Page 38 of Meet Me at the Metro (Gildenhill #1)

38

COUNTDOWN

T H E O

I had come to hate the holidays since Dad died.

Absolutely despise them.

However, spending time with Nora and just existing in her presence this winter break strengthened my tolerance for the festive season. I’ve relished every moment of our weeks off from University together; the ones spent binge-watching all the Harry Potter films—despite my occasional annoyance with them—and especially the ones spent with our limbs tightly intertwined to fight off the frigid cold of December.

The holidays always left a piss-poor taste in my mouth. They were so fucking bitter before her, but Nora’s warmth has smothered my predisposition of the season—just as it has managed to do in nearly every other capacity of my life.

It’s given me so much relief.

I reach out for a slither of that relief as Nora and I step into Bangerz Uptown. It’s loud, chaotic, and stuffy inside, but I will myself to maintain a chill composure and breathe.

From behind, I clutch her waist, pushing us past a sea of bodies as we navigate London’s busiest nightclub. My pulse is a torturing reminder of the anxiety that seizes my body in settings like this—crowded ones, where the chatter of voices and roaring of laughter become so overwhelming I can barely think straight.

Nora glances back as if she can sense my growing unease and offers me a reassuring smile.

The ample space vibrates with upbeat techno music, courtesy of the energetic DJ spinning tracks at the front of the club. Striking LED lights reflect off the massive disco ball hanging at the center of the establishment, staining the club’s occupants in various vibrant shades and colors.

Nora points to a lounge overlooking the mass of dancing bodies we are currently progressing through and shouts over the music, “Evie said they were at the bar upstairs!”

As fate would have it, Harvey and Evie are leaning against the glass pane fencing the second-story balcony. They spot us simultaneously and throw excited, exaggerated waves at us.

I’m thankful when we finally escape the crowd of people and head for the stairs. Nora laces her fingers into mine as we begin ascending them, and I hope she doesn’t notice how clammy my palms have become.

Unfortunately, for me, she does— she always does.

Nora spins to me, wearing a pensive expression, and she only has to study me briefly before her delicate fingers place a soft, considerate caress along my jaw.

“You okay?”

I work on steadying my labored breathing before granting her an answer.

“If this is all too much, we can leave. I swear I—”

“ No ,” I interrupt, forcing a smile to my face. I doubt it’s convincing. “I’m okay.”

“You promised to tell me if it got to be too much.”

“I’m keeping my promise.”

I wouldn’t ruin this night for her. She looks too damn pretty in her little, black-sequined dress and red heels for us to leave before we get the chance to ring in the New Year together. I take a strand of her loosely curled hair between my fingers and give it a flirtatious tug. It makes her smile.

“Don’t lie to me, Teddy.”

“I’m okay , Nora,” I quietly laugh. “Now, walk. ”

“So bossy,” she humphs.

As she ascends the stairs, her skirt bounces provokingly against her smooth legs, and I use it as a distraction to draw my mind away from the haywire thoughts trying to consume it.

When we reach the lounge, which is only a tad less chaotic than the dancefloor below, Evie and Harvey greet us with warm smiles. I do my best to return their friendly gesture, but when I find my stepbrother lingering beside them, my pleasant disposition withers like a prune.

I do the amiable thing and try to ignore him, but suddenly, he’s offering flukes of champagne to Nora and me, and I’m forced to interact.

Nora grins cheerfully as she graciously accepts the drink. “Thank you, Connor.”

I conceal the scowl I can feel growing on my face and pluck the dainty glass out of his hands, grumbling, “Thanks.”

Why Evie insisted he come out with us tonight is out of my damn comprehension, but I didn’t feel like giving myself a headache trying to figure it out or inclined to upset Nora, so I dropped it.

The things I do for this girl.

Evie yanks Nora and Connor with her to the bar to fetch another drink, so I steer myself to the balcony’s edge and yank out a cigarette.

Harvey comes up beside me the second I light it and chastises, “Thought you were done smoking, mate?”

“Old habits die hard, innit?” I draw in a long, heavy drag and feel an immediate buzz. Then, I hand him the champagne in my hand. “Fancy a drink?”

“He bought that for you, you know?”

I shrug. “Then drink it before he comes back over.”

“You’re an arse,” he snorts.

“It is what it is.”

The two of us watch the sea of swaying bodies beneath us for a few moments in silence before my friend finally asks, “How are you feeling?”

I contemplate his question for a moment. “Anxious. Overwhelmed. Smothered.”

“Because of Connor?”

I shake my head no. It settled so much deeper than that for me.

“Because of the reminders that come with him. Because of,” I gesture my hands to the hectic club around us, “all of this.”

“You’re handling it well.”

“Yeah,” I scoff, nodding to the cigarette still between my fingers. “ So well .”

“You are, Theo. More than you’d ever give yourself credit for. Because heaven knows, you’re shit at that.”

That makes me genuinely laugh. “Fuck you.”

“Love you, too,” he chuckles. “Seriously, though, it amazes me how much you’ve grown these last few months.”

Harvey’s words strike a chord he’ll never know. Part of me wanted to stifle every inkling of sincerity from them, but the more intrinsic part of me clung to them like they threatened to flee. I needed to hear them more than I liked to admit.

For some reason, I couldn’t allow Harvey to know that, though I well suspected he already did.

Sensing my unease, Harvey teases, “Never thought there’d be someone that could come around and make you less of a dick.”

“Shut up and drink,” I retort, nudging the bottom of his glass with my elbow.

“Oh, boys!” Evie’s boisterous voice cuts through the air.

Harvey gulps down the rest of my champagne, handing the empty fluke back to me while I quickly put out my cigarette and swat away the residual smoke lingering in the air.

“It’s time to dance!”

“God, help us,” I grumble.

As if God himself heard me, I turn and find Nora heading straight for me, the most beautiful smile playing across her glossed lips. She lingers at my side as the others make their way for the stairs leading down onto the dance floor.

I stare at her inquisitively. “You not going to go dance?”

She shakes her head. “Mmm-mmm. I want to stay with you tonight.”

“I’m here all night,” I assure her. “Go have fun.”

“I am having fun, thank you. ”

“Quit being stubborn,” I chuckle, noticing how her eyes keep returning to the shifting bodies below. If I wasn’t here right now, I know she’d be joining them, twirling and spinning the night away with the masses. I refuse to get in the way of that. “Go dance like you want to. I’ll hold down the fort up here.”

“Quit being bossy,” she giggles. “I want to stay with you.”

“You want to dance.”

“Do not,” she fibs, her blue eyes deceiving her entirely as they flit back to me.

“For a theatre major, you’re such a terrible liar.”

That’s all I say before I clutch her wrist and drag her toward the stairs. I move fast so she doesn’t have time to argue any further, but as we reach the landing, she, of course, finds a way to do just that.

“What are you doing?!”

“I’m taking you to dance, dammit.”

“I was fine right where I was!”

“And you’ll be fine still,” I quip, pulling her downstairs.

The unrelenting commotion of the crowd engulfs us as we step onto the dance floor, which doesn’t seem to have an ending or beginning. I pull Nora closer as I dare to start weaving us through it and assign myself the task of finding Evie or Harvey to keep myself from slipping into the entanglement of nerves threatening to snare my sanity.

When I spot their heads bouncing to the beat of the music ahead, I permit myself to breathe again.

“You decided to join us!” Evie squeals, tossing her hands into the air.

Nora’s too busy assessing me to display the same level of excitement as she steps up beside me.

“Stop looking at me like that,” I sigh, forcing my voice to sound steady over my pounding heartbeat and the loud music. “I’m fine.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Come here,” I request, drawing her body closer until it’s flush with mine. I try to lose myself in its warmth as I guide her arms around my neck and bring my mouth to her ear. “ Distract me. ”

“See, you are not fi—”

“ Distract me, stubborn thing .”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” she banters, happy to oblige my request as she presses her hips against mine.

There’s so much going on around us, from the pounding of dancing feet to the steady, blaring cadence of music, that I can hardly think straight. So, I choose to focus on the movement of Nora’s body against mine.

I keep my eyes locked on the hypnotizing sway of her hips, blocking out everything else—even Evie, Harvey, and Connor’s silhouettes dancing beside us—as if we’re the only two people left in the room.

Nora’s delicate hands roam along my sides in a manner that makes my head dizzy with satisfaction, and I fight to lose myself in it.

I fight to let it consume me.

Nora’s eyes sparkle with the lights of the club as she looks up at me through long, dark lashes, and the gaze she gives me is nearly enough to bring me to my damn knees.

“Is this distracting enough?” She taunts, turning against me until her back is flush with my chest. She rolls her hips—wickedly brushing her backside against my groin.

My mouth goes bone fucking dry.

I imagine her doing that for me back at home… Imagine how alluring the sight of her tangled in my bedsheets is… Imagine the masterpiece hiding underneath that sexy black dress...

Bloody hell, she’s actually distracting me.

Nora’s remedy in human form.

I drink up every drop of relief she extends to me as her arms reach around to clutch my neck. It’s when her fingers intertwine into the hair on the back of my head, roughly tugging the strands as she rolls her hips a second time, that my collected composure crumbles.

“I wouldn’t keep doing that if I were you,” I warn, though stopping is the last thing I’d like her to do.

“No?” She turns to face me again. “Why not, Teddy?”

I glance to the point where our bodies connect—the area where all my blood is rushing to and give her a sly grin. “Can you not feel why, Nora? ”

A flush creeps up her neck, staining the apples of her cheeks a deep red. “So you’re having fun, then?”

“Watching you, yes.”

“I put on a good performance, huh?”

“You don’t have to perform,” I tell her, clutching her small neck in my hand. My thumb places light, languid strokes against her heated skin, and before I even realize it, my body is swaying with hers. I’m losing myself to the music— to her . “I’d enjoy just watching you breathe.”

That statement has a smile lighting up her entire face, and I marvel at it for as long as she allows me to before it fades away. “You think too highly of me, you know?”

“I think just enough of you.”

We spend the next few hours with our bodies entangled, dancing together and with our friends to every hit song the DJ spins to life. What surprises me the most is how much I find myself not hating it—how much I’m growing to enjoy dancing, so long as I get to do it with her.

Everything in my life felt so much more gratifying with her— everything. Thinking about her leaving to go back to the States at the end of the school year is beginning to grow a pit in my stomach the size of an entire universe.

Because Nora is so quickly becoming my entire world.

At the front of the club, the stream of spotlights grabs everyone’s attention to the massive projection screen looming behind the DJ. The entirety of Bangerz Uptown bellows with screams, cheers, and yells as it streams the countdown into the New Year. For a moment, everyone inside the club is in sync, crying out the numbers flashing on the screen.

“10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1... Happy New Year!”

As we all shout the words, I glance at my friends, finding myself indescribably thankful for everything that’s transpired over the past few months to get us to this point. My gaze even snags on Connor for a split second. Things weren’t even close to being resolved between us, but at this moment, I believe that maybe we could eventually reach that resolution.

If not for anything other than Nora’s sake .

She’s beaming at me with a childlike expression as confetti rains down on us from above. Shiny, shimmering pieces of it find their way into the waves of her hair, and the sight of it has me grinning like a fool.

Rising to the tips of her toes, Nora brings her lips to mine and kisses me deeply. There’s so much yearning between us as our mouths collide that it feels as though this single kiss is cumulative of all the ones that have come before—an intoxicating prelude to all the ones promised after.

“Happy New Year,” she sweetly tells me as our lips part.

For the first time in a long time, I feel optimistic about the coming year— I feel hopeful .

“Happy New Year, pretty thing.”

The DJ doesn’t wait for the crowd to settle before playing the rest of his set. The rowdy hollers of the New Year celebration fade into the steady thrum of a new melody. It’s so loud that I barely discern the shout that cuts through the air near us. That is, until another shrill shout, sounding closer now, hits my ears.

“Gun! They have a gun!”

The world around me starts spinning, rotating so fast that I have difficulty keeping up with everything happening around me. People around us scramble in a frenzy to escape, running in whatever direction they can find a way through in the panicked masses.

“ Nora!” I shout when I don’t find her next to me anymore.

A body slams into mine, pushing me further back into the crowd of crazed people, and I can’t see her anywhere.

I can’t fucking find her.

I can’t find her. I can’t find her. I can’t find her.

“Nora! Nora!”

“Theo!”

“Where are you?!” I’m forced back again by a wave of bodies. I shove through the hordes, pushing me further away from the sound of her voice. “Nora!”

Where the fuck is she?

Where is she? Where is she? Where is she?

“Theo!” There’s nothing but sheer panic in her voice. “ Theo! ”

I find her eyes .

I immediately rush toward her, but she doesn’t look right. Something is very, very wrong. I distinguish that from the worry evident in her wide eyes.

“Look out, Theo!” Her scream is piercing as it cuts through the smoky air—it’s fear in physical form.

Time stands still as I spin on my heel and find the barrel of a gun aimed straight at me.

“ No! Theo, run!”

There’s no time to react. No time to debate. There’s only the deafening fire of the gun and the abrupt flash of a body in front of me.

My ears are ringing with the shot, and it's debilitating. I can hardly work my limbs as the person who ran in front of me begins to collapse, but a bolt of adrenaline shoots through me so intensely that I find my frozen limbs quickly moving again. I catch the crumbling body just before it hits the floor, and its sheer weight makes me fall back onto the cold, sticky ground, too.

Startling green eyes look up at me, their familiarity shaking me to my core. I hardly notice when the hooded figure holding the gun disappears into the distraught, horrified masses. I can’t look away from those friendly, familiar eyes.

No. No. No.

It can’t be. It can’t be. It can’t be.

“Help!” I hoarsely scream, pulling Harvey’s weak, limp body tighter into my arms. My fingers are trembling as my hands go to apply pressure to the bleeding wound now prominent on his left shoulder, and I quickly find myself covered in blood.

So much blood. So much blood.

I do what I can to not let my shock take over.

I will myself to act—to not fall bystander—but all I can find it in me to do is hold him. He’s bleeding so much, I can hardly bear the sight of it.

“Somebody fucking help!”