Chapter Ten

Perry

Offering to help someone study is a new one for me. It's just never been on my radar before. I'm not the guy anyone else has gone to for that, and I can't say it's been something I missed out on.

But I know Theo, and he's clearly stressed. The guy is a people pleaser, and I hate that he's putting so much pressure on himself when it comes to school.

I tidy up the house a little. It's never bad. Brax is picky about that shit. Apparently, he and his brother have a complicated relationship, but Ty said when the brother lived here, he hardly ever did his part. Brax took it all on himself, which is fucked up. I try hard to make sure it doesn't ever look like I'm taking advantage of living here.

I'm just finishing brushing my teeth when I hear the knock at the door. I make my way back down the hallway, into the living room, and open it to see Theo standing there in a pair of gray sweatpants. Fuck my life. It's not even cold. Why is he wearing those? Is he trying to torture me? He's also got pink cheeks, his backpack slung over his shoulder, and what looks like a bashful smile curving his lips.

"What?" I ask.

"What, what?"

"You look different. I don't know, shy or something." I step aside and let him in.

"I'm not shy. Why would I be shy? There's no reason to be shy."

Okay…well, something is certainly going on. I close the door and lean against it. "It was nothing." The best way to deal with this is to get it out in the open. I'm not one for tiptoeing around issues.

"What was nothing?" Theo asks.

"Us. Outside of Shenanigans that night. I didn't expect anything then, and I don't expect anything now. I'm charming and irresistible. I get it. But I don't think anything has changed between us. We're friends, and you aren't into guys."

He crosses his arms. "You're resistible. I resist you."

A light feeling starts in my chest before it comes out of my mouth in a chuckle. "Yeah, sure, whatever you say."

"I do resist you! And I'm not freaking out about that night. I know it was nothing. Just a thing…where we stood close. And you had your hands on my hips. And…" He waves his hands. "You were there. I don't know why I'm explaining it to you."

I can't help but chuckle again. Everything about him is so fucking cute. "Your hands were on me too."

"Hmm?"

"Your hands, Theo. They were on me too. Do you want something to drink?" I walk past him and into the kitchen. The padding of feet behind me says Theo is following me.

"Wait. My hands were on you too?"

"Yes. Water, soda, beer, or lemonade?"

"Lemonade. Why don't I remember?"

Now it's my turn to say, "Huh?"

"I don't remember that. You'd think I'd remember that."

"So first you can't tell I'm flirting with you, and then you don't remember touching me? Seriously need to up my game," I mumble playfully.

"I wasn't… I didn't… That's not what I meant."

"I'm giving you shit, Puppy. Relax." I fill two glasses, then head toward my bedroom.

I get to the hallway when he says, "We're not doing it out here?"

His question stops me. Doing it? I groan.

"What? Why did you do that?"

"No reason."

"There has to be a reason."

"You said doing it," I reply like a twelve-year-old.

Theo pauses, looks at me, cocks his head, then laughs. I roll my eyes, but there's a smile on my lips too.

"Don't laugh at me, Puppy. You're wearing gray sweatpants, for Christ's sake!"

"What's wrong with gray sweatpants?" He follows me to my room.

"They short-circuit my brain. Are you okay being in here? We can stay in the living room if you prefer."

He shakes his head. "No, I was being weird. You seem to make me do that a lot."

"Funny because you do the same to me."

I set the drinks down, then sit on my bed, patting the other side. Theo tosses his backpack down and joins me. "What do you want to do?" Theo asks.

"Study. We're going to study. That's the whole point of this."

"I thought maybe you were kidding."

"I wasn't."

I watch him as he begins to pull his things out of his backpack. He has strong hands, veins crisscrossing on top of them. Ugh. Why does he have to have veins? I mean, everyone has them, but damn, they're sexy when they show in a masculine pair of hands like that.

"Thank you…for this," he says, pulling me out of my thoughts, then sighs. Something about his body language tells me he's really not looking forward to this.

"Are you not into this?"

He groans, but that's all I get.

"It's never too late to change your major. Ty spent three years going to school for tech, like his dad, only to change his mind, and now he's doing nursing."

"Yeah, but Ty also has the money for that," he replies, which is a good point.

"True."

"But that's not even what it is. It's not that I don't want to go into business. It's just…" He picks at his backpack without looking at me. I wait for him to gather himself. It's clear he has something to say but doesn't know how to say it. "School is hard. I get that it's supposed to be, that it shouldn't be easy. And I've always had to work harder than most people, but that wasn't as much pressure when it was high school. Now it's college, and my parents are helping to pay for me to be here, and I'm piling up student-loan debt, and worrying that the scholarships I have should have gone to someone better and smarter… It becomes this whirlwind in my brain that stresses me out, and then it's like I can't do anything at all."

He's still not looking at me, and damned if it doesn't make my chest ache. "Hey. First of all, there's nothing to be ashamed of. Not school being hard, nor feeling all this pressure. And the scholarships went to you because you deserve them. I totally get that student loans suck. Our system is messed up. The most important question is…do you want to continue going to college? Do you want to do this?"

He keeps his eyes down still, then cocks his head slightly so he's looking at me. "I think so. I want to make my parents proud."

"No offense, but this isn't about your parents. It's about you. They sound like the kind of people who will support you no matter what."

"They are, which is why it's so hard and why I want to do this for them. I get that it doesn't make sense to anyone but me."

"But it does," I cut him off. "When you love people, you want to be who they need you to be, want you to be, or think you are. That's normal. And it's hard when you feel like you're letting them down or you're not who they want or expect."

My insecurities might be different from Theo's, but I had them. Why didn't Ty's dad ever want me? It was complicated, and the prick was leading two women on, but I'm his son, and he just…didn't care.

"Your dad?" Theo asks, then reaches over and touches my hand.

"It's not the same thing."

"It doesn't matter. Feelings don't play by the rules."

No, they don't because if they did, I wouldn't give a fuck. I'd never think twice about Montgomery the way he never thought twice about me until now.

"Let's get back to you, Puppy."

"You never want to talk about yourself."

"Eh, maybe that's because I have a secret crush on you and find you interesting." I wink. I meant it playfully, innocently flirting, but he pulls his hand back and swallows.

"Shit. Sorry. Flirting comes naturally to me. I'll be a good boy now. Maybe you should take less classes each semester. That might help."

"Yeah, but then my parents will ask why."

I roll my eyes, but I get where he's coming from. "And then you'll tell them, and they'll want you to do what's best for you."

"It's probably too late for this semester, and I'll have to look into how that will affect loans and scholarships, but maybe."

I nod. It's a start. "Now let's study. If you're good, we'll order pizza for dinner and then do something that's a whole lot more fun than studying."

"Is this another of those times when you're accidentally flirting with me?"

"Get your mind out of the gutter, Puppy. I was thinking about something else. When we were texting this past week, you said you like anime. I'll give you one episode to change my mind about it."

Theo's eyes go wide, his smile so big, I feel like I just offered him more than I did. "We are studying right the fuck now."

I laugh. "Let's do it."

We get to work.