Chapter 29 Holden
Twenty-Nine
Holden
He’s here. He came.
I couldn’t stop staring at River as we walked down the boulevard.
River looked as ruggedly beautiful as ever in jeans, boots, and a worn leather jacket over a tight T-shirt.
But his body was bigger, stronger. I’d felt the power in it when he held me.
I could’ve lived in that embrace forever, wrapped in his safety.
But River’s eyes were heavy with grief and exhaustion, his shoulders hunched as if he were carrying a heavy burden.
He is. His grief and that of his sister and father. I’d bet my worthless life on it.
But despite that, he was here because I’d cheated and selfishly undisappeared myself.
A moment of weakness. I didn’t even remember sending him my journals, but when the morning came two weeks ago and the trunk was gone, I knew exactly what I’d done.
And why. Those journals were me. He was so far away, so I hurled myself at him—sending him every word of my heart because I was too chickenshit to go back myself.
We walked in silence to one of my favorite cafés. As with almost all cafés in Paris, this one spilled its seating onto the sidewalk, with little tables for two and pairs of wicker chairs facing the street to watch the scene. Paris was too damn beautiful to not be looked at, and the city knew it.
We took a table at the end of the first row with unobstructed views. River pulled his chair away from mine to face me instead of sitting adjacent.
“I can’t talk to you sitting like that.”
I nodded. Side by side, our thighs touching, our shoulders inches apart, all we’d have to do is turn our heads, and his mouth would be on mine…
I crossed my legs and lit a Djarum as the waiter came by.
“Un kir, s’il vous pla?t,” I said. “River?”
My heart tripped over his name, saying it to him for the first time in almost a year.
“Any beer, I guess.”
“Une bière pression, je n’ai pas de préférence.”
The waiter dropped two coasters and left.
“Neither of us is twenty-one,” River said. “They don’t care?”
“God bless the French. The drinking age is eighteen. Besides, do you feel nineteen years old?” I asked. “Nineteen to the tenth power, maybe. I don’t know about you, but I’m fucking exhausted.”
“Yeah, I guess. It’s been rough.” He tapped the coaster on the little table. “So you live in a hotel now?”
“Not just the one. I’ve lived in hotels in Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Budapest, London, and now Paris again.”
“Why not just buy a place?”
“Why would I do that? The beauty of hotel living is that it comes with all the furniture, and they bring you food.” I tapped ash into the little ashtray between us. “Not to mention I’ve never been much of a home dweller.”
River didn’t smile. “I was going to ask you how you’ve been, but I think I have an idea.”
“How many journals of mine did you read?”
“Not many. I don’t think you sent them for me to read.”
“Is that a fact?” I asked, trying to keep my cold front up while River’s innate warmth and kindness were working to melt it down. “That’s interesting, given I don’t know why I sent them.”
“You sent them because you want help.”
“Says you,” I sniffed. “Maybe I was testing the efficiency of the French postal service.”
“Holden…”
The waiter returned and placed my drink—blackberry liqueur in white wine—on the table beside River’s sturdy glass of beer.
For some dumb reason, that juxtaposition was stark and punched me in the chest. How badly I missed him crashed over me so hard I was amazed I didn’t fall out of my chair.
But this wasn’t fair to him. I’d cheated, broken my own rules meant to protect him.
He can’t be here. His family needs him.
My defense mechanism shifted from aloof to asshole.
“Look at you and your beer,” I said, shaking my head, my voice dripping with derision. “You stick out like a sore thumb. A big, dumb American in your jeans and scuffed boots and your unstylish jacket.”
River’s eyes widened, then darkened. “I don’t actually give a shit what people think. And you’re American too, in case you forgot.”
“I look the part,” I said, gesturing at my clothes. “I can speak the language. You don’t belong here. If I took you to one of my parties…”
If I took River to a party, he’d stand out in every way that mattered.
Current tragedies in the world would make the rounds like a waiter with a tray of hors d’oeuvres.
The people would nibble on genocide or war or famine, chew it up, and spit it out like an olive pit.
But River would actually care. He wouldn’t shake his head solemnly or quote some blog post and then forget all about it the second someone came by with champagne.
River would give a shit, and goddamn, I love this big dumb American.
“I don’t want to go to one of your parties,” River said darkly. “In fact, that’s the last fucking thing I want to do.”
“What do you want?”
“To help. Or… I don’t know, Holden. I don’t know what the hell to do.”
“Sounds familiar,” I said into my glass. “I don’t know was always your thing.”
“Why are you being such a prick?” he spat, his voice and eyes hard. River leaned across the small table. “I came all this way. Say one fucking thing to me that’s honest. One fucking thing.”
I opened my mouth, a bitchy comeback on my lips, then snapped it shut. My throat had gone dry. I tossed back the rest of my drink, the bite stinging the back of my throat, making my eyes water.
“I’m glad you’re here.”
River’s hard expression softened, his forgiveness instant. “Me too.”
His hand reached to cover mine, and I wanted to cry. Our fingers twined together, and we sat quietly, watching the people pass. I held perfectly still, not wanting to move for fear of breaking the perfect moment or losing the feel of his skin on mine.
But the waiter came back, and River withdrew his hand self-consciously and finished his beer.
“La même chose?”
I started to say yes when I felt River’s eyes on me.
“Non, merci,” I said, and the waiter left. “How long are you here?”
“Not sure,” River said with a pointed gaze: That depends on you. “I can’t stay long. My dad’s sleepwalking through life, and my sister’s not going to graduate from high school unless I drive her there every morning.”
“And the business?”
“Not bad, actually. I’m keeping it afloat.” He smiled ruefully. “Like a juggling act that never ends.”
I nodded. Just as I suspected, Nancy’s death had blown the Whitmore family to bits, and it was left to River to sweep up the pieces and put them back together.
If I’d stayed, I’d only have added to his burden. I still would.
“Come on,” I said, rising from my chair and throwing a twenty-euro note on the table. “You need to see more of Paris than this street corner. I’ll take you on my daily route. This was breakfast.”
“It’s one in the afternoon.”
“Don’t be judgy. It’s not sexy.”
His frown deepened, and I saw his thoughts drift back to my hotel room and my bed that wasn’t empty. I started walking, distracting him and forcing him to catch up.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“Church.”
I hailed a cab, and we took it to the center of Paris, to ?le de la Cité, the small island in the Seine River that housed Notre-Dame. We got out of the cab and crossed a footbridge to the plaza in front of the cathedral, then made our way inside.
We stepped in the cool confines, and River took in the arched ceilings, the alcoves of statues, altars, and tables filled with little candles in cups—some burning, some waiting to be lit.
“You come here every day?” River asked quietly.
I nodded. “I’m as shocked as you are that lightning doesn’t strike me as soon as I cross the threshold. But in my experience, God’s always had a twisted sense of humor.”
“Why do you come?”
“I light a candle for your mom. And for Beatriz. For my aunt and uncle. And you sometimes. When I’m feeling particularly brave that I won’t be struck down for my hypocrisy.”
We went to a table of candles. I dropped a fifty-euro note in the alms box and took one of the wooden sticks. I held it to an already-lit candle and lit a new one. I felt River’s eyes on me, blue and deep and soft.
“What about you?” River asked.
“The candles aren’t for yourself. It’s a kind of prayer for someone else.”
River nodded and held a stick to one flame, passed it to another until it caught, and then blew out the stick. His eyes held mine softly in the darkened cathedral, the hushed voices and footsteps of other visitors fading around us.
A peculiar sensation coursed through me, of being touched by his gesture and wanting him so badly at the same time.
That was the problem with River Whitmore—he was eminently fuckable and lovable in equal parts.
Instead of keeping the two desires separate, they twined and fused in me, doubling my pathetic desperation.
“Come on,” I said gruffly. “There’s something else I want to show you.”
Before I jam my tongue down your throat in front of the Virgin Mary.
I led River across another footbridge to the other side of the Seine and into the Latin Quarter with its narrow cobblestone walks and medieval churches. We stepped inside Shakespeare and Company, a bookstore that had a small café out front with a view of Notre-Dame.
“Very cool,” River said, strolling the cramped, multilevel store, craning his neck up to the high bookshelves with the same reverence he’d shown at Notre-Dame.
“I thought you’d appreciate it.”
River smiled, and we parted ways for a bit, perusing the shelves.
I mulled a few titles but mostly watched River from afar as he moved his big body between narrow aisles, his jeans tight around his perfect ass.
He was potent virility wrapped in kindness.
Masculine perfection with a heart as deep as…
“The Grand Canyon,” I murmured.
I met up with him in a corner of the bookstore where two tall shelves came together, a small table in front. He held a book open, reading intently.
“What’d you find?” I asked. “Anything good?”