Thirty-Six
Holden
I walk up the steps to the Kappa Sig house thirty minutes late, a heavy feeling of nausea in my stomach. Or dread. Maybe both, because I have no idea what I’m about to walk into, even after playing out every possible scenario in my head all afternoon.
So much so, I almost didn’t finish my final in time.
Too busy thinking up different ways Phoenix can break my heart even more than he already has to focus on the test. And though I’m a pretty positive person, there’s only one scenario where I get the guy in the end, so the odds aren’t exactly in my favor here.
I push open the door, my gut still churning with anxiety as I internally chant one single sentence.
Here’s to hoping I’m wrong.
Plenty of people greet me when I enter the house, including a few of my teammates. Luca and Noah are chatting with a couple of girls in the living room, and I even see Oakley milling around back in the kitchen. He spots me and heads my way the second his cup is topped off with beer.
“Hey, Hold. What’s up?” he asks, eyeing me with concern.
My stomach rolls and twists into knots as I pull the little flamingo duck from my sweatshirt pocket and show it to him.
He plucks it from my fingers, flips over the tag around its neck, and reads the note.
His eyes widen slightly as he does, only for him to hand the whole thing back to me once he’s finished.
“Looks like you’re finally getting your answer after all,” he muses, even as the apprehension is still evident in his gaze. “How are you feeling about it?”
I shake my head, trying to shove down all the emotions running rampant through me. “I’ll let you know when my heart stops racing.”
“Sounds about right.” His answer comes out somewhat clipped, and I realize he knows this kind of love-induced anxiety well. It wasn’t long ago that he put his own heart on the line—for Quinton de Haas, of all people.
It worked out in the end for him, though, and all I can do is hope it will for me too.
As if on cue, Quinton strolls up to us, and I watch with unmatched amounts of jealousy as Oakley slips his arm around his boyfriend’s waist.
“What’s going on?” Quinton asks, eyeing me through a pair of dark lenses.
Anticipation and fear war inside me as I glance at the stairs leading to the door where Phoenix said he’d be waiting for me—the battle between them causes my stomach to churn with more unease.
“I might actually be sick.”
Oakley’s hand squeezes my shoulder before giving Quinton a quick run-down, and I shift my focus back to them in time to see Quinton eyeing me quizzically.
“I know you have no reason to trust me on this, but speaking from personal experience…” Quinton trails off, shooting a quick glance at Oakley before his icy eyes return to me.
“Phoenix taking the time he needs is a good thing. My temper didn’t just go away overnight.
It took a ton of hard work to get that shit under control, no matter how badly I wanted it to be instant.
Change takes time. He needs time, but that doesn’t mean he cares about you any less. ”
It’s a concept I understand in theory. After all, breaking habits and forming new ones takes tons of work. But fuck, the part of me that craves instant gratification hates it anyway.
Oakley nods in agreement with de Haas before giving me a half-hearted smile. Compassion and empathy swirl in his eyes as he murmurs, “Go, Hold. It’s only gonna get worse the longer you put it off, and it’s better to know for sure. Otherwise, you’ll just keep wondering about what could have been.”
Oakley’s wrong about one thing, though; the feeling only gets worse the closer I get to knowing. Builds as I climb the stairs and amplifies still when I reach the door, my fingers wrapping around the knob to turn it.
The second the door swings open, I spot Phoenix sitting on the bed. His head’s resting in his hands and there’s a slump to his shoulders that speaks of agony and regret.
It’s a pose of defeat if I’ve ever seen one.
I take a step into the room and close the door behind me, the snick of the lock engaging finally grabbing his attention.
It must take him a second to realize it’s me, because a look of irritation I’d know anywhere is written all over his face—the same one he’s aimed at me plenty of times in the past six months.
Only it disappears just as quickly, relief taking its place as he rises to stand.
“You came,” he says, immediately stepping towards me. “I was starting to think you were so pissed at me, you wouldn’t show.”
It hurts a little that he didn’t think I would. Even after telling him I love him. Words…I haven’t said to anyone outside of my family. Words that somehow don’t even do justice to what I feel for him; they just aren’t big enough.
Then again, a small piece of me thought about not coming tonight. Debated whether or not I could show up, put my heart on the line for a second time, only for him to decide his best friend was more important than me. I’ve had enough loss in my life; I don’t need the pain of losing him too.
Yet now that I’m here, standing in front of him, I realize maybe Oakley was right. Not knowing would be worse. It’d end up being the only thing through this whole fucking mess that I’d regret.
“Holden?” Phoenix whispers, and I realize I’ve yet to say anything.
God, I don’t even know what to say.
“Yeah. I, uhh…” I try clearing the knot in my throat that grew three sizes the moment I saw him, but my voice still comes out raw and thick anyway. “I got your note.”
Pulling the tiny flamingo duck from my pocket, I show it to him—as if he didn’t know what I was talking about.
“I can see that,” he says, a hint of a smile on his lips as he crosses the room to me. The swirling, bubbling feeling in my stomach intensifies once he stops right in front of me and takes the duck from my hands.
I hate how my skin lights on fire when his fingertips brush against my palm. Hate the way my body aches and yearns for this man—the way my soul reaches toward his constantly and without end.
Phoenix’s eyes lift to mine as he slides the duck into the pocket of my hoodie, a little smirk on his lips. “Guess the cat’s outta the bag though, right?”
I blink at him, wondering if he’s lost his damn mind, because—
“It was never in the bag.”
The smile is a complete grin now, and he whispers, “Yeah, you’re right. Especially when you’re so good at seeing right through me.”
His gaze moves from mine down to my lips, and I don’t have to be a mind reader to know what he’s thinking. It’s the same sentence running through my head.
Eyes and mouth.
The intimacy of the moment sends my pulse into overdrive, and I quickly look away. My focus skims over the room we’re in, desperate for a distraction, but it doesn’t work. Not when the part of my brain recognizes this as the room I woke up—naked, hungover, and alone—almost exactly a year ago.
My throat constricts as I look back at the man who continues shredding my heart into pieces while simultaneously being the reason it still beats.
“Who’s room is this?” I find myself asking.
“Some guy named Grayson, who I paid to let me kick him out for a while,” he says with a laugh.
The thought of him doing that has a smile quirking up the corner of my mouth. “You paid a guy off to use his bedroom? Seriously?”
He shrugs. “Call me sentimental, I just wanted to have this conversation with you where the whole thing began.”
I shove my hands into the pocket of my sweatshirt in search of the duck he just placed there. My fingers wrap around the smooth rubber, squeezing it in my palm as if it’s enough to ground me. Ease some of the tension coiled in my body like a snake ready to strike.
“So…” I start, going in the only direction I can think of, “You and Kason are good, then?”
He opens his mouth to speak before his lips tilt into some semblance of a smile. But the most confusing part is the way it’s still on his face when he shakes his head no.
“Not entirely. But I think we will be. Someday.” His eyes hold a fair amount of sadness when he adds, “We need some time apart from each other.”
“And you’re okay with that?” I ask, slowly.
This time he nods. “He’s choosing him…and I’m choosing me.”
The last three words of his sentence cause my heart rate to spike immediately. How can it not, when that’s all I wanted for him? For us?
But a lot of time has passed since we were in Nashville—where I saw the truth in his eyes as his mouth straight-up lied to my face. Six weeks’ worth of time. And I don’t know if, in that time, he’s decided the words he let spill from his lips that day were the truth, after all.
Still, I have to ask. I have to know.
“What exactly does choosing yourself entail?”
He offers me a gentle smile. “Creating some healthy boundaries. Breaking some bad habits. I’ve spent a lot of time working on the guilt I’ve been harboring.
Letting go of that shit so I can make way for all the good things.
Accepting the past for what it is, even if I can’t change it, and focusing on what I can.
” He pauses briefly, eyes locked with mine, before adding, “Learning to accept that sometimes it’s okay to be selfish and put myself first.”
My brows hike up. “Is this some sort of twelve-step program you found, or are you just kinda making it up as you go along?”
“Maybe a little of both?” he says as a soft laugh slips free, the decadent sound washing over me like whiskey and honey.
He sobers quickly, though, and he rolls his teeth over his lip.
“I’m sorry for hurting you, for shutting you out and not leaning on you when all you wanted was to take my pain away.
” His features show an endless amount of sorrow when he adds, “And I’m sorry for taking this long to reach out.
The last thing I wanted was to do it before I felt ready, but that doesn’t mean it hurt you any less. ”
“Six weeks is a long time to feel ready,” I point out softly.