Thirty-Five
Holden
May
“Have you seen my keys?” I ask Theo while slipping my shoes on by the front door.
He’s standing over in the kitchen making some sort of strange smoothie concoction.
The ones with kale and raw eggs in them and shit that never fail to make me gag on the spot.
“I could’ve sworn I left them on the table by—”
“Island,” he says, not even looking over his shoulder from where he’s adding ingredients to the blender. And sure enough, they’re sitting there on the kitchen island right behind him.
It’s a strange place for me to leave them, but then again, I’ve been pretty out of sorts for weeks now.
“Thanks,” I mutter, swiping them from the laminate and shoving them in the pocket of my hoodie before crossing back to the door.
My focus shifts to the window, locking on the rain pouring buckets from the sky on the other side of the glass. It’s been like this all day, and it’s befitting of the mood I’ve found myself in lately.
Maybe even more today, seeing as it’s the sixth anniversary since my parents passed.
But it’s knowing today is also one year since Phoenix and I started down this path that makes it feel all the more bittersweet.
I’m no stranger to loss, but this kind…it feels different than it does when I think about my parents.
Maybe because I’ve still had to see Phoenix in class while he tries his best to keep his gaze from shifting to me.
Hear his name when Theo or someone else mentions him in passing.
And all this is happening while fighting the urge to go to him.
Touch him, hug him, fucking love him with every inch of my being.
Everywhere I go, everything I do, he’s there.
And if he’s not near me physically, then he’s at the forefront of my mind like a beacon in the night.
There’s never been a time when another person has haunted my every waking thought, and trying to live without him while still being utterly consumed by him is driving me batshit crazy.
I can’t escape him, and it’s made this whole situation all the more unbearable.
“Holden?”
I glance up. “Yeah?”
His brows draw down, and he frowns. “I asked if you were on your way out for an exam. Did you not hear me?”
No, I hadn’t. Not surprising, since I’ve been dissociating ever since Phoenix’s rejection at his game down in Nashville at the end of March.
Though rejection might not be the right word for it, seeing as I was the one who walked away from him, not the other way around. But it sure feels like rejection, especially since I haven’t heard anything from him in…God, it’s been over a month. The longest one of my life.
Suddenly, one of those little mandarin oranges flies across the room, hitting me square in the shoulder.
“Ow! What the hell, Theo?” I snap, glaring up at my roommate before picking it up and tossing it back at him. “I know you don’t need the extra practice, so is there another reason you’re chucking fruit at me?”
His brow arches at the snappiness in my tone. “Because you’re so deaf right now, I’m ready to order you a hearing aid. Which begs the question, are your thoughts off on a different planet, or are you ignoring me because I won’t give you any information on a certain teammate of mine?”
I pause, my answer initially being the former. But now that he’s the one to mention it…
“Can it be both?”
A half-hearted smirk forms on his lips as I toss orange back at him. “I guess one probably relates directly to the other, right?”
Understatement of my life.
While I haven’t been hearing a damn thing from Phoenix, Theo sure has.
He let it slip a couple weeks ago that Phoenix has been confiding in him a lot since the St. Seb’s dual in Nashville. And like the addict I am, I’ve been shamelessly begging for whatever scraps of information he’s willing to give me.
Of course, I couldn’t pry any details out of him other than Phoenix is okay and working through things as best he can, all things considered. Which I’m glad to hear, but I’d much rather be hearing those things from Phoenix’s mouth. Not Theo’s.
As if reading my mind, Theo’s lips lift in a sad sort of smile.
“He’s doing fine, Hold. I’d tell you if he wasn’t.”
“Would you, though? ‘Cause you’ve been tight-lipped anytime he comes up in conversation. He could be dead on the side of the road right now, and I doubt you’d say anything more than ‘he’s taking some him time. ’”
Theo tries and fails to hide the smirk growing on his face, and the sight of it makes my irritation flare. But not as much as what he says next.
“Well, that’s certainly not the case, seeing as he was just here half an hour ago, alive and well.”
I press my tongue to the inside of my cheek, hating the knowledge that he was so close yet still not making any attempts to contact me directly. Because it hurts as much as it pisses me off.
Especially when it feels like Theo is using it for a gut punch.
“Now I really am just ignoring you,” I snap before gripping the doorknob in my palm, ready to rip the thing off its hinges.
“Hold,” Theo calls, and I don’t know why, but some part of my intuition tells me to stop. Begs for me to turn around and hear what he has to say.
So I do.
Theo’s pale green eyes soften. “He’ll choose himself. You just need to give him time.”
Those ten words— three in particular —breathe new life into me. Shoves air straight into my lungs, filling them with the oxygen I’ve been missing since the moment I walked away from him in Nashville.
Yet I still can’t bring myself to believe it. Not until I hear the words from Phoenix himself. Not until he’s back in my arms and this entire shitstorm is put behind us, and that’s something I don’t see happening anytime soon.
“You don’t know that,” I mutter, shaking my head. “You don’t know.”
Theo offers yet another half-smirk. “I know a lot more than you think.”
I roll my eyes, once again irritated with him. Nevertheless, hope and relief rush through me, despite how dangerous it is.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I say before shoving the door open and heading out into the pouring rain toward my Jeep.
Water soaks my head and the tops of my shoulders by the time I reach the driver’s side door, and I silently curse Theo for distracting me from grabbing my jacket. The last thing I wanted to do was take this final, and now I get to do it while also dripping wet.
I’m about to slip into the driver’s seat when my heart lurches in my chest, causing me to freeze on the spot. Because there, balanced precariously on the top of my steering wheel, is a little pink duck.
One that looks awfully like…a flamingo.
What the hell?
I pluck it from where it sits before climbing into the vehicle and letting the door fall closed behind me. My stomach somersaults as I turn it over in my palm, the note attached to its neck brushing against my knuckles as I do.
I don’t even need to read it to know it’s from Phoenix.
Theo mentioning he was here and my keys being mysteriously moved are enough to give it away. Besides him, who else would leave a tiny pink flamingo duck in my Jeep? It’s too ironic, considering Francesco the Flamingo from our time in Florida.
Then there’s the couple of times he’s ducked me before this.
He might not admit to it, but I know the first one—the punk-rocker duck after the Icarus Ignites concert—was him.
Then there was a second one a couple of weeks after the Super Bowl—when things were starting to get better between us—dressed as a little black sheep.
His nickname for me plenty of times in the past.
It would only make sense for this to be him, too.
My heart twists and my stomach knots as I flip the paper over and read the message in the messy scrawl I’d recognize anywhere.
H—
Meet me at the Kappa Sig house tonight.
Seven o’clock, the bedroom at the top of the stairs.
I’ll understand if you don’t show, but I really hope you do.
—Nix
Taking a deep breath, I fold the note closed and beg the pulse in my throat to slow, except it’s no use. Phoenix Mercer has my heart in a chokehold, and he’s making no sign of ever letting it go.
Not that I want him to. It’s just that moments like this…make me wish he’d loosen the grip a bit. Allow me to breathe a little easier.
Maybe luck will be on my side tonight, and he will.
Or maybe he’ll rip it from my chest and crush it in his fist.