Chapter 19 Holden
Nineteen
Holden
I peeked into my English class. Ms. Watkins was grading papers at her desk, a half-eaten macaroni salad in a plastic to-go container beside her. I sucked in a breath and knocked.
She smiled brightly as she waved me in. I slid into a desk in the front row directly in front of her and slouched over, resting my chin on my fist on the wood. Someone had scratched Martin Blasely sux cock onto the surface.
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
Ms. Watkins was watching me. “Something on your mind, Holden?”
River Whitmore was on my mind. I could still feel him everywhere on me. Inside me. Christ, I’d considered myself somewhat experienced on the sexual front, but River had obliterated everyone that came before him and probably everyone who’d come after.
I was already ruined, and he ruined me all over again. In the best way.
Ms. Watkins delicately cleared her throat.
“Right, yes, the business at hand.” I leaned back, all casual laziness. “So let’s say—hypothetically, mind you—that someone was curious about the application process for UCSC’s literature program?”
She set down the red pen of death she used for grading papers and folded her hands on her desk. “This person is interested in skipping the BA program altogether?”
“Indeed. The boredom would kill him if he had to attend classes like Commas and Margins 101.” I examined my nails. “This person is something of a prodigy in the brains department.”
“I see.” Ms. Watkins looked like she was holding back her smile.
“Not that it’s relevant,” I added, my throat suddenly thick, “but this person has also not had a drop of booze in months. Except for beer, but we all know that doesn’t count.”
“That’s debatable, but…” Ms. Watkins touched a hand to her heart. “That’s wonderful, Holden.”
“So… What do you think?”
“I think if this person were serious, some meetings could be arranged with the English department at the university. Is he serious?”
I drummed my fingers on the desk, thinking, cautioning myself like I had been all weekend not to let post-sex glow go straight to my head. And heart.
Just because River fucks as if he loves me…
I hauled myself out of the desk and toward the door. “He’ll get back to you.”
Ms. Watkins smiled into her work as she picked up her red pen of death. “I sincerely hope he does.”
Outside, I lounged against the brick wall and lit a clove cigarette to calm my nerves.
It was reckless and stupid to let one night change things.
Except it wasn’t one night. It’d been months of nights with River, each kiss and touch and deep conversation erasing the distance we tried to keep between us.
But in a few short weeks, that distance was going to be real.
“Unless…” I murmured, exhaling the word on a plume of smoke. It was no secret River dreaded his departure as much as I did.
You think he’s going to throw his life in the NFL away and crush his dad’s hopes? For you? asked a snide voice in my head, sounding suspiciously like my own father.
A shiver racked me, and the cigarette dropped out of my numb fingers. I ground it out just as Mr. Chouder strolled by. He stopped and sniffed the air, then turned to me, eyes narrowed.
I twiddled my fingers at him and blew him a kiss.
He huffed and kept walking.
I lit a new smoke and pondered my options, alarmed to discover there was only one.
Tell River.
The chorus of chattering voices in my head laughed at the idea. To stand naked in front of him and ask him to choose me…
“It could happen,” I murmured. “It worked for Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant.”
A pair of girls passing by gave me a weird look.
I curled my lip at them. “Oh, like you haven’t seen Notting Hill a hundred times.”
The bell rang, and I chucked my smoke, Ronan’s words ringing in my head, louder than the chittering voices. To fight for River and maybe for myself too.
***
At lunch, I went to the band room as usual, but it was empty. A text came in on my phone from River.
I’m at the bleachers. Meet me.
I frowned. The make-out spot?
I’ve never been. Want to. With you.
The tiny flame of hope I’d been kindling flared bright. The make-out spot under the bleachers was out of sight from the general public, but couples came and went on the regular. Risk of discovery was high. Maybe River planned to roll the dice and let fate decide.
He was waiting for me in the shadowy space that was littered with hot dog wrappers and smelled like stale popcorn. He kissed me hard, and we quickly melted against each other. The night of the meteor shower was alive in every touch, every glance, every breath.
“Hey,” he said gruffly, breaking our kiss.
“This is bold. And unlike you.”
“Fuck it,” he said, his blue eyes burning like the hottest part of a flame.
I raised a brow. “Oh, I see. Someone got laid this weekend and now is ready to fuck or fight the world.”
“Fight them,” he said, pressing his groin to mine. “But I don’t want to fuck anyone else.”
God help me, neither do I.
He kissed me again and I let him, my thoughts filling with possibilities. River felt me drift and pulled back, his brows drawn.
“Is everything okay?”
“You’ve called or texted me that same question eight hundred times since Saturday,” I said. “Yes, everything is still fine. The night was magical and perfect. The angels wept. The heavens shook.”
“All right, all right,” River said with a short laugh. “So what are you thinking about?”
I sucked in a breath, my heart crashing in my chest like a cymbal. I took a step back so he wouldn’t feel it.
“It’s nothing, really. But I have this English teacher. Ms. Watkins. She read one of my essays and thought it wasn’t terrible.”
“Of course it wasn’t. You’re brilliant.”
Ugh. The simple truth in his tone went straight through me, the bastard.
“She also thinks it might be a better use of my time to work for a literature degree instead of doing drunken pirouettes under the Eiffel Tower.”
“She’s right,” River said, then his expression changed. Realization—and suspicion—slowly creeping over his handsome features. “Wait, what does that mean exactly?”
“It means I’d go to college.”
“Where?”
“Wherever I want.” I inhaled. “The University of California, Santa Cruz, maybe.”
And you could stay with me.
River’s eyes widened and not because he was suddenly overjoyed. He stared at me, thoughts whirling. Every second that passed in silence punctured my heart, my hope bleeding out into the dusty, trash-strewn ground at our feet.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, relax,” I said, mustering every survival skill I’d forged in Alaska to keep my tone flippant. “I’m not going to ruin your NFL fantasy life. I could go to the Sorbonne. Or Yale. Or Pig Fart Community College—”
“Wait, you’d stay in Santa Cruz?” River asked, still shaking his head. “I thought it was too dull for you.”
“It is,” I said quickly. “The last thing I want is to stay in this sleepy town and die of fucking boredom over and over, every day, like some Groundhog Day nightmare.”
River’s mouth was a grim line. “You’re upset.”
“Why would I be upset?” I demanded, my voice trembling. “What in the hell is there to be upset about?”
River carved a hand through his hair. “I accepted Alabama. Officially.” He sounded as if he were passing on his own death sentence. “You can’t…I mean…”
The last of my hope trickled out.
“Come with you?” I asked, my voice sounding frail and pathetic. “Who the fuck said I wanted to? I told you I’d never ask you for anything. Ever.”
We told you, the voices said, rising up again. We told you we told you we told you…
“Holden…” River sounded agonized. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what? I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
What else am I supposed to do?
He started to speak, but I cut him off. “The longer we stay in here, the greater the chance Evelyn Gonzalez is going to pop in, and the next thing you know, we’re on TMZ.”
“Holden—”
“So we’d better make this quick. Before we run out of time.”
I rushed at him and kissed him. I met a brick wall, and then River’s stiff lips relented with a frustrated growl.
He let me in, kissing me back. Roughly. Desperately.
We grasped and grappled, waging an invisible war.
Lust and pain mingled as we crashed ourselves together while circumstance ripped us apart.
It doesn’t have to. He can change everything with one word.
But River was trapped in an impossible situation, and as much as it fucking killed me, it wasn’t up to me if he changed its course.
I knew that rationally, but the pain howled inside me anyway.
Like a storm gathering power with every passing second, transforming into reckless, manic energy that churned like a tornado to keep the cold away.
My kisses turned brutal. Biting. My hand slid lower over his shirt, down, coaxing his cock to an erection that strained against his jeans, just because I knew I could.
River groaned and brushed my hand away, even as he hauled me closer, clutching at me as if he didn’t want to let go.
But he will.
I untucked his shirt so I could get my hand inside the waistband of his jeans, to grip him and torture him. Punish him.
He caught my wrist.
“Holden…”
His words turned into a hiss of pain as I bit down into the hard rope of muscle between his neck and shoulder. He cursed and shoved me back.
“What the hell?” He put his fingers to the indentation I’d left with my teeth and glared at me in a mix of hurt and disbelief.
I stared back, breathing hard, a mirthless smile curling my lips. They whispered behind my back that I was a vampire, and now I’d marked River as mine. Except the bruise on his neck would eventually fade, and no one would know I’d been there.
River’s anger melted, and he moved toward me. “Holden…”
I stepped out of reach. “We’ve been here too long. It’s time to go.”
Without waiting for a response, I turned and walked out into the too-bright sun. Violet McNamara was walking toward us and froze, the phone going slack in her hand to see me with River following after.