Theo asked before he touched me. It happened on Wednesday night outside the graduate library, and the fact that such a small thing registered at all annoyed me.
We had met for coffee after my late lab. Snow had melted during the afternoon and frozen again after dark, turning the steps into polished glass. I made it halfway down before my boot slid. Theo caught my elbow without thinking. Then, almost immediately, he loosened his grip.
“Can I?”
I looked at his hand.
“Can you what?”
“Keep you from becoming a case study in avoidable fractures.”
I laughed.
“Keep you from becoming a case study.”
He kept a light hold on my arm until we reached the sidewalk, then let go. Simple. Normal.
The problem was that I spent the next three blocks thinking about Declan. Not because Theo had done any
