling me backwards just as Theo and Darren stumble towards us, my shoes slipping beneath me before I manage to catch myself.

“Get outside,” he barks, his attention already moving past me, tracking Theo and the fight while he pushes me farther towards the edge of the crowd.

“No.”

Marcus stops, looking at me properly then. “What?”

“I’m not leaving,” I shake my head, the certainty in my voice catching even me off guard, but the thought of walking through that door while Theo is still in here makes my chest tighten.

He’s bleeding.

He’s furious.

And this doesn’t feel like one of the stupid fights I’ve watched him get into on the ice. It’s vicious in a way those have never been, and I can’t leave without knowing he’s going to come back from it.

Marcus studies me, his gaze flicking from me to Theo and back again, brows furrowing. “Shit,” he hisses, looking back at Theo. “I really don’t have time for this. Just stay the fuck out of the way, Con,” he snaps, shoving forward.

Marcus hooks a fist into the collar of Theo’s t-shirt and hauls him backwards, boots scraping against the floor with the effort of dragging him away.

Theo fights him on every step. Not the half-hearted resistance I’ve seen him give Marcus a hundred times before either. He tries to wrench himself free and get back to Darren, who’s slumped against the bar, clutching his nose while blood spills between his fingers.

“Cut it out,” Marcus grits, locking an arm across Theo’s chest when he surges forward again.

Theo barely seems to hear him, the green of his eyes feral.

His chest heaves beneath his shirt, pupils blown wide with adrenaline, every muscle in his body straining against Marcus’s hold, and I don’t think I’ve ever really appreciated how big Theo is until now. How much strength sits beneath the lazy slouch and careless way he carries himself. How easily he could hurt someone when he stops trying not to.

Marcus grabs his jaw, the skin turning white from the force of it, yanking Theo’s face up to his.

“Settle the fuck down, Theo.”

Theo tears his face out of Marcus’s grip, stumbling back a step before catching himself. The back of his hand drags across his mouth, smearing fresh blood from his split lip over his cheek.

His eyes flick to me, his shoulders dropping. Barely, but enough that Marcus’s grip stops looking like the only thing keeping him in place. His fists loosen at his sides, chest still rising hard as those green eyes stay fixed on mine.

He’s still furious. I can see it in the set of his jaw, the blood on his mouth, the tension still running through every inch of him.

But he stops fighting Marcus.

Because he saw me.

My chest aches with a feeling I don’t have a name for, because there’s no pretending I imagined that. He was ready to tear straight through his best friend to get to Darren until he looked at me.