He’d never felt like family, only the first boy I’d ever wanted. The one I’d thought about late at night, guilty and aching. The one I’d glimpsed in a leather bar and realised with a sharpness that lanced through me, that Theo wasn’t untouchable anymore.
He was real. Solid. Still beautiful.
And I was still a virgin.
Okay, so it was a little pathetic to have reached twenty-two and never managed it. Not that it was from lack of trying exactly, but more a case of always pulling back at the last minute. Of not being sure. Being weighed down by expectations I couldn’t meet.
Be honest. There was only ever going to be one person you wanted to be your first.
Theo.
The prospect of sharing a flat with him felt like walking into fire.
I pressed both hands to my face. I should say no. I should find another couch, another floor, any other option.
But the thought of Theo’s voice, low and steady, cutting through chaos, pulled at me like gravity.
Maybe itwasstupid, not to mention dangerous.
And maybe it was also inevitable.
Chapter Four
Theo
The café smelledlike burnt espresso and wet pavement, the city’s two primary moods decanted into steam. I sat opposite Max in a fogged window booth, my coffee cooling and my shoulders riding an inch too high.
“Okay.” Max stirred sugar into his cappuccino. “First rehearsal debrief, now we’ve both slept since, and you’re seeing things a little more clearly. Nobody died, two people nearly ascended, and you made the fluorescent lights tremble with your eyebrows alone.”
I rolled my eyes at that last part. I nudged the cardboard sleeve up my cup. “We locked for precisely three measures. The rest was a homicide of vowels.”
Max snorted. “Your expectations are a Disney villain. It was our first day, man. We’reRoughHarmony, not Pre-Ironed Perfection.”
“Intentionalroughness,” I corrected automatically. “There’s a difference.”
“Right,” Max said, his tone bright with mischief. “I swear, you’re like a musical dominatrix.” He narrowed his gaze, his eyes glinting dangerously. “‘Youwillblend, you filthy consonants.’”
I stared at him. “Have you ever considerednotspeaking?”
“Constantly. Never chosen that particular path, though.” Max drank, then set the cup down, his eyes softening. “You’re good at this. But you’re wound so tight that if someone shoved a lump of coal up your arse, in a week we’d have a diamond.”
I choked on a laugh despite myself. “God. Your mum. Wheredoesshe get these lines from?”
“She adores you,” Max said. “She also insists you need to ‘calm your tits.’ Those are direct quotes. And the part about the diamond? Shestolethat from a film she loved watching when she was our age.”
I cocked my head. “How are things with her?”
That familiar wince he tried to hide was answer enough. “We talk regularly. Not about anything that matters, of course, and definitelynotabout the fact that her son spends his spare time in a BDSM club. That comes under the realms of TMI.” He took a drink from his cup. “So we keep it vanilla, PG, whatever. She doesn’t want to know about my life and I don’t want to tell her. I call that a symbiotic relationship.”
I stared at the rain sliding down the glass. Beneath the caffeine and the rehearsal-map still running in my head, a strange, low hum had taken up residence in my chest. I could still feel yesterday’s click—the lock, the crystalline overtone—echo in my bones. It didn’t relax me but made me ravenous for more. For better.
For control.
“Tell me something you liked about yesterday,” Max prompted. “Not a note, not a correction. One thing.”
I rubbed the heel of my hand against my sternum, as if the restlessness were a physical itch. “To be honest, there were acouple of things. Oliver’s breath plan, for one. Liam’s anchoring. Zane’s ear, when he decides to use it. Julian’s restraint when he remembers he’s not a lead. Finnley when he stops brightening like a chandelier. Sebastian’s?—”
Max made a face. “Don’t reward him. He already thinks God consults him about pitch.”