Chapter 7: I Know A Place

When Theo said he knew a better place, I thought maybe he meant a rooftop, or a shortcut to a lake I hadn’t heard of. Some scenic overlook where he could do that brooding thing again. I didn’t expect this.

But this. This was something else entirely.

We’d slipped through an alleyway just past the frat house, then ducked down a stairwell covered in graffiti and rusted flyers. It smelled faintly like sugar and dust. And then suddenly, we were standing in the middle of an old-school underground arcade.

Flashing neon signs. The hum of machines. That sweet, plasticky scent of tokens and cheap candy. Kids slightly older than us hunched over consoles, laughing. Everything was too loud and too bright, but in a way that felt good. It felt like we were somewhere out of time. Somewhere nobody knew us.

“This is insane,” I said, still taking it all in. “How does this even exist?”

Theo smirked. He didn’t answer. Just tugged me forward by the wrist.

His fingers curled around my wrist, not my hand, and somehow that felt more intimate. Less polished. More real. Like he didn’t even think before doing it, just acted on instinct. His grip was warm, firm, but not forceful. And I felt it everywhere. In the quickening of my pulse. In the way my breath caught. In the part of me that had been aching to be wanted again. There was nothing traditionally romantic about it. No interlocked fingers or quiet, laced tenderness. But it still made my chest flutter. Like I belonged in that moment. Like maybe, even in his quiet, unreadable way ... he wanted me there.

He led me to a corner booth with a panoramic view of the games, and when we sat, it didn’t feel like a date. But it also didn’t not feel like one.

Theo leaned back into the booth, arms stretched wide across the top like he owned the space. His posture was lazy, confident, like he couldn’t imagine a version of the world where he didn’t belong. He t-shirt was fitted enough to cling to his chest and arms in all the right ways. I watched the way the fabric hugged his shoulders, the subtle stretch across his biceps, the way it dipped just slightly at the collar, showing the faint edge of his collarbone.