25. Holden
TWENTY-FIVE
Holden
IT ENDS WITH bUttS
Things fall apart. My dignity, for instance. The shattered contents of my skull. There is a demolition crew up in there with jackhammers, playing death metal at full volume.
My muscles. Every muscle is writing its own poem of protest. An entire volume of angry, aching verse dedicated to the consequences of debauchery.
My mouth tastes like I’ve been chewing on old gym socks soaked in whiskey.
Damn you, whiskey, you amber temptress!
And fuck you, Guinness! You with your thick, creamy head—so mellow and bittersweet on the tongue. Your innocent aromatic notes of coffee and chocolate have fooled me for the last time!
Anarchy is loosed upon my stomach.
The center cannot hold. Even though the center, it seems, is made of porcelain. I wake to find myself transformed into a question mark, curved into the smooth, cold embrace of a bathtub. Am I alive? Yes. But unlike a legendary Irish warrior who refuses to die lying down, I live, totally unable to stand up. The rough beast of a hangover slouches toward my consciousness, waiting to be born. Daring me to remember what brought me here.
Whose tub is this?
I dare not open my eyes.
Oh, but I must…
Fuck.
Fuuuuuck!
Fuck you, well-lit vanity area! You aren’t the boss of me! The ceiling swims. Turns and turns like the widening gyre. Why do you mock me, lights? Why?!
The great question of existence plagues me…
Why?
Whyyyyyy?
And then I hear a kind, sweet voice from outside my head, in the other room. Piper. Yes. She is the why. She is my why. She is the eternal yes.
I really hope she doesn’t yell at me.
“Holden?” she whispers from somewhere above me.
Yes. My angel. My sweet, darling angel comes whispering, treading lightly upon my whiskey dreams.
“Mmmph.”
“Oh no. Why are the lights on? I’m going to turn them off, okay?”
“Mmph.”
“Hang on—I’ll get you a couple of pillows.”
“Hmmm!” I am saved. My heart beats for Piper. The blood that courses through my tired veins are filling with love again.
Hopefully I won’t throw up.
Half an eternity later, Piper carefully turns me on my back and lifts my torso to place two fluffy pillows beneath my head and shoulders.
“I love you,” I mumble.
“I love you. I got a room key from Billy. I brought some things that might help you.”
“Where am I?”
“It’s the Marriott. In Times Square.”
Flashes of memories present themselves, like an old-fashioned slideshow.
The inside of a party bus. A private jet. A baby sea turtle that I will miss forever. Mr. Puckett, my reluctant new best friend. Declan, that handsome, lawyerly crooner. Eddie, the good-natured pretty boy who thought we could outsmart the Irish Devil. The Irish Devil himself, Nolan Cassidy. Purveyor of innocuous toasts and villainous shots. And Billy Mothafuckin’ Boston. The vortex of fun.
Wait.
Why is my right ass cheek sore?
“Do you want breakfast in bathtub?” she asks, smirking. “And by breakfast, I mean coconut water, saltine crackers, and ginger tea.”
“Yes. Yes. That’s what I want.”
While she’s in the other room, I remember why I’m here. I remember my purpose. I remember the culmination of everything and my reason for being. I want to get to the next part. But I need to get better at being vertical first.
I am able to maneuver my phone out of my pocket. It’s still Sunday. It’s 11:25 a.m. My phone still has sixteen percent battery remaining.
There are so many texts, but I open the one from the maestro first.
BILLY BOSTON: thumbs up emoji We are good to go at noon, Haircut. The floor is yours.
ME: Roger that.
Good to go…
After replenishing fluids and electrolytes and ingesting a small amount of food, I am a new man. Well, I feel like a man again, anyway. I take a quick cold shower, making sure that Piper doesn’t touch my jeans while they’re folded on the counter by the sink.
Dressed in my jeans only, with damp hair—a look that has received the Piper stamp of approval many times—I emerge from the hotel bathroom to find my girl sitting on the edge of the bed waiting for me. The blackout curtains are closed, the lights are dim.
I go in for a kiss and then tell her, “I think I can deal with light now.”
She switches on another table lamp as I open up the curtains and look out onto Times Square. The plaza. The plaza where all through December, there is a mobile Wishing Wall and all year long it is surrounded by digital billboards above the sidewalks.
“So…” Piper says, still standing by the bed. It’s early summer, and she’s wearing a flowery dress, sandals with heels, and cherry-red lips. Always cherry-red lips. Always kissable. So much has happened for her over the past half a year, but even as she succeeds one way after another, she takes it all in stride. She’s the same girl who wrote SHERcockbLOCKed , with a little more experience. And a lot more me in her life. “You survived the night,” she says. “They didn’t scare you off?”
“I survived. Sorry I didn’t make it back home, though. Were you worried?”
“Billy let me know where you were and told me you needed to sleep it off for a few hours.”
I hold my hand out to her, inviting her to join me by the window.
“Glad to see no one wrote anything in Sharpie on your forehead.”
I have a vague recollection of Nolan holding me down while Billy held a felt pen over my face, and Eddie got Rita on the phone. She yelled at him about my face being my job, but I think it was all the hacking and coughing that scared him. “The shenanigans were just good, clean fun,” I tell her. “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”
I point down to the plaza. “Hey. The second time I ever saw you was down there.”
She beams. “The Wishing Wall!”
“Yeah.” I stand behind her, snaking my arms around her waist. “You were wearing a miniskirt and tights and boots. There were so many people. So much going on in Times Square, but I still saw you.”
She hums appreciatively.
I wait for her to spot the thing I want her to see on her own, but she doesn’t notice.
“Hey…” I point to a digital billboard across the street, one of the big ones. “What’s that about?”
“What?” There are so many billboards that could distract her. So many people and cars. But Piper zeroes in on the image I want her to see, because…butts. She gasps. “I know those butts…”
Indeed, she does.
I stand back to get a landscape shot of her looking out the window and the billboard she’s pointing at.
Above Broadway, for all to see, is video footage of five mens’ butts in jeans. Good butts, all of them—even I’d say so. Standing side by side, on a digital screen that’s over thirty feet tall, Declan, Eddie, Nolan, Billy, and Piper’s dad face away from the camera.
Across their butts scrolls the text: We approve of him, Piper!
“Oh my God!” she squeals. Without looking away from that view, she says, “How?!”
“I know a guy who owns a billboard company. A company called BillyBoard.”
“We need to go down and take pictures!” she says, clapping.
But when she turns around, she finds me on one knee before her, holding up a diamond ring.
Her hands cover her cherry-red mouth. Her eyes were already wide and glassy. She makes the little kitten sound that I love, stares down at me, and listens.
“Piper,” I say. “I want to marry you. We can stay engaged for as long as you want. You’re young. We’re both busy. Your career is just starting and so many amazing things are happening for you. There are a lot of decisions to be made about what to do and where to live. But I just want you to know that I want to be the one who’s there with you through all of it. I made my decision the night I met you. When we were snowed in. Even if we happen to be in different cities, I’m yours. I’m your HEA. Will you?—”
“Yes! Oh my God! Yes, I’ll marry you!” She jumps up and down.
“Oh, good.” I stand up to kiss her and slide the ring that Rory helped me pick out onto her finger.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” she whispers.
“I had an idea to do this at the park on Riverside Drive. You know, from the end of You’ve Got Mail . But the guys all very wisely told me I’d want to be inside where it’s dark and quiet today, so…”
“Awww, I love that you call them ‘the guys.’”
“Yeah. It was actually Rory’s idea to do the billboard and propose to you when you turned around.”
“I have taught that little Padawan well.”
“I think you’ve taught us all pretty well, to be honest…” I unbutton my jeans and turn away from her. “ This was my idea…”
She gasps as I lower my pants. She gasps even louder than she usually does when I lower my pants for her, I mean. “Holden…”
I had her name tattooed on my right butt cheek at some point last night. Inside a heart. Just her first name. It’s pretty small. But it feels mighty.
“Holden Archer.” She traces around it gently with her fingertips. “Of all the amazing things you’ve done for me, this is the best so far.”
“I think I’m gonna need your help applying an ointment a few times a day for a while.”
“Boy, am I the right girl for the job.”
“I figured I’d be in good hands.”
I turn around and step out of my pants, back her up against the wall, and lift her up so she can wrap her legs around my waist. I know how much my girl likes a passionate wall kiss. Because she let me read her 10 Ways I Can’t Wait to Screw list.
“My name is on your butt,” she says into my mouth.
“Forever and ever.”
“Amen.”