Chapter 11
eleven
HOLDEN
The next Tuesday, I rested my forehead against Tessie’s steering wheel, willing myself to get inside for the game.
I’d skipped the team dinner, making up an excuse about our horse Maisy having a hoof abscess that I needed to tend to.
It wasn’t a complete lie but Christy didn’t know that.
Maisy did have an abscess, but the vet had taken care of it. I’d just helped hold Maisy still.
Truth was, I couldn’t handle the look in Christy’s eyes ever since the team dinner with the Facebook fiasco. I couldn’t even decipher it. Was she embarrassed to be associated with me? Ashamed that she’d asked me to be her assistant coach? I wasn’t sure. But it cut like a hot knife.
When I’d asked her after that game if we needed to meet up, she told me she was “good” and she had enough pictures to placate her family for a while.
The disappointment I’d felt was downright embarrassing.
My arms didn’t know what to do without her between them.
And the longer she stayed away, the heavier this ache in my chest grew.
If this went on much longer, I was going to drive to her place and beg for her to be my fake girlfriend, for absolutely no reason at all.
A knock on the glass brought my head up. Silas.
I unrolled my window.
He bent down to talk to me, his left brow in an upside down V. “You missed the team dinner.”
“Yeah.”
“Christy said you were draining an abscess on Maisy?”
“Yeah.”
His head cocked. “But I know for a fact that Dad called the vet out to do that.”
“Did you tell her that?”
“No, nimrod. But lying goes against the Dupree creed. You’re a lawyer who never, ever lies.” He threw his hands up. It was true. As a rule, I didn’t lie. Hated it when I caught someone doing it. And I’d lied to the woman who meant more to me than anyone.
I stared at my thumbs.
“The game’s about to start,” he said. “Don’t you think you should go inside and help Christy get the lineup situated?”
“Mhm. Yup.” But I just sat there, breathing, gut churning, dreading the disappointment in her eyes.
He sighed, walked around, and got into the passenger seat, closing the door behind him. Great. Here came the big brother lecture about being dependable and responsible.
He tried to face me, but couldn’t because there wasn’t enough room for the stilts he called legs. He reached down to adjust the seat and then frowned when he rammed his head into the ceiling. He swore.
I laughed. “Wrong way, moron.”
He laughed too and finally got himself situated. Then he turned to face me. “Man, I really don’t want to have this conversation…”
“Then don’t.”
“I have to. You’re pathetic. You've been stumbling around for a week, head in a fog, all grumpy and unmotivated. Mom says if she has to walk into Sophie’s place and smell your B.O.
one more time she’s going to start charging you for a cleaning lady to come by.
” He flicked his hand toward the door. “Just go tell Christy you’re in love with her, and get it over with. Put us all out of our misery.”
What had he just said?
My mouth fell open. “What are you talking about?” My stupid, traitorous face was on fire. But if I admitted it, he might not ever let me live it down. It takes a fair bit of humbling to admit you have a crush on your brother’s ex. I didn’t know if I was ready for that.
Silas rolled his eyes. “We don’t have time for this. You and I both know you have a thing for her, so stop pretending like you don’t. You wouldn’t have made out with her at Sophie’s if you didn’t.”
It was the most backhanded compliment I’d ever been given.
My entire head felt like someone had doused it with lighter fluid and lit a match. “Let me get this straight. You want me to go tell your ex that I love her?”
He held his hands up, arrested style. “Don’t call her that anymore.
She’s just Christy. Whatever. She’s yours now.
Here.” His hand formed a sideways C. “It’s the Christy Thornbury boyfriend torch.
It’s not really mine to give but I’m the last one who had it so here you go.
” He held his hand out, cupped around absolutely nothing.
I cocked a brow. “I’m not taking your dumb imaginary torch so put your hand down.”
He shrugged. “Well, if you won’t take that, maybe you’ll accept this.
” He lifted an invisible…something…off of his head and put it on mine.
“You are hereby crowned as the newest Dimwit Dupree who is so love drunk they can’t walk a straight line.
You can have it. I’m happy to be done.” His hands went up again.
“Disclaimer: by accepting this title you are also agreeing to good-naturedly accept all the teasing, well-wishes, and pressure that come along with couplehood.”
“You’re still love-drunk and a dimwit.”
He nodded. “True. But I’m not the newest dimwit in the family. And I’m married so I’m ineligible.
I picked the crown up off my head and handed it back to him. “I think that belongs to Anna.”
He scowled so deep it looked painful. “Do you know that Blue kid had the nerve to call me up and ask permission to take her on a date?”
“A teenage boy trying to be respectful?” My jaw dropped. “The horror.”
“Pfft. Respectful, my eye. We all know that for a high school boy ‘date’ is just code for let me see how fast I can get this girl into the bed of my truck and disrespect her.” His jaw clamped. “He ain’t doing the hippity dippity with my girl. No way.”
“Hippity dippity? Don’t use mom’s old-lady sex terms. Especially when you’re talking about Anna.” I shivered. “Dude. I don’t want to think about her doing that yet.”
“And you’re not going to have to think about her doing it because she won’t be doing it. Till she’s thirty and been married for at least two years.”
I chuckled. “So you told him no, then?”
His lips pursed and he slunk down in the seat.
“No. Clem wouldn’t let me. He’s coming over for dinner on Sunday.
But I did tell him she was too young to go on dates.
The only dating they’ll be doing is in my living room with me watching.
” He glanced at the gym doors. “Nice deflecting by the way. The crown is still yours. You have to be a legal adult to wear it, so Anna’s out of the running.
And yeah, you should tell Christy how you feel. I think you would feel a lot better.”
I blew out my breath. “It’s not that simple—”
“Sure it is.” He gripped my shoulder. “Isn’t that what you were telling me a few months ago?
‘Just do it, man. Tell her how you feel. It’ll be rad,’” he said in an eighties surfer voice.
“Yeah,” he said, returning to his natural baritone.
“You feel like you’re gonna puke just thinking about it, huh? ”
I rolled my eyes. “No, tool. It’s literally not that simple. Amber has been watching me like a hawk, and I don’t want to pull Christy into her sights. You know what she did to Savannah.”
His head was shaking before I was halfway done.
“Holden, I’m not gonna sit here and tell you that Amber Taylor isn’t a crazy psycho.
She definitely is. But Christy’s not seventeen and neither are you.
You’re a lawyer now, for crying out loud.
” His jaw pulsed. “But if you don’t let Christy in because you’re afraid of what Amber will do, then that lunatic still wins.
” His eyes narrowed as if he had x-ray vision and could see straight inside the gym to where Amber was right now.
Then he swung those narrowed eyes at me.
“Do you want her to own you until the day you die?”
My head dropped into my hands, but I shook it. I hated how much I let her make my choices for me. But I didn’t know how to shake her off.
He cuffed my shoulder. “Look, you had my back this summer and I’ll never be able to repay you for making me see what was right in front of my face.” He tipped his head toward the gym. “Now it’s your turn.”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “I don’t even know if Christy likes me like that.
She doesn’t take me seriously at all. She’s always joking and calling me stuff like Hot Lips or Mister Kiss-ter.
” My jaw clenched. “And the other day she left her phone on the bus seat. Guess what she’s got me listed as in her contacts?
Not Holden or Holden Dupree. Not even Golden Holden, which is usually what people go with. ” I waved my fingers. “So original.”
Silas’s nostrils flared and he bit his lip, trying not to laugh. “What?”
“Epstein Barr.”
That did it. He belly-laughed for at least twenty seconds and threw in a knee slap for good measure. Then held his hands up. “I mean, that’s what you get.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re laughing at my unrequited feelings. That’s just great. Perfect.”
He shook his head, wearing a sly grin. “Nah. I’m laughing because…Mister K-Kis-Kiss-ter.” He was gasping for air.
“Ha. Ha.” I gripped my hair, feeling like I wanted to claw out of my skin. “Just go back and tell Lemon you did what she wanted you to. It didn’t work, but you gave it your best. I’m sure you’ll get the Husband of the Year award. Good for you.”
His face scrunched. “Man, what are you talking about?”
“I know she sent you out here to pep-talk me, dude.”
He scoffed. “You think I’m such a dunce that I needed my wife to tell me my brother and best friend is hurting over a woman?”
I shrugged, feeling a little stupid because that’s exactly what I’d thought. “Yeah. Obviously.”
“I didn’t need to be told anything. It’s been obvious you two have a thing going on ever since I caught you kissing.
” He threw his hand out like duh. “But it was a blaring neon sign when Christy took off after Ming outed your Facebook profile at the team dinner. A woman doesn’t react like that unless she’s caught intense feelings for someone.
Lemon said when she found her, she was trying not to cry.
” He fake backhanded me. “She loves you, idiot. Or at least, she’s headed in that direction.
But if you don’t take those stupid pictures off your social media, unfriend all those women, and swear yourself to a lifetime of monogamy, you might lose the one woman you’ve been so desperately searching for. ”
The backhand was fake, but it felt very real. And very necessary. I was a complete tool.
Silas’s lips drew into a hard line. “You deserve happiness, bro. Whatever voices in your head are telling you otherwise? It’s time to stop listening. Enough is enough.”
My phone buzzed.
Christy: The first set just started. Are you still coming?
“Crap.” Silas and I said at the same moment. We’d lost track of time.
We jogged across the student lot and into the building. With each step, my confidence grew a little. Maybe Silas was right. Maybe ten years was enough penance to pay. Maybe God or Fate or whoever ran this show was done punishing me.
I pulled the door open and smiled at the blond beauty pacing in front of the bench seats.