Page 9 of Stop and Seek (Our Childish Games #1)

And Alyssa? Running wild with Max, Decker, and whatever other crazies they dug up.

Where did that leave him?

“Watching some gray shit that’s gonna fall,” he mumbled, as if that was going to help.

He couldn’t roll his eyes hard enough.

Edgy fucking pity party . Shut up .

At least the air conditioner worked again and—for once—his gas tank wasn’t stuck on E.

Small victories.

Straightening his seat, he dug the baggie out of his hoodie pocket. Whatever was inside smelled a hell of a lot like cinnamon—too strong. Alyssa had probably dumped the capsules and replaced them with something else.

There were two brown pills. Two.

Was he supposed to take both?

One now, one later?

Shrugging, he popped one and washed it down with hot, plastic-tasting water from the bottle that had been rolling around under the passenger seat for days.

Didn’t taste like anything.

Nothing kicks in right away. Alyssa is trying to scare me .

He craned his head out the window. The clouds churned low and heavy above the lot. A single drop of rain tapped the glass. Then another. Then nothing.

If it stayed like this, he could make it to Cleveland in no time.

Maybe Uber home afterward if he was too shitfaced. He’d pick up the car after the game was over.

No problem.

One win.

That’s all he needed tonight.

Just one thing to go right.

Well, he wasn’t wrong .

He wasn’t right either.

He fell somewhere in the middle of oops and shit.

The mugginess cracked open the second he pulled onto I-90, and the rain came down in fucking sheets. Water hammered the windshield so hard it sounded like static turned all the way up. His wipers squeaked and slapped, struggling to keep up, dragging long streaks across the glass.

All the cars ahead slowed to a crawl, hazards blinking. The road was a slick blur of reflected taillights and floodwater. He couldn’t go faster than thirty-five without risking his ass in a ditch.

But the lights in his side-view mirror ?

Hella sparkly. Candy-colored comets smearing through the rain.

If he kept his eyes on the road, it wasn’t too bad.

Theo wasn’t high.

Not really.

He’d been worse off before—much worse.

Alyssa’s warning about not driving? Overdramatic bullshit.

Still, when he finally turned into The Rat’s Nest’s cratered parking lot, his hands had welded to the steering wheel. His fingers refused to move at first—numb from the pressure, his knuckles pale, bloodless. Peeling them free was like cracking open frozen joints.

No pain. No broken bones. No blood splashing the interior.

Great.

The lot was half-dead. A sleek, completely-out-of-place limo sat at an awkward angle—even it didn’t know what it was doing there. A few other cars dotted the space—one rusted out, one with a missing window. A sedan that looked too new for this area.

Probably some kids showing off for their first legal drink. Daddy’s money, big smiles, tiny tolerance.

As long as they hadn’t rented the whole place, let them go wild.

Theo debated the second pill for all of thirty seconds. The kind of thirty seconds that stretched into eternities—thoughts plodding along in a thick, syrupy line.

Should he have asked Alyssa what it was?

Yep.

Would it have been smart ?

Again, yep.

Instead, he swallowed it. Sent a half-assed text to her.

Then booked it inside.

Shaking off the rain, he blinked against the strobing lights cutting through the hazy air.

His usual table was still there, tucked all the way in the back, right by the dented metal doors of the loading dock.

The music?

Fucking bomb.

Bass pulsed through the floor, straight into his bones, shaking something loose in his chest. The rhythm drilled into that perfect little spot in his brain—the one that fizzled out all the noise.

This?

Theo could do this.

Spend all of tonight drifting in this pleasant high.

A drink still sounded good, though.

But in a second. He’d get up in just a second. He closed his eyes, letting the music take him somewhere else. Anywhere else.

Happier times sounded amazing right now.

Someone slapped the table and he jumped.

Max and Noah were there.

Dragging chairs back with a scrape that bit into his eardrums.

Looking at him like he was the one crashing their party.

Of all the bars in Cleveland—all the rundown, bullshit, hole-in-the-wall haunts—how did they end up at his place, the one he had been coming to for years ?

“What’s up, gay boyfriend?” Max asked, pressing her fingers onto the sticky tabletop.

She recoiled, face twitching as her hands vanished under the table in disgust.

“I have a name,” Theo said. “If you’re planning on fucking my friend, learn it.”

There it was—out in the open, hanging in the musty air.

Did he regret it? Oh yeah. But it was too late to take it back.

Max’s eyes widened. She mouthed a silent wow as she sat back.

This wasn’t a win.

This was a fucking nightmare.

Theo shoved himself up, palms flattening on the table.

“Aw, you leaving already, Theo?” Noah asked, eyes too bright under the flash of pulsing neon. “I thought you were stalking us for a sec.”

“Stalking you. Here.” The laughter spilled out before Theo could help it. “Okay. You got me. I’m super obsessed with you. I’m the worlds worst stalker.”

None of this was worth the headache.

They didn’t matter.

The bar mattered. Ten tiny steps over and Theo waved down the bartender—Marty, Marvin… he couldn’t remember.

“Vodka, please. Double.”

Decker’s laugh was unmistakable. Hyena with a sprinkle of faux-villain cackle. It grated down Theo’s spine and he shook it off.

He could do this. He could .

Put the ten-dollar bill down on the bar. Smile at the bartender.

Nothing was wrong .

Everything was fine.

“What are you doing here, Teddy?” Alyssa’s words tumbled out like someone had fast-forwarded time.

Suddenly there were arms around his waist and Alyssa’s vanilla perfume in his nose.

“I thought you were going home .”

“I never said that,” Theo mumbled.

He patted her head and she pulled back enough to stare at his face, her shiny, purple-painted lips curled into a frown.

“Tell me you got like, a cab or something. You look like shit,” she whispered.

“I’m fine, Alyssa, I swear. The hell did you bring these assholes here for?”

Another thing Theo immediately regretted as soon as it was out of his mouth.

Strike two.

“Okay, yeah, you did not say that.” She slid down from her tip-toes, platforms clattering on the tile. “You promised to be good, remember?”

“I’m doing my best.”

“You better. Come socialize with me.”

“I don’t want to.”

But, did she listen? No.

Alyssa grabbed his drink from the bar, his wrist in her other hand.

Theo barely had time to flash an apologetic grimace over his shoulder before wrestling the drink away from her, throwing it back in one go. He’d need the liquid courage to deal with the insanity .

She made a big deal of showing him to the tiny table near the loading dock.

His table.

“I know I introduced you to Max earlier,” Alyssa said with a flourish of her long nails. “But like, say hi to Golden Boy. Have you two—”

“We met. Couple times already,” Noah interrupted.

That was all it took for Alyssa to gasp and throw herself next to Max.

“Spill the deets, like pronto,” Alyssa demanded, folding her arms on the table.

Theo slid his chair a little further over—away from Noah, hell even the whole table—when he sat.

“We ran into each other during the game. He tried to strangle me.”

Hindsight and all that, maybe he should have left the last part out.

Strike three.

Max choked on her drink.

Alyssa’s over-the-top gasping continued, and Theo shot her a look.

“It was all in good fun!” Noah said. “Wasn’t it?”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Alyssa held up a hand. “You both are totes cool throwing down during the quietest game ever? You know what that looks like to me.”

“Alyssa, shut up,” Theo mumbled.

The way Noah was looking at him—steady, amused, like Theo was some giant bug—was uncomfortable as hell.

His phone buzzed against his thigh. Thank fuck .

A new text from Rachel. He barely registered the words, just grinned at the blurry picture of Brownie wearing a sweater. It almost grounded him.

Then the floor lurched sideways.

Theo snapped his head up.

One of Noah’s hands were on his chair, and Theo was much closer to the table than he had been.

“Do you remember me?” Noah asked.

Theo narrowed his eyes. “From school? Yeah . Everyone knows you—get your fucking hands off my chair. Did you move me?”

“Kinda. Next time, I’ll let them flatten you if it makes you feel better.”

Noah jerked his chin toward the back door.

Theo turned to see Marty—or Marvin—struggling to haul a crate of boxes up the incline, directly in the path of where his chair had been.

“Just say something,” Theo muttered, crushing the embarrassment the best he could, but his entire neck was on fire.

“I tried. Not my fault you didn’t hear me the first time. Get up.”

“What? Why?”

“Because, if you haven’t noticed, our friends are with Kyran.”

No, they weren’t.

They were—

They were not at the table.

Shit.

“You’re messed up, Theo,” Noah continued. “Everyone can see it. It’s why Goth Dolly asked me to take you home. ”

Oh look, Noah could make jokes.

If Theo didn’t want to keel over, he would have laughed.

“I can, uh, I can catch a rideshare or something,” Theo said, barely audible. He cleared his throat. “I’m good.”

No, he wasn’t good. He was spiraling into a bottomless pit made of bad decisions and secondhand vodka breath.

“Or you can get in my car and stop arguing. Look, I’m sorry, okay? We got off on the wrong foot. Give me another chance.”

Another chance for what?

This was such a bad idea.

Noah didn’t seem to be taking no for an answer.

But if Theo asked Alyssa for a ride home? She’d never let him live it down.

What if the rideshares weren’t running because of road conditions?

Fuck .

Well, at least in Noah’s car, no one would watch him fall apart like this.

“I’ll give you gas money,” Theo said after a beat. “I’m not a leech, I swear.”

Noah’s grin came back, brighter and more eye-straining white than before. “No! No, you’re good. Think of it as an apology gift from me to you.”