Chapter 17 Holden
Seventeen
Holden
Saturday afternoon was so dull and boring, I actually found myself looking up UCSC’s literature program requirements and application process. The deadlines had all passed, but there were summer programs and spring admissions.
And if they didn’t like my essay, I could go the old-fashioned way and donate my way in.
For a moment, I let myself have a different life than the one I was set on.
According to one colorful page, the university had a “vibrant LGBTQIA+ community.” The page was accompanied by a photo of beautiful, happy queer students, laughing in the bright California sun.
I even let my cursor wander to the mental health services department. That was how bored I was.
You’re going to walk around campus like an average schmuck? You’re going to sit in a stuffy classroom, taking notes, and letting someone with half your IQ judge your writing?
Wow, my ego was bitchy today. I compared the scholastic life in Santa Cruz to my vision of Parisian parties, fountains of champagne, writing in a garret overlooking the Seine, and having meaningless sex until my dick fell off.
In the past, I’d have said no contest, but now…
How about this: You’re going to let amateurs poke and prod at your PTSD until it wakes up and devours you?
I shut the laptop and told myself the small pang in my chest was only my imagination.
I called James and had him take me to the parking lot closest to the Cliffs.
I trudged the rocky, unforgiving path to the shack, hoping Miller or Ronan or both would be there.
Miller worked every Saturday, but maybe I’d get lucky and he’d have the day off.
Maybe he’d play a song for me, and I’d get out of my head for a while.
As I drew close to the shack, I heard voices.
One low and deep, one soft and smooth. I peeked in the window and found Ronan with Shiloh Barrera, Violet’s best friend and more frequent guest at our nightly bonfires.
I didn’t know her well, but her sharp tongue and lack of bullshit made me an instant fan.
“Is she okay?” Ronan was asking.
“She’s okay. Miller’s with her now.”
“About time.”
“Agree, but those two are giving me an ulcer. Literally hours before, River Whitmore asked Violet to prom. As friends. And Violet, the dummy, said yes.”
My heart dropped to the sand as jealousy rampaged through me, green and sour like nausea.
“Doesn’t mean anything,” Ronan said. “If Miller’s with Violet now, he won’t let her slip away again.”
“I just wonder what River’s endgame is.”
To be accepted. To not be alone. To have a normal life.
My initial stab of jealousy mellowed to a dull ache. I waited with breath held for Ronan to spill everything I’d told him about River and me in private.
“River asked her to prom as a friend, right?” Ronan shrugged. “Maybe that’s what he needs. A friend.” He moved close to Shiloh with an intimacy that said this wasn’t the first time they’d been in each other’s space. “And maybe it’s none of our fucking business.”
And that, Ronan Wentz, is why I love you.
Shiloh smiled appreciatively. Seductively. “Good answer.”
I should’ve left them alone, but I’d become mesmerized by the energy tensing between them. A push-and-pull dance I couldn’t take my eyes off.
Ronan moved closer to Shiloh, his huge body looming over her lithe form.
She was beautiful in a loose, flowing white skirt and a tight white T-shirt.
Metal bracelets slid down her warm brown skin, and hundreds of tiny box braids fell over her slender shoulders.
She held her ground, staring back at Ronan defiantly.
The heat that burned between them was strong enough that I felt it from outside the shack.
“We’re doing this now?” Shiloh asked, her voice hardly more than a breathy whisper.
Ronan nodded. His large hands went to her small waist, and he hefted her easily, setting her on the edge of the table.
Her fingers trailed up his tattooed arms, tracing the muscles, their gazes locked.
Ronan pressed her legs apart and moved in.
Shiloh welcomed him, her skirt sliding up her skin, ankles locking behind Ronan’s thighs.
She tilted her chin and said something I couldn’t hear. A challenge maybe.
Whatever she said, it was a spark to Ronan’s constantly burning flame. He made a fist in her braids, hauling her mouth to his. Shiloh took his kiss and gave it back with equal fire, her fingernails raking across his broad back as she lay over the table, pulling him down on top of her.
I wrenched myself from the window and stepped back.
“Congratulations. You can add voyeurism to your long list of depravity,” I muttered as I trudged back the way I’d come.
But it wasn’t pervy curiosity that’d kept me there.
In those moments, no one had existed for Ronan except Shiloh.
The world could have exploded, and he would have seen and felt and known only her.
And vice versa. The intensity that burned between them was singular. Powerful.
I had that with River, and I wanted it back.
So do something about it.
James was smoking a cigarette, leaning against the side of the car. He raised a brow as I approached. “That was fast.”
“I was concerned about the sturdiness of a certain table, but my friends are testing its durability as we speak.”
He nodded, unfazed. “Home then, sir?”
“No, downtown. The bookstore,” I said, only a vague idea swimming in my head. “To reference your skiing analogy, I’m going to crash one way or another, James. Might as well try to make it a hell of a ride first.”
He smiled. “Very good, sir.”
Downtown, I went back to the bookstore where I’d bought River the book on car restoration.
Another book felt a little redundant, but there was so much more to him than anyone knew beneath his football letterman jacket and casual smile.
He’d seen me at my worst and stayed. The least I could do was let him know I saw him as he was too. That he wasn’t alone.
I scanned the fiction shelves, and my gaze snagged on a title.
“Perfect.”
I made my purchase and had James drive me back to River’s house where I sat in the back seat, unmoving, the book clutched in my sweaty hands.
“Sir?”
“This is a bad idea.”
“Why?”
“Because… What if he’s not home and someone else answers?”
James frowned in the rearview. He started to speak, but I cut him off.
“No, you’re right. Fuck that. It’s not a crime against humanity to drop off a book to a friend. Thank you for the pep talk, James.”
“Anytime, sir.”
I walked up the Whitmores’ front walk and knocked on the door. A young girl around fourteen or fifteen with the same blue eyes and dark hair as River answered. She gave me a curious glance, taking in my heavy coat despite the warm-ish afternoon.
“Can I help you?”
“Is River here?”
“He’s at our shop. Whitmore Auto Body? He works there most afternoons now. Who are you?”
“I’m a friend of his from school.”
“What’s your name?” she said, practically demanded, curiosity flowing off her in waves.
“Holden. A friend from school. And you are?”
“His sister, Amelia.”
“A pleasure.” I held up my bookstore purchase. “I’m returning his book.”
“It looks brand new.”
“I meant replacing it. River lent me his copy, and I spilled…gravy on it.” I inwardly cringed. Gravy? Lord, man. “Anyway, could I just leave this with you?”
“You could,” Amelia said thoughtfully. “Or you could just drop it by the shop.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. Wouldn’t want to interrupt.”
Amelia leaned in the doorway and crossed her arms. “I think it’s a very good idea. In fact, I think River could really use a visit from you, Holden. It’s not far, just off Charleston Street, south end of downtown.”
“Right, but—”
“It was nice meeting you,” Amelia said with a strange smile, and then she shut the door, leaving me stranded on the doorstep.
“So that happened.”
I turned and headed back to the car, debating the wisdom of visiting River at his family’s shop. In public. In broad daylight.
Then I envisioned him stripped down to jeans and a sleeveless undershirt, his oiled muscles smudged with grease while he bent over something dirty and mechanical.
“On the other hand…”
I gave James our new destination and had him park around back. I slipped through an alley to the side of the garage, making sure no customers could see me. A window along the shop’s rear wall showed me a small, cramped office.
My fantasy was partially fulfilled: River wasn’t bent over a car but some paperwork, wearing a dark blue, short-sleeved uniform shirt with his name lettered in red on a white patch. Sweat and grease left a sheen on his arms, and he’d smudged himself on the edge of one sharp cheekbone.
My heart jackhammering in my chest, I tapped on the glass.
As he had at school, River’s face lit up to see me and then morphed into wide-eyed fear. He shut his books and disappeared from the room. A few moments later, he came around the side, wiping his hands on a rag.
“What are you doing here?” he hissed.
“If that’s your standard greeting, your customer service needs work.”
“I’m not fucking around, Holden. Why are you here?”
“Your sister said I could find you here so—”
His eyes bulged. “You talked to my sister?”
“Sure did,” I bit out, his reaction hurting and hardening my heart. “I knocked on your door and said, ‘Hello, Amelia, my name is Holden. I gave your brother a blow job a while back, and I’m quite certain he thoroughly enjoyed it.’”
River’s shoulders slumped, and he carved his hand through his hair. “You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, I do. But news flash: I’m a human being who is allowed to exist in the world and talk to people. Here. I got this for you.”
“Flowers for Algernon?”
“It’s about an idiot who smartens up for a bit, but it doesn’t last. He goes back to his old narrow, stupid world.”
River’s eyes darkened. “So…what? You bought this to teach me a lesson? To rub it in my face?”