Chapter 29 #2
“Very intense,” she agreed, and the way she was looking at me suggested she was thinking about more than just the performance.
“Holly,” I started, but before I could figure out how to tell her that singing with her had made me realize I was completely, irrevocably in love with her, Bernie appeared with his camera and the kind of enthusiastic expression that meant he’d documented our entire musical declaration for posterity.
“Beautiful performance!” he said cheerfully, showing us the digital display. “Got some great shots. The Gazette’s going to love these for the Christmas edition.”
The Gazette. Which meant our musical flirtation was going to be immortalized in print for the entire town to see and discuss for the next six months.
“Wonderful,” Holly said weakly, though she was smiling as she looked at the pictures. We did look good together, I had to admit. Like we belonged together.
“I should probably check on the vendor booths,” Holly said after Bernie wandered off to photograph the craft demonstrations. “Make sure everything’s running smoothly.”
“Right,” I said, though what I was thinking was that we needed to talk about what had just happened on stage, and what was happening between us, and whether I was brave enough to choose her over everything else.
But what about her? What were her plans? Was I even a consideration? I had to grow a pair and confront this before I lost my mind entirely.
I would be walking away from the partnership track at one of the most prestigious firms in New York. I would be walking away from financial security, professional recognition, and everything I’d thought I wanted since high school.
What I would be walking toward was less clear, but it felt more real than anything I’d experienced in years. I clutched my chest and jumped when Holly asked, “Everything okay?”
“Not really,” I admitted. “They want an answer, and I don’t know what to tell them.”
“They…?” she asked, but she knew. It was written all over her face.
“Whether I’m coming back to New York.”
The words hung between us like a question neither of us was ready to answer directly.
“What do you want to do?” Holly asked quietly.
What I wanted to do was tell her that I was falling in love with her and that New York felt like another planet compared to the life I could imagine here. What I wanted to do was kiss her right here in the snow and tell her that she was more important than any career.
“I want...” I started, then realized we were having this conversation in public, surrounded by people who were definitely paying attention to our obviously intense discussion.
“We should probably talk about this somewhere more private,” Holly said, apparently reaching the same conclusion.
“The storage room in the community center?” I suggested. “It should be empty right now.”
Holly nodded, and we made our way through the festival crowd toward the community center, trying to look like we were engaged in normal festival coordination rather than heading off to have a life-altering conversation about our future.
The storage room was completely private, which was exactly what we needed.
“So,” Holly said, closing the door behind us and turning to face me in the dim light from the bare bulb. “New York.”
“New York,” I agreed, though the word felt strange in my mouth, like I was talking about a place I’d visited once rather than where I’d lived for most of my adult life.
“Are you going back?”
The question was simple, but the way she asked it suggested that my answer was going to affect more than just my career plans.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “Two weeks ago, I would have said yes without hesitation. But now...”
“Now?”
“Now I’m not sure I want the life I thought I wanted,” I said, stepping closer to her in the small space. “I’m not sure I want to be the person I was before I came back here.”
Holly looked up at me with the kind of expression that suggested she understood exactly what I meant, because she was going through her own version of the same crisis.
“What kind of person do you want to be?” she asked softly.
“The kind who’s brave enough to choose happiness over security,” I said, reaching up to touch her face. “The kind who doesn’t let fear make his decisions for him.”
“Declan...” she started, but whatever she was going to say was interrupted by the way I was looking at her, and suddenly we weren’t talking anymore.
I kissed her, and she kissed me back with the kind of desperate intensity that suggested we’d both been thinking about this since our performance on stage. It was urgent, necessary, like we were trying to communicate everything we couldn’t say out loud.
“We shouldn’t,” Holly whispered against my mouth, though her hands were already sliding under my coat, pulling me closer.
“Probably not,” I agreed, though I was already backing her against the wall, my hands tangling in her hair. “Anyone could walk in.”
“Terrible idea,” she said, though she was tugging at my shirt and making soft sounds that suggested she was as affected as I was.
“The worst,” I murmured, kissing my way down her neck while she arched against me. “Completely inappropriate festival behavior.”
“Scandalous,” Holly agreed breathlessly, and then her hands found the button of my jeans and all pretense of rational thought disappeared.
My hand slid to the waistband of her leggings and dipped inside, cupping her pussy and giving it a squeeze as she moaned into my mouth.
She struggled to lower them, giving me access, despite her legs being restricted by the fabric.
None of it mattered. I released my cock and was buried inside her in under two seconds.
She gasped against my lips, her fingers digging into my back under my coat as I thrust into her.
The storage room was cramped, dusty, and completely inappropriate for this, but I didn’t care.
All I cared about was the way her pussy felt around my cock, the way she was looking at me like I was everything she’d ever wanted.
She was hot and wet, and I groaned, thrusting harder, slamming her against the wall.
My decision was made in an instant, and it felt like a weight had been lifted.
She came hard, clamping down on me with enough pressure to nearly break my cock in half. The orgasm tore through me a second later, and I buried my face in her neck to muffle the groan that erupted from somewhere deep in my chest.
We stayed frozen like that for several moments, both of us breathing hard, our bodies still pressed together in the cramped storage room while reality slowly filtered back in, and voices in the hallway reminded us that we were in a public building during a community festival, and getting caught fucking in a storage room would probably require more explanation than either of us was prepared to give.
“We should...” Holly said, though she was looking at me like she was reconsidering the wisdom of returning to public responsibility.
“Yeah,” I agreed, though what I was thinking was that being with her in inappropriate places was becoming a dangerous habit that I had absolutely no interest in breaking.
We straightened our clothes and tried to look like people who’d been engaged in an innocent meeting about the pastry stand queue rather than semi-public sexual activity, though Holly’s hair was definitely going to require some attention before we returned to the crowd.
“Declan,” she said as I reached for the door handle.
“Yeah?”
“Whatever you decide about New York... I want you to know that these past few weeks have been...”
“Yeah,” I said, understanding exactly what she meant. “For me too.”
Before I could ask her about her own plans for Chicago, she turned the handle and emerged from the storage room, trying to look casual and probably failing spectacularly. Matt strode over, and I thank God he hadn’t arrived moments earlier.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
“Yup,” Holly said firmly, though her cheeks were pink and her hair was still slightly messed up despite her attempts to fix it.
“Excellent,” Matt said, grinning at both of us. “Because Mom’s looking for you to help with the cookie decorating station.”
Real life, in other words. Festival responsibilities, community obligations, and all the normal things that didn’t include making life-altering decisions about career and love while playing hide the cock in storage rooms.
But as we walked back toward the festival, I realized that my phone conversation with Richard felt like it had happened years ago instead of an hour ago. The choice that had seemed impossible this morning was starting to feel inevitable.
I just had to find the courage to make it official.
And figure out how to tell Holly that she was the reason I was finally brave enough to choose happiness over everything else and hope to fuck she said the same.