Chapter Thirteen
Holden
“Do you have siblings?”
The desire to know all about Avery Langhorn couldn’t be suppressed. He had my attention, and I wanted to know more.
Avery was smart, funny, and sweet. He was young, though. How much of a fool would I be to ask him for a date?
“No. My parents tried for more, but all they got was me. Mom had a few miscarriages before I came along, so they always said they’re lucky they got me.
Of course, that makes both of them overly protective and drives me up the wall.
They have brothers and sisters who have kids, but they all live in Seattle.
Just Mom, Dad, and I live here, so all their attention is on me all the time…
all the damn time.” Avery shook his head.
“There were eight years between Holly and me. I damn well didn’t want my parents to bring home a crying poop machine back then.
When Dad sat me down and explained I had no choice in the matter, I decided not to have anything to do with her.
The fact she was a girl didn’t help my lack of interest in her either. That lasted for two weeks.
“One day, Holly was in her bassinette in the living room asleep. There was a loud bang on a cartoon I was watching, and Holly started to cry. Mom had just gone up to take a nap. I didn’t want her to yell at me because the TV was too loud, so I tried to get my sister to stop crying by giving her a pacifier.
That didn’t work, so I picked her up to rock her in Mom’s rocker.
“Her little fist wrapped around my thumb and from that moment forward I was putty in her hands. When she was a little older, I took her with me everywhere when my mom would allow it, and even my high school friends treated her like a little sister.
“It was hard to leave home when Steve and I decided to start our own business and base it out of Baltimore as a more central home base. Then, Holly decided to move to New York to pursue dance, and she was so damn happy…” Tears stung my eyes as I glanced at the vodka in front of me.
It was unlike me to cry over anything, especially with anyone else in the room, so I coughed and cleared my throat, swallowing down the tears and the pain. I glanced at Avery to see his gaze fixed on the cabinets by the sink, though I had the feeling he’d noticed that I’d teared up.
“Don’t mind me. Anyway, Holly lived in New York for three years.
She shared a dinky apartment with three other dancers and she was thrilled with the fast pace of the city.
She left me a message before Christmas that year, telling me she had something exciting to tell the whole family.
One of the roommates later told Mom that Holly had gotten a role with a speaking part in a revival of My Fair Lady.
That was her big news for us. Mom went to bed for a week after hearing the news.
I watched the movie to see what it was about.
Holly would have been great in any part she would have played. ”
Avery’s cheeks were glistening with rolling tears. I never wanted to make him cry, but I appreciated that he could show the kind of emotion I refused to allow to surface. It was beautiful.
“Ugh. Should we order some food?” I wasn’t particularly hungry, but I didn’t want to take him home yet. I needed to sober up a little to ask him more questions.
“Sure. Whatever you want.”
I handed him my phone. “I have a delivery service on there. Pick a restaurant and order something. I’ll be right back. I need to… uh, go.” I pointed toward the hall.
Avery chuckled. “By all means.”
I hurried down the hall to the bathroom. Once I finished, I washed my hands and splashed water on my face to sober up. Drinking too much would never help me figure out what Avery was trying to do by telling me about my own sister.
The guy knew things about Holly that, to the best of my knowledge, had never really been discussed and certainly weren’t publicly disclosed when news of her accident had hit the papers. How the fuck did he find out details about my family that no one outside it knew?
I returned to the kitchen to see Avery leaning against the counter appearing worried.
“I should have asked, but you said you were hungry, so I ordered Kung Pao chicken and Moo Shu Pork from China Palace for delivery. You can have either or both. I put it on my credit card because I owe you for taking me out to the car.”
Holden chuckled. “Thank you. You got anything else you want to tell me about my sister?”
After a sigh, the sexy guy smiled. “I know next to nothing about Happy. She came to me in a dream. I know that sounds absolutely insane, but I’m not making any of this up. I swear.”
He stared at the counter across the kitchen and a small smile lit up his face. “Happy wants you to know that she’s okay. She’s in a good place, and she loves you. Believe me or not, she wants all of your family to know she’ll always be with you.”
I wanted to hug and pound the guy at the same time. “So, I’ll go back to my original question. You said you had a dream about her. Are you a clairvoyant? A crazy fucking psychic? A person who can hypnotize me into believing my dead sister talks to you?” The venom in my voice made him flinch.
Avery swallowed and slowly nodded. “I see. Nothing I say will change your mind. Got it. The food delivery should be here soon. I’ll get myself home, and I won’t bother you again.” He headed out the front door without turning back, and I was too stunned to stop him.
I sat at the table and poured myself another drink I didn’t need. Confusion and alcohol were clouding my brain. Obviously, I was in no shape to drive Avery anywhere. I was an asshole for just letting him go, so I kept filling my glass.
In no way did I believe Avery’s declarations about knowing my sister from a dream. It was probably best that he left when he did. My bullshit meter pinged at high alert.
I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling of my living room, not sure how I got on the couch. Ossie was snuggled up to my side, and my head had a full marching band filled with cymbal players.
I slowly lowered the pooch to the floor and held onto my head as I sat up, hating myself for drinking most of a bottle of vodka. I hadn’t done that shit since Holly died.
“Avery?” No response. Obviously, he hadn’t come back after I was so rude.
Ossie barked and headed to the back door, so as much as I had to pee, I had to take Ossie out first. It was freezing cold.
About an inch of snow had fallen, so I slid my feet into my boots and stepped outside to let him do his business.
My yard was fenced, so he couldn’t get out, but I wanted to make sure he did what he needed to do and I could dry his paws when he was ready to come inside.
I patted myself down to find my phone was missing. I turned and glanced in the kitchen to see it on the counter connected to a charger. For the life of me, I didn’t remember plugging it in.
I pushed snow off the back steps with my booted feet and sat down at the top to let Ossie roam a bit. For some reason, I only remembered Avery walking out after I told him… Oh!
One thing I remembered was Avery telling me Happy had told him to say she loved us and she was fine. Was that true? Had he been able to talk to my sister?
Ossie hurried up the steps, and I dried his feet on a dirty towel before we went into the kitchen. There were two containers of Chinese food on the table that weren’t opened, so I looked inside to see they were full. Hell, I couldn’t remember them being delivered.
I grabbed my phone and scrolled to Avery’s number, pressing the contact. It rang three times before going to voicemail. “Hi, it’s Avery Langhorn. Please leave a message.”
I hung up.
Maybe that was all I needed to know about Avery Langhorn. I liked the guy a lot, but the shit he’d said about my sister…I had a hard time believing any of it. My sister was gone, and nobody would convince me otherwise.
For three days, I stewed on the things Avery Langhorn had said as I went about my workdays. I was fortunate that Steve wasn’t a big talker. He let me stew without interruption.
Had my sister really wanted our family to know she loved us?
Had she somehow communicated to Avery that she would always be with us?
Those were things I wanted to hear, for sure, and if Holly could tell us, those were things she’d want us to remember.
Was there a way she’d told those things to someone she’d never met?
My biggest question was why did Avery Langhorn show up now? It had been a hell of a long time since Holly died, and why the fuck was he coming around and saying he knew anything about her?
On Sunday morning, I made myself an egg sandwich, scrambling an egg for Ossie. I went to my bedroom and grabbed my laptop to bring it into the kitchen.
As I stared at the screen of a search engine, I finally typed in the words…
Information shared between organ donor and recipient.
Over one-million results popped up. How to begin sifting through them all wasn’t anything I wanted to do. My brain refused to accept the things Avery had said about Happy. Where did he learn those details?
My cell rang as I stared at the choices on my laptop screen. I reached for the phone, seeing it was Steve. “Hey.”
“I know it’s a Sunday, but we got a call from new paving company in Charlestown, West Virginia. They’ve got a broken track on an asphalt paver they want us to repair before tomorrow. You want to work today? If you don’t, Shelby said they’d be happy to come along.”
After a deep breath, I responded. “Working with Shelby is a great idea. You okay with that?”
“Why the fuck not? Shelby’s strong; they can lift the shit you can’t—or won’t.”
I couldn’t keep from laughing. “Are you saying I’m weak and lazy, motherfucker?”
“Maybe, but I can tell you’ve got other shit on your mind. I don’t know what it is, and I don’t care, but you’re head isn’t in our business, and you’re likely going to get hurt or cause one of the others of us to get hurt.”
“How is my head not in our business? I’d never get anyone hurt.”
Steve shook his head. “Not on purpose, you wouldn’t. Holden, man, I’m not saying it hasn’t been on the business at all, but lately, you have something else on your mind. I’m not criticizing, but…”
But… Yeah, something else had been on my mind.
“But what, Steve?”
“I’m saying we’ve got it. Shelby and I can handle it. You need to go talk to this Langhorn guy about how much you’re interested in him.”
It wasn’t funny, but I laughed. “Dude, you have no idea what you’re talking about.
I’m worried the guy is having a mental health crisis.
He actually told me to talk Mom and Dad into contacting the transplant people and giving permission for the recipients to have our contact information in case they want to reach out to ask any questions about Holly.
It makes no sense to me. Does it make sense to you? ”
Steve was quiet for a minute. “Well, it makes sense to me that the folks who got Holly’s organs might have questions about genetics in your family. Longevity, cancer, diabetes, addictive behaviors. All the stuff that could be hereditary would be a concern to me, as well as mental health issues.”
“They got all that information before they got the transplants. We had to fill out an extensive checklist of diseases that ran in the family. They know everything they need to know.” Now I sounded angry, and I guess I was a little because I didn’t like that he understood things so quickly while I was struggling.
“Yeah, well, maybe your parents would feel better if they had a chance to find out more about the recipients.”
He wasn’t wrong about that. We talked for a few seconds more, then Steve ended the call. I went to the living room, stretching out on the couch for a nap.
When I couldn’t fall back asleep, I decided to take a shower and maybe take Ossie to the dog park for a while. It was better than stewing on Avery like I’d been.
Turning on the shower, I quickly proceeded to shave. Ossie showed up at the door when he heard the water, turning his lead left and right in question, which made me laugh. “Sorry, Ossie. I’ll take you to the groomers this week. Go get in your bed. I’ll be out in a few.”
He pranced his ass away with his nose held high as if he could care less, and after he was in the other room, I closed the door to keep Ossie out because he would lick the water off my feet, which I hated.
I climbed into the shower, which was hot enough to boil a chicken, and proceeded to clean up, my mind still on Avery Langhorn.
How, in such a short time, had the guy crawled under my skin?
I wasn’t celibate by any stretch of the imagination, and like any other warm-blooded gay man, I’d taken my turn on hook-up apps when the need was too much to ignore.
None of those guys got to me, and hell, half the time, I was sure they used a fake name. I couldn’t remember any of them.
I hadn’t kissed Avery, much less done anything else, but the guy was stuck in my head. I needed to get over him somehow, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
Avery had a beautiful swimmer’s body. Broad shoulders and a tiny waist. Unlike me, he didn’t have a five o’clock shadow all the time.
His strawberry-blond hair was short on the sides with a longer top, which sent my mind to places it shouldn’t go. As a result, all the blood in my body traveled south in a hurry, and suddenly, I had another issue.
I tried to ignore my hard-on by washing my hair, but that didn’t work. I squeezed bodywash into my palm, prepared to wash myself but as I slid my hand down, it involuntarily wrapped around my hard dick. My eyes closed.
There, behind my eyelids was Avery, with that adorable smile and no shirt. His pecs were firm, and his abs were like a washboard. His skin had a faint golden tone, and his cheeks were pink, as I’d imagined they’d be if he was in the shower with me.
I slowly stroked my cock, pretending my own hand was Avery’s. It had been a while since I’d taken myself in hand, and as my mind’s eye scanned below Avery’s abs, I saw strawberry-blond curls framing a beautiful hard dick. His thighs had a whisper of hair on them, and his legs were gorgeous.
My mind jumped to those strong legs wrapped around my waist as I fucked Avery against the shower wall. The imagination was truly a wonderful thing.
Faster than I wanted to admit, the top of my head nearly blew off as I blew all over the shower wall. I imagined Avery’s eyes staring into mine as he said, “Call me.” Then, just like that, he was gone.
I opened the shower curtain and grabbed a towel off the shelf over the toilet. I glanced in the mirror to see it was foggy from the hot steam, but there were words written on it that took my breath.
Call Avery.
The bathroom door was still closed, so I blinked. When I opened my eyes, the words were still there.
Call Avery.
What. The. Fuck?