Chapter 7 #2
“Stop trying to change the subject.” Her eyes pierced straight into me with a sharp slice.
“The way I see it”—another finger-poke to the pec—“you have to do what I say. Because if you don’t, I’ll tell Silas.
” She shrugged like not my problem. “And if I tell Silas, he’s going to tell your mother.
And we all know how Jenny feels about your kissing habits.
‘Hot Lips Holden.’” She burst out laughing.
So Silas had told her my mom’s nickname for me.
Just awesome.
Christy thought I was a man whore.
Learning how she truly saw me caused me to temporarily lose my mind, I guess. Because before I could stop myself, I blurted, “I don’t kiss them, Christy. Ever. They kiss me, okay?”
A laugh choked in her throat and she took a large step back, horrified.
Holy. Crap. What had I just done?
What was it about this girl that made me a bumbling, out-of-control idiot? I’d never admitted that to anyone. Not Silas, not Sophie. No one.
Just then the sliding glass door opened, and darn it if Silas didn’t walk in. Wearing basketball shorts and cowboy boots, looking like he’d just rolled out of bed.
Christy’s eyes lit up, victorious. “Ah, karma.”
“You have got to be kidding me,” I muttered.
She backward walked her way to him, eyes trained on me the whole way. “Good evening, Silas,” she sang. Every muscle in my body tensed. I’d just gotten things right with Silas again.
“Hi,” he said dryly. He scowled at me, shaking his head like I was the biggest a-hole on the planet. I knew what it looked like.
They walked over to me, together. Christy didn’t even try to rein in the smug smirk she was wearing. “So, Silas, Holden and I were wondering if you could settle something for us.”
His gaze skittered between us, unamused. “What?” His tone said he’d rather be anywhere than here at this time of night, catching us together.
Same, buddy. Same.
Her pointer finger made a sweeping motion around the room. “Are those security cameras on?”
She wouldn’t.
His head cocked at me. Not Christy. Me. “What did you do?”
Christy waved her hand. “Oh, it’s only a hypothetical discussion. We were just wondering.” She swung a narrowed glare at me. “Right, Holden?”
I shoved my hands into the front pocket of my hoodie and shook my head. “Un-freaking-believable.”
She cupped a hand around her ear. “What was that? I didn’t hear you, El Smoocherino.”
My nostrils flared as I let out a bitter laugh. This woman.
Silas’s forehead crunched and his head volleyed between us.
I shrugged, mad enough to chew fire. I was only trying to protect her. I threw my hands up. “Fine. You win.”
“Yes!” Her fists punched the air. Then she released a massive exhale and waved a hand over her face.
“End scene and goodnight.” She bowed dramatically.
Then she skipped over to the bench where I’d started the whole mess and picked up her bag.
As she skipped back by she hissed, “You might be Lord of the Lips, Holden. But I will always win. Always.” And she cackled like a witch as she kept on skipping toward the exit.
As the doors slid open, she paused and spun on her heel, aiming her words right at me.
“Oh, and the varsity girls lost their game after you left. And JV and varsity both lost on Thursday. I’m sure Anna told you.
” She shot me with double-finger pistols.
“I blame you. And as payback, you’re going to help me coach until you find a new job.
The girls are ‘hyped’ to have the guy whose ‘grin is fire’ as their coach.
” She made quotation marks with her fingers and rolled her eyes.
Then she wiggled all ten fingers. “See you at the game tomorrow, Coach Dupree.” Without waiting for my response, she spun and skipped out into the night.
And I just watched her go, speechless at how she’d just outplayed this player.
Silas studied me too closely. “She really does need help coaching. Byrd is out for the rest of the season. They thought he just had bad food poisoning. Turns out he had a duodenal ulcer. He came close to bleeding to death and won’t be able to work for two months. Maybe longer.”
I whistled. “That sucks. But why don’t you help her?”
He looked at me like I’d fallen into a vat of bright green dye. “I just got married, I’m running a new business”—he waved at the room—“and a farm, and I’ve got a full-time job. What are you doing?”
Well, when he put it that way. “I’m busy searching for a new firm.” It sounded incredibly selfish. Even to me.
He cocked his head, his eyes questioning. “So why not help out while you look? Mom said you’re begging for stuff to do. You even cleaned out all the horse stalls without asking. If that’s true, I don’t even know who you are.”
I blew out my breath, let two heartbeats pass, and spit out, “Amber Taylor was at Anna’s game the other night.”
He sunk in his boots a bit. “You gotta let it go. That was almost a decade ago. It’s way over.”
I shook my head. “Man, I’m not so sure. She was eyeing me like she hoped we met in a dark alley somewhere.” I hated that she still had me under her thumb even after all this time.
“You didn’t do anything wrong, Holden. You weren’t guilty. Of anything. Stop torturing yourself.”
I grunted and kicked at the floor with the toe of my tennis shoe.
“Look, man,” he said. “The best way to show her that she doesn’t have any power over you is to live your life fearlessly. Don’t hold back because of what she did.”
I nodded. “Yeah. You’re right.” But it wasn’t that easy. I’d been trying for the last ten years.
I glanced at the exit, hoping to change the topic.
“What the freak is wrong with Christy Did you see her dance out of here like a devious little pixie? Is she always like that—trying to niggle at you until you give her what she wants?” The memory of her backside skipping into the dark churned my insides in the best way.
Everything about her made me want to eat her up, just put my lips all over her out-of-this-world, gorgeous face.
“Yeah. She’ll push till she gets her way. But only with people she feels safe with.” He chuckled. “But don’t tell her she’s like a pixie. Her ex used to call her Tink. It was cool until it wasn’t.”
I scowled. Well, that explained why she’d almost cried when I said she was like a cute little fairy.
“What did she want?” he asked.
“Huh?”
“You said she niggles at you until you give her what she wants. And it sounded like you just agreed to do something you didn’t want to.”
“Nothing.” I shook my head. “Just a stupid conversation.”
Silas’s forehead furrowed like he didn’t believe me. “Were you two on a gym date?”
I rubbed the back of my neck, which was suddenly boiling. “No. We just ended up here at the same time.”
“So if I go watch the security footage I’m not going to see you making out?”
I forced a laugh. “No. We just happened to be here at the same time. You can ask that one chick who was here earlier. The one with the tat sleeves.” I was protesting too much.
If anyone knew what guilty looked like, it was an attorney.
And it looked exactly like this. Get it together, moron.
Change the subject. I eyed his outfit. “What’re you doing here this time of night? You look ridiculous, Gomer.”
He grinned and did a little jig in his boots. “You’re just jealous you can’t pull this off.”
I snorted. “Shouldn’t you be at home in bed with your wife?”
“I was.” His brows flicked up and he grinned so wide it was just mean. “Dumb thermostat app went off saying the heat in Downward is eighty-seven degrees. If I’d known you were here I’d have asked you to go check it and stayed right where I was.”
“We’ve all been telling you to use the Find My Friends app.”
He grunted and then studied me. “Are you two a thing?” he asked, wearing a frown. “Because it kind of feels like you are.”
My hands shoved deeper into my hoodie pocket. “Nope. Definitely not a thing.”
“I mean, you’re both adults. You can do what you want. It would just make family dinners awkward, you know?” They were just words. He didn’t mean them. If he watched the security footage, I would be dead.
I sighed. “Like I said, not a thing, bro.”
“All right. If you say so.” He turned on his heel.
“Well. I’m gonna head. The faster I do this, the faster I get home.
” His eyebrows wiggled. Then he turned and strode his stupidly long legs toward the Downward side of the gym.
When he reached the leg press, he called, “Why are the pins all over the place?” He bent down and began collecting them.
I snickered. “No idea.”
I sat down at the hack squat machine and popped in a pin, the gym all to myself. I inserted my Air Pods and flipped my playlist up full blast trying to get that sexy, blond spitfire out of my head.
But my brain did the opposite, replaying that intense kiss over and over. Her soft lips, the way her hands slid up into my hair.
Stop it.
I exhaled and forced myself to think about the conversation and pin shenanigans afterward. That was safer. Sticking my toe in the water but at least I wasn’t diving in head first. Toe dipping never drowned anyone.
“Tink.” I snorted, wondering what Silas had meant about it being cool until it wasn’t. It wasn’t until I was three hundred calories down, according to my watch, that a sick realization slammed into my brain.
Christy’s brother-in-law, Rowan, had called her Tink.