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“Heck no. Just draw your sketches. We’ll be back in ten minutes.”
A series of ohs and ahs erupted from the class. You’d think they were a bunch of middle schoolers the way they carried on.
“Ought to take more than ten minutes,” Mr. Fitzwilliam said.
“Not if he knows what he’s doing,” Mrs. Adams countered. “My Frankie can make me—”
I slammed the door shut. I’d heard enough from the Adams’s house the few times I’d dared to keep my bedroom windows open at night. “Want to talk here or outside?”
Theo slid down the wall and sat on the linoleum floor with his long legs stretched out in front of him. He still looked pale, but his hands no longer shook. I considered how best to sit without flashing my cramp panties and finally dropped to one knee, then flopped on my ass beside him. My combat boots looked like the kiddie version of his and only reached his knees once I pressed my back against the wall. I waited a good twenty seconds for him to start talking before I said, “Spill it.”
“Max evicted me,” he said quietly, his deep voice still powerful enough to rumble into my side where we touched. “I have to find a new place before February.”
“Why on earth would he do that?” I asked, twisting to look at him.
He turned his head and those warm brown eyes were so sad, my breath stalled in my chest before a surge of hot rage erased the chill of the sticky linoleum against my legs. Max was officially on my shit list.
“It’s time,” he said. “He’s been wanting me to find a better place for a while, and someone else needs the apartment more than I do.”
“That’d make sense if you had another rental lined up or more time to find one. Where does he expect you to live?”
“If I can’t find something right away, he offered his guest room until I did.”
Well, that changed things. I’d been five seconds from jumping off the floor, oversized underwear be damned, and speeding to Max’s house to give him a piece of my mind. Clearly, Max didn’t want Theo to be homeless any more than I did. But unlike me, he was secure enough in their relationship to push Theo in the direction he wanted him to go. “What about all your furniture and stuff?”
“The apartment came furnished. Everything I own should fit in a couple boxes and a suitcase.”
That sounded a heck of a lot more manageable than when I moved Rowan and all her crap from DC in the back of Tallulah. And if he had a temporary place to live, moving out of that shithole over the tattoo shop wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
“Are you worried you can’t afford something else?” I asked and winced. “Never mind, that’s really nosy. Forget I asked.”
He chuckled and grabbed my hand. My stomach flipped, both at the sound of his laughter and his touch. He’d initiated more contact in the last five minutes than the entire year I’d known him. His hand swallowed mine, and he did this little caress with his thumb that made my toes curl. Thank the stars we were sitting on the gross floor, or my knees might have started shaking.
“Money isn’t the problem as much as my record.”
“Oh.” It’s not that I didn’t know Theo had been to prison. He had the badass tatted-and-pierced look of someone who shouldn’t be messed with, but it was just part of his wall. He was sweet as caramel to everyone who treated him with a sniff of kindness and ignored the people who didn’t. “Anyone who knows you won’t care. Besides, isn’t that discrimination?”
“Being a felon isn’t a protected class. A lot of guys I know had a terrible time finding housing after they got out.”
“Always or just when they were released? You’ve been a model citizen for eight years,” I said squeezing his hand. “You even volunteer your time to teach a bunch of old farts how to paint.”
He tensed and I instantly regretted mentioning class. “We better get inside,” he said.
He stood and pulled me to my feet, tugging harder than necessary to lift my puny frame. I slammed into him and his eyes darkened as he dropped his hands to my waist to steady me before putting an absurd amount of space between us. “Thanks for talking me down, Poppy. You’re a great friend.”
“Anytime, pal,” I said, doing my best to crush the snark from my tone. “Come on. Let’s see how many penis drawings they did.”
“Six minutes, thirty-four seconds,” Mr. Fitzwilliam shouted as Theo and I rejoined the class. “Twillings?”
“Their clothes appear undisturbed, but there’s gum on Ms. Stevens’s skirt.”
“What?” I said, spinning around like Skye chasing her tail.
“Nope, just a piece of pink construction paper,” Mrs. Adams said. “It flew off when she twirled. She could have picked that up in here.”
Everyone looked around and grunted in agreement.
“All right then,” Mr. Fitzwilliam said, eyeing a paper in his hands. “Wilson and Alison called it. You can collect your winnings after class.”