Playing with Fire - Part 1

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Present

Theodore lazily brought the cigarette to his lips taking a long, hard drag to try and contain his stress levels. He lowered his arm back down to his windowsill and blew the smoke out of the window watching as the big, white mist left in one big swirl before disappearing into the air. He scratched his recently trimmed beard and licked his lips before turning his head back to his room. His eyes travelled over to Tiffany who was sitting on the edge of his bed chewing on her lip. Her eyebrows were knitted together and her clammy palms gripped onto his sheets tightly as she stared down at his carpet in deep thought. His eye lowered to the fresh, white bandage around her wrist and his anger rose again as he turned back out the window.

"Are you in trouble?" she asked quietly, breaking the silence.

Worry and a pang of guilt were laced in her tone and Theodore turned back to see that her eyes were now on him, her facial expression the same.

He shrugged letting out a heavy sigh, "Probably."

She released a shaky breath lifting her good hand to her hair which was still natural. She regretted this as it was now in a wild curly afro.

"I didn't-"

Her sentence was cut short as the doorbell chimed around his house. He closed his eyes momentarily before looking back out his window to see a set of blue flashing lights. He swallowed and stabbed his cigarette on the outside ledge.

"C'mere." He ushered her over to him.

 On shaky legs she approached him, melting into him when his hand on the back of her head brought her close. She closed her eyes, wrapping her arms around him.

"You know I love you init?" his voice was hoarse as he whispered into her Moroccan oil scented hair.

"What did you do?" Tiffany's voice cracked as she held him tighter.

Theodore ignored her, "You know that init?"

She eventually nodded which was followed by the doorbell chiming again, louder and longer this time.

48 hours earlier

Tiffany

I narrowed my eyes at Theodore not believing a word that was coming out of his mouth.

"What's best for us or what's best for you?" I asked him.

His eyebrows creased and I could tell that he was becoming frustrated. I watched him thinking 'good' in my head. He wasn't the one who was sitting in that GP all that time, feeling afraid and completely alone.

"Oh my days," he muttered under his breath. "Can you just f*cking listen to me?" His hands shot out as he grabbed my arms gently pulling me towards him.  I yelped as my body collided with his and tried not to react to our close proximity. Any closer and we would be kissing…

I heard the loud bass of music before I saw where it was coming from. With furrowed eyebrows I looked past Theodore to the familiar, sleek black Mercedes slowly coming down my road. Immediately, my heart started to painfully thud against my chest threatening to burst out. I could already feel my sweat creating, waiting for the opportunity to trickle down my forehead.

"You're joking..." my mouth moved on its own as I watched the tinted car keep it's slow pace.

I knew exactly who it was but the small hopeful part of me wished that it was just another car that happened to be exactly identical to Adrian's and was on my road at this particular moment. Making everything worse, Theo's head whipped round to follow my gaze to see what I was looking at.

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