The scoff that left her lips at his insistence on pointing out the jealousy she’d say she wasn’t feeling until they day she died couldn’t have been stopped, her eyes rolling as she crossed her arms over her chest. “Get your ears checked then, because there’s nothing for me to be jealous about.” Her tone was low, the words leaving her lips in a sound that could only be described as a growl. She was jealous, which was the bitch of it all, but she had no right to be. Especially not after the way their reunion earlier in the night had gone. And that made her livid. “Wow, you perved out long enough to figure out how tall the guy fucking me was? Were you able to catch his dick size, too? Wanna comment on that?” With her pacing back in full swing, Drew pushed past past Theo, only pausing to look up at him with an annoyed scowl on her features. “Because it was great.”
Beginning to move once more, the blonde repeatedly walked from one side of the small room to the other, her cheeks burning bright red with dangerous cocktail of anger and jealousy that was bubbling up from within. His laughter had her pausing, her back to him as her hands balled up into fists at her sides, refusing to turn to look towards him. To give him what he wanted in the moment. “You sure about that?” She asked lowly, resuming her pacing about the room. “You sure you wouldn’t be too sad about your dead girlfriend to come and find me?” Her voice was rising along with the molten lava that was her anger. At him, herself, the situation they’d found themselves in because of her. “Oh for fuck’s sake, you act like I thought to myself ‘tonight I can either meet some random dude at a bar or I can go and see Theo’! Those weren’t my only two options, I’m allowed to go out and meet people when I move. God forbid I have a life. I forgot my entire world was supposed to revolve around you, my bad.” The words were full of venom, spat in his direction callously and without any other thought than to make him feel as bad as she did in that moment. It wasn’t nice, it wasn’t fair, but it was Drew. And she was reaching her breaking point.
“Really?” The question was asked in a tone much less harsh than her previous words, hallow laughter filling the space between them as she finally turned to look at him. “Then why are you more upset about losing her than you are about seeing me?” That was the heart of it all, wasn’t it? Drew feeling like he’d replaced her with someone, the way her heart dropped to her toes at the thought of losing him to someone else, of someone replacing her. The sheer panic of not having a spot in his life, in his heart, anymore. She’d never admit it out loud, but her anger and jealous was born of a place of fear and insecurity. Theo, despite her words and actions, was her heart. Her world. And finding about about Eden, hearing him talk about her in a softness she’d only seen reserved for herself… it felt like he’d slipped through her fingers. She couldn’t take it.
As his hands wrapped around her wrists, Drew let out a slow breath, her shoulders sagging with the weight of her unspoken emotions. It was unimaginable, how a simple touch from him could smother the flames of her anger in mere seconds. But in the wake of the storm there was always exhaustion and regret left over. She shouldn’t have come tonight, she should have given him space and run into him naturally in the coming weeks. But instead, she’d fanned the flames, unable to keep them both from getting burned. “Theo.” When his name left her lips this time there was no malice, no anger, just a softness Drew reserved for him and him alone. “I can’t.” She repeated, though she made no attempt to move and her eyes darted from his warm gaze to the window behind him and back again. “I should go.” But instead she did the opposite, moving in closer, unable and unwilling to stop herself as her body rest against his and she rose up onto her toes to brush her lips along his jaw. “It’s late.”
Anyone on the outside looking in would have thought of him as nothing more than a pathetic man desperate for the love of a woman he’d never have and truth was, they weren’t far off. It was the only reason he continued to put up with the shit she threw at him. “Clearly it wasn’t too impressive if you didn’t catch his name.” He hated the fire that burned deep in his chest; hated how his stomach twisted into knots every time he was reminded that someone else had touched her in the ways that he had. It was a foolish thing to hate, yet there he stood, hating every second of the memory that had been burned into his mind.
Had it been anyone else throwing Eden’s death in his face, he would have been quick to shut it down and kick them out. Truth was, the woman had been a placeholder for Drew, yet he couldn’t sink low enough to admit such a thing aloud. It had been a desperate attempt at filling a void left in the wake of the blonde’s chaos, but it had backfired hard. “Actually, yeah. I’m sure about that.” He offered a nod of confirmation in her direction, a stern, yet confident look painted on his features. Her venomous words cut at him like a sharpened blade daring to do maximum damage. That was thing about Drew; she always came out swinging. “Jesus fucking christ,” he scoffed, head shaking as he finally allowed himself to look away. Fingers stretched upwards to pinch at the bridge of his nose. She could never be in the wrong; he should have known that much from the start.
“Really.” Another confident huff of air slipped past his lips as he shifted on his feet. There wasn’t a person in the world who would ever be more important than the woman standing before him and it was amusing to believe that she’d ever think otherwise. “If I had known,” he trailed off, head shaking as gaze fell to hers, “If I had known you were here, I would reached out.” Unlike her intentions, his would have been clear from the start. “I’m sorry.” For what? He wasn’t sure.
He wondered if there would ever be a world where their togetherness wasn’t followed by a trail of fiery chaos. If, that by some chance, they’d find a happy middle ground where anger and jealousy didn’t guide them into war. “Please,” he mouthed, voice barely audible as he stood close to her. It was the same thing every single time; the big fight, the making up, and then his least favorite part of all... the leaving. Despite the inevitable, he leaned into her fire, desperate for whatever she’d offer. Carefully, Theo’s hands loosened until they’d dropped from her wrists, only for him to find solace against each side of her face. “It is,” he nodded, hovering close so that his lips daring to brush against hers. “Don’t go.”
