HOLDEN #2
I exhale and shuffle my feet against the worn carpet. Aris sings something loud and obnoxious, but I keep my attention on Korie. I need to say this right, so they believe me.
“I wanted to see you. To… explain, I mean.”
Korie hardly seems surprised. But they’re clearly hurt, shoulders curled inward. “Why you left, you mean.”
My heart sinks, but there’s no denying it. No accusation. Just a fact… colored in pain.
“That’s not—” I stop, dragging a hand over the back of my neck. “That’s not what it looked like.”
Their jaw ticks, and a flash of anger appears in their eyes before it’s gone. Like this is something they’ve heard a thousand times before. “Kinda seemed that way.”
“Korie.”
I take a step closer, but when I reach for them, they fold their arms, tilting their chin. Shit, I really screwed up.
“What I’m trying to say is… I didn’t leave because of what I saw. At least, not how you’re thinking.”
“Then why did you?”
Because my brain short-circuited.
Because I suddenly couldn’t think about anything except you.
Because all of this isn’t neutral anymore, and I don’t know what to do with that.
I don’t say any of that. I go with the only version I can actually get out.
“It just… hit differently, you know?”
Korie frowns slightly, hugging their arms tighter.
“I saw you and my brain got loud.”
“Loud?”
“Yeah.” I tap my temple. “I noticed a bunch of stuff all at once and didn’t know where to put it.”
Their gaze sharpens. “Because of the underwear?”
“No. I meant it got loud… about you,” I say. Heat rushes up my neck, but I push on before I can overthink it. “I’ve known you wear stuff like that for a while. That’s not new. But seeing it—seeing you with it—it just… it wasn’t nothing anymore, Kor.”
There’s a long pause.
Korie’s arms loosen, but they don’t drop completely. The pain in their eyes never lessens. It almost intensifies. Like they’d expected this. “So you see me in a new way and your first instinct is to bolt?”
“Yeah. I mean no! Not like that. Not how you’re thinking. I left because I didn’t know what to do with it. Not because it was a problem.” I touch their arm, relieved when they don’t pull away. “It’s not a problem, Kor. It never has been.”
It’s not a lie—except it also is. It’s a big problem now. Damn my traitorous body.
“The problem is me. I’m the one being weird about it.”
Korie cracks a tiny smile, raising their brows as if to say, ya think?
I groan. “I’m not saying this right.”
“Just tell me what you mean, Holden. Because all I saw was you running away after seeing me with a pair of women’s underwear.” The hurt tone reminds me this is not the first time someone reacted that way.
“That’s exactly it.” I take another step closer without crowding them. “I’ve known about it for years, but it didn’t… affect me before today. It just clicked something inside of me, you know? Made me… see you differently.” My cheeks get hot again.
Korie barely moves, eyes still darting between mine.
“You hear what I’m saying?”
“I’m trying to,” they say.
“I saw you holding them and all I knew was something’s different now. Really different. So we should do it again.”
Korie blinks. “I’m sorry, do… what exactly?”
I jerk my chin toward the door. “Let’s go out again.”
The pause as they process what I said is almost comical.
“Oh my God. You’re giving me whiplash, Holden.”
I hold a hand up. “I mean it. I want to take you out again.”
Their brows pull together. “Why, though?”
They’re clearly on edge now. Protective. And I can’t even blame them. One second I’m running away from them in the women’s lingerie department, and the next I’m asking them out on a date.
But no. I’ve been thinking about this since before today. I just didn’t quite understand it until now. This isn’t a strange new curiosity about Korie. It’s desire. Real, honest desire.
I want them.
I swallow hard. “Because I really enjoyed the first one,” I say softly. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and I want to do it again.”
Korie goes very still. Their eyes drop for a second, and they turn away, thinking. When they look up again, they pause, as if trying to understand where all this is coming from.
“Would it still be fake?”
I don’t answer right away, too afraid to say what I really want to.
“It can be, if that’s what you want.”
Korie doesn’t react, giving me no clue what they’re thinking. They exhale slowly, as if weighing something. Maybe trying to decide if they can trust me with their most true self. They always have, but after today, we both know there are parts of each other we’ve kept private.
I really, really want to know those parts of Korie. But they have to trust me with them first.
Finally, after a long few seconds, they nod. “Okay. Yeah.”
A grin breaks out over my face. “Yeah?”
Korie smiles. “Yeah. I’ll go on a date with you.”
I place my other hand on their arm, resisting the urge to pull them in for a hug. “Okay. Good. I just—I don’t know when yet. Let me figure out the details. But soon. I want to go soon.”
Korie nods. “Okay.”
Neither of us moves, but the air is different now. A little more relaxed, thank God.
Now if I can only keep from screwing this up again.