(9) Stalking and Trespassing

"I'm such an idiot. I forgot my trig book."

After a week, Makennah had finally stopped fighting back vomit every time she said the word "trig" like it was a highly communicable disgusting disease. However, she had not come to the terms with the fact that she was an actual trigonometry student.

"We can share, no worries," Grace said, flouncing on her bed and snuggling into a mountain of frilly white pillows. "How was practice?" She asked.

Makennah had just showered and piled a towel on her head with her hair wrapped up so that it would dry. Nick, Matt, and Josh dropped her off at Grace's house after they all finished practice.

"It was pretty good. The team has started talking to me more now that they know I've joined the team." When she announced the big news to Carolynn, she screamed with joy, ran to get her laptop, and immediately printed off the soccer game schedule so that she could hang it on the fridge. "Got my uniform too. Starting to learn their names slowly but surely."

"Honestly I don't know a lot of girls on the team. They kind of....well they're their own....people."

Nervousness spiked in her belly. "What does that mean?" She tried to sound casual.

"They just hang out together all the time alone. There was a rumor last year that they were all secretly lesbians." Grace propped her head up on her hand, laying on her side.

Okay, Makennah had to laugh at that. "Yeah they're not all lesbians. Half the team have boyfriends. Serious boyfriends."

"I'm just teasing," Grace said around a big laugh. "I seriously just made all that up. I know some of them. They're cool people. They'll warm up to you."

Makennah shot her a look. "You're annoying."

Grace threw at pillow at Makennah's head. "Take it back!"

Makennah dodged too hard and her towel toppled over. Her head fell into Grace's desk chair. Grace burst out laughing and threw another pillow at her as icing on top of the cake.

"Stop it!" Makennah yelled. She righted her towel and positioned it on top of her head.

"I'll get snacks! Then we can get started!" Grace hopped down the stairs to the kitchen.

Makennah hollered after her, "Water bottle too please!"

"Yes, your royal highness!"

Makennah just shook her head at Grace's dramatics and opened her bag to prepare her things for their collaborative homework date.

An hour later, Makennah was so frustrated that she could barely see straight. Her hair was mostly dry and hanging in waves around her face. Grace was trying her best to keep her cool, because - surprisingly - she was struggling more than Makennah which she didn't think was possible. It was weird to see Grace in this kind of light, frustrated and falling apart when she was always so beautiful and put together.

"Let's take a break! I can't do this for a second longer without ice cream!" Again, Grace disappeared down into the kitchen. Her eating habits amazed Makennah because Grace ate like garbage and managed to stay so fit and skinny.

While Grace retrieved her ice cream, Makennah whipped out her phone because it had dinged several times in the last minute with text messages. She had no friends so she really didn't know who on earth it could be.

T- WE HAVE TO GO

T- where are you? I'm picking you up

T- hellooooooo Kennah answer your phone

T- this is an emergency

T- Kennah Kennah Kennah

T- okay Jonah told me you're at Grace's house. I'm on my way over. I'll be there at 7:45. Be ready. We can't waste any time

Highly confused by Theo's immediacy, Makennah finally responded.

M- what is going on? You're disrupting my work

T- I was at Matt's with Cassandra and Cassandra was all of a sudden glued to her phone sending a bunch of texts. So I asked her to go get me a water. I took her phone and sent myself her location then deleted the text. I saw her texting someone named Alice W. But there's no Alice W. at our school and the texts were NOT friendly.

T- I mean they were sexy texts

M- ....sexy texts

T- shut up. She left five min later and I think she's going to cheat right now!!! We have to follow her!

M- we're not going this. I'm busy. We are doing homework and I told you I wasn't okay with this

T- Kennah come on! This is our opportunity to get evidence!

M- it's like illegal to send someone's location to yourself. That's stalking.

T- it's for a great cause. I'm here, come outside

Makennah rolled her eyes nearly into the back of her head. She had never met someone more dramatic than Theodore Alexander Rose III.

"I come bearing gifts!" Grace announced as she carried a tub of cookie dough ice cream into the room with two spoons.

"Sweet!"

Grace sat down and the two dug in. Her phone vibrated in her lap again.

T- don't make me come in there

She ignored him.

T- I'll embarrass you

"Is everything okay?" Grace asked, taking not of Makennah's interest in her phone.

"I told my ride not to pick me up until later but they're here and demanding I come out. I'm sooo sorry, Grace." Touching her shoulder, she genuinely apologized.

"Hey it's okay! Can we do this again soon though? Maybe Sunday?" Grace stood and helped Makennah collect her things.

"Yeah! And thanks for letting me shower here!"

"Girl, stop. That's what friends are for. Oh, and I'll text you later about the football game tomorrow. You're going right?"

Makennah laughed. "I live with the Sinclair's. That's not an option."

"Biggest football supporters in the whole city. See ya!" Grace walked Makennah to the door and waved goodbye, ensuring she stowed herself safely in the front seat of her ride before shutting the door.

"This is really inconvenient for me," Makennah complained, throwing her bag in the backseat of Theo's Lexus - she couldn't even think about that - and huffed, crossing her arms over her chest in an act of defiance.

"You're telling me. That took forever." Theo reversed out of the drive way and sped off before Makennah even finished buckling her seatbelt. "I've been tracking Cassandra and I don't have any idea where she is. She stopped at a house in a neighborhood I've been to once but I don't know anyone who lives there anymore."

"This is so wrong."

"This is for our friend Matt. He deserves this."

"How far away is it?" Makennah accepted the fact that she wasn't getting out of the car and into the safety of the Sinclair's home anytime soon so she settled in and prepared herself mentally for some sleuthing.

"Five minutes from here." Mentioning the time, Theo sped up as if they were fighting the clock.

"What if it's just her house?"

"It's not. I've been there before."

"Did Matt seem weird when she left?" Makennah asked.

Theo shrugged in the waning sunlight before it tucked itself into bed. Street lights illuminated his face passingly, bringing her attention to all of the hard planes of his face and the shadowed spaces that added to his masculinity. His car smelled really good, a little bit like the scent-y thing hanging from the rearview mirror and a little bit like Theo himself.

"He's been a little distant with me but trying to act normal. He didn't mention asking Cassandra about our allegations against her, but he normally keeps their business to himself anyways." Theo parallel parked in an open space on the street several houses down from Cassandra's location and cut the engine. The internal lights dimmed into darkness. "We're here."

"So what do we...Theo!" Before Makennah could even finish, Theo popped open his door and closed it behind him, leaving her inside. She sighed and followed behind him.

Wordlessly, Theo and Makennah crept through the dark street, crossed the road, and jumped onto the curb on the opposite side. Theo checked his phone to make sure they were on the right track.

"That's her car!" Theo barely held himself back from yelling.

"Sh!" Makennah smacked him on the arm.

"I'm taking a picture." Turning to his camera, Theo stood in front of the house and took a picture of Cassandra's car in the driveway. "Whose car is that?" He asked, pointing to the other Toyota in the driveway.

"You're asking the wrong person, Buddy," she whispered, propping her fists up on her hips and glancing around to make sure he street was still dead. The only sound that permeated the street was the sound of crickets and the occasional bird or dog. The silence was unnerving.

"I'm gonna take a picture of the license plate. Maybe we can track the person down through that."

"Maybe this is her friend's house."

"It's not. She was acting too weird."

Makennah rolled her eyes. "How well do you really know her?"

Without answering, Theo proceeded forward onto the lawn. Makennah reached for him to stop him but he moved too fast and she didn't want to follow him. Not into the grass. "This is trespassing!" Makennah whisper yelled.

"Sh!" Theo said back, throwing her words in her face as if she was the problem here. "Come on!"

"Where are you going?!" Makennah's heart beat a little faster than before as she contemplated trespassing onto an unsuspecting homeowner's property.

"To look in the windows!"

"This is getting pervy-er by the second!"

Instead of waiting another second for her cooperation into his master plan, Theo marched over to her, grabbed her hand, and yanked her behind him. "We have to do this together. Stay close," he whispered in her ear as he pushed her forward.

A chill crept down her spin as the nearness of his voice and the tingle in her ear. She could hear her heart pulsing in her ears from the adrenaline that coursed through her veins.

"I didn't sign up for this."

"I owe you."

"You owe me a lot," Makennah insisted, tromping through the grass as quietly as possible and resisting Theo's shoves to keep moving.

"Alright, calm down, I'm not having sex with you," Theo whispered behind her ear again. He really had to stop doing that. She had an instant flashback to their collision in the hall where she was pressed up against his chest and held in his arms way longer than necessary.

"I never even came CLOSE to insinuating that!!" Her voice rose an octave.

Theo's laughter met her ears in the darkness where she couldn't see him in the shadows. "Sure you didn't."

"You're repulsive," she bit out through clenched teeth.

"Oh stop. Don't act like you didn't enjoy our little moment in the hallway." There was laughter in his voice.

She hated herself for even thinking of that before he mentioned it. She huffed and didn't respond. She couldn't add fuel to the fire.

"Nothing to say?" He crowded her space and stepped in front of a window where the light shone behind his head, causing shadows to fall over his features and hide his shining laughing eyes from her vision. She looked up at him and squinted into the yellow light crowning his head.

"I decided not to warrant that statement with a response." She crossed her arms over her chest.

Theo stopped even closer. It took every ounce of Will power not to lean away. "Because it's true."

"It's not," she insisted with a calm voice.

"All of the blinds are closed," he said.

Makennah shook her head and cleared her mind of brief physical interludes in school hallways. "What?"

"Look, all of the windows are closed. That's a little suspicious."

She was getting whiplash from his constant change of topic. "Or they just like privacy."

"Privacy to do things like cheat with underage girls."

Makennah rolled her eyes. "I'm sure this is just a friend's house, Theo."

"A friend that gets in her pants."

Ew, she didn't want to think about that.

While Makennah was lost in thought, Theo advanced into the night and circled around to the back of the house. The light from the windows periodically played over Theo's wide back as he walked away. Again, Makennah cleared any good thoughts about Theo from her mind. She consistently found new attractive things about him like his wide shoulders and muscular back, and she was really done doing that.

Realizing that he had gotten considerably far ahead of her, Makennah ran after him and stopped at his back as he crouched behind a tree that shielded them from a bird's eye view into the back of the house through the sliding glass doors.

"I'm gonna peek around," he said. Instead of responding she just nodded. "I can't see....oh shit!"

Theo dodged back behind the tree and pressed his body from head to toe against Makennah and covered her mouth with his hand which she didn't quite understand. Inadvertently, her hands came up to hold onto his waist and steady herself, finding her balance on the tree roots sticking out of the ground.

"Someone saw me, I think," Theo whispered, bending his head to talk as close as possible to her ear.

Makennah managed a small nod with his hand still over her mouth. Their chests rose and fell with each breath against one another. One of his legs slipped between her own to stand even closer. His shoulders curled in towards her, hiding her completely from view.

"Hello? Is anyone there?" A voice yelled from the back deck. Makennah heard the sliding glass door open wider.

Silently, Theo tucked his head into her neck. Slowly, his body relaxed against hers. One of his hands fell onto her hip and the other braces on the tree above her head. She tipped her head back to breath fresh air but that only opened up bed neck farther to him. Nerves erupted in her belly as she recognized every body that was crushed against hers. She wasn't uncomfortable....it was all just a head rush. The adrenaline from trespassing and the adrenaline of having a super hot guy glue himself to her.

Tuning her ears to the sounds of the house, she heard the sliding glass door close again.

"I think this is enough excitement for one night," Makennah whispered as Theo lifted his head.

What she saw in his eyes made heat flourish in her belly. A heated masculine gaze looked down at her with male appreciation. She could recognize that look anywhere. His gaze dropped to her lips for three full seconds before he pushed himself away. The cool breeze touched all of the places where Theo had previously been and cooled her body to the touch.

"I think you're right."

She wasn't sure if he was talking about the trespassing or their elongated intimate physical contact. She wasn't sure she knew either.

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The next chapter is in continuation of this chapter! It should be up ASAP.

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Xoxo

W. Carolina