Chapter 11 #2
I wouldn’t have let myself fly too close to the sun.
“You need aspirin?” he asks, his voice like gravel.
“I’m fine.”
“If you’re not feeling good, tell me.”
Yes, Holden. I’m feeling something because I accidentally kissed you and now you barely look at me. Is there a pill for that?
I stare at him until I can’t.
He nods stiffly and lets it go.
Small relief, I lie.
But when we get to the airport and head into the lounge, waiting for our jet, he scares up a bottle of water and a little travel aspirin pack.
“Here,” he growls. “If this won’t cut it, I’ll find something that will. No good reason you need to fly sick.”
My heart skips.
I shouldn’t be feeling anything at the thought that Holden Verity might care. What does it matter anyway?
Except, obviously it does. It matters because—
Shit.
“Thanks. I appreciate it.” I do my best to smile, but the skin of my face feels too tight.
He grunts and walks away, the suitcase holding the egg still swinging from his hand like it’s chained to him.
I stare at him for a beat too long before finally picking up my own bag and following him to the plane.
Once we’re on board, he takes the jump seat and shuts himself away in the cockpit with the pilots. I find a seat, knowing that when he comes out, he’ll want to sit as far away from me as possible.
No objection.
But my nose stings a little as I force a smile at the nice flight attendant who brings me a menu with small snacks and sandwiches and tells me to let her know if there’s anything I need.
She mentions something about delays back in Portland, which might add an extra hour to the flight until we can land.
I thank her and prepare to nap, leaning back against the seat.
As I predicted, Holden sits as far away from me as possible once he emerges, occasionally tapping on his laptop.
I drift off restlessly, only waking up when we land a couple hours later with a slight bump. To my relief, my headache fades.
Holden remains a world away on the other side of the cabin.
I glug down another small water bottle and brace for another awkward ride back to Gramps’ empty mansion.
There’s a bright moon rising as we deboard and he gets his car. His strong hands clench the steering wheel until his knuckles bulge.
I try not to stare at those punishing hands. I really do. I don’t need a reminder of what they can do.
“Feeling better?” he asks.
“Mm, yeah. I got a nap in.”
“Good call.”
I wonder if he’s just relieved I passed out so he didn’t have to deal with me and this tense, needle-coated wall of silence between us. So he didn’t have to think about the annoying little girl who baited him into a colossal mistake.
Frustration stirs angry butterflies in my belly.
Neither of us say another word on the ride back to the house. With a werewolf moon high overhead and the eerily calm water offshore, Gramps’ old place feels completely vacant like never before.
The second we’re through the door, Holden immediately carries the egg down to the basement vault. I wander up to my room.
Then I pull out my sketch pad and go to work, attacking the blank paper.
It’s my only hope to rewire my brain tonight. There are too many emotions trapped inside and they need to come out in stark, slashing lines.
Later, when he knocks softly at the door, I jump.
“Dinner. I would’ve called you down to the kitchen, but I figured you were busy,” he says, pushing open the door to slide a plate with pasta inside.
Rigatoni noodles and some kind of Bolognese sauce. Nothing fancy, but my stomach growls anyway.
“Thanks, Holden.” I nod gratefully and disappear.
I scarf it down, grateful I don’t have to dance around him watching me over a table where he gets to see what a messy eater I am when I’m starving.
Night falls.
I hear him making the rounds, just like old times, securing the entire house.
Every time he passes by my door, I lift my head. I imagine I’m brave enough to charge out there and confront him.
Enough of this. We need to talk about what happened, I’d say.
No, we don’t, he’d say.
If you’re mad, you can tell me. It’s healthier than keeping it all bottled up.
He’d deny it, of course, and growl back something about how I’m being dramatic.
But would he ever admit to seeing me differently? Ever since this little treasure hunt tossed us together?
Another voice in my head warns me that’s unfair.
He’s probably more disgusted and ashamed than I am. He kissed a girl he practically used to babysit. I’m hardly mature enough to warrant more than a basic, brutish attraction.
That shouldn’t hurt so much.
He’s a lot older and wiser than I am, supposedly. Definitely more experienced.
He has a freaking half-grown daughter.
Somehow, the single dad thing makes him a bigger, darker, dumber sin.
But also, so what?
So fucking what if we had a little manic burst and I roped him into showing some real, human emotion?
It’s not apocalyptic.
I’ve kissed plenty of boys. I bet he’s had his share of women, too.
Kit proves he’s had sex at least once.
Nope. Do not think about that man making babies.
Ugh.
My brain loves intrusive thoughts of the sexy kind like nobody’s business. It especially loves indulging the image of him buried inside me, pinning me to the bed, baring his teeth and filling me with his seed until I scream.
Holy shit, this is torture.
We need to get over this. We need to sit down and talk it out like adults so we can move on.
But every time his firm, strong footsteps sweep past my door, I stay silent. Buried beneath the covers, quietly fuming like the anxiety-eaten little coward I am.
Because there’s still one thing I fear more than Holden shredding my heart again by telling me I’m being ridiculous.
If he admits kissing me disgusted him. My ego couldn’t take the hit.
It’s one thing for him to think it was a crime of passion. But if things get personal, if he tells me that he still sees me as this immature little girl after everything…
Well.
These things matter in my very fickle, very confused, still grieving brain.
So, fine.
Instead of marching out there with a brave face and telling Moody McMiserable we’re behaving like grown-ups, I hide in my room. I grab my pad again and start drawing a tinman-like Holden clutching the Hera Egg over his empty chest.
It’s just a cartoony sketch, hardly serious and not my best effort, but it makes some part of me feel better.
After I’ve drawn a few stormy feelings out, I set my stuff on the table and close my eyes. Old habit.
I used to do this when I was a little girl and Dad would stumble home drunk. He’d barge in late and yell at me the second my sitter left, after another critic called his stuff juvenile, derivative, uninspired.
I’d get my feelings out on paper before they chewed me to pieces from the inside out. Spiders under the skin.
I couldn’t escape in that house.
I couldn’t stand up to him.
I was too young to grasp his malfunctions or even my own feelings.
The art was always there. My one lovely constant, my shelter against the storm.
It saved me then and it’ll save me now.
If Holden’s grumpy, bitter ass wants to tiptoe around heartache, I’ll cut myself open. I’ll bleed sharp lines on paper he’ll never see.
Self-directed therapy.
If I can push him out of my system like snake venom just tonight, we might rediscover old boundaries without uttering a word.
I just have to keep him from following me into my dreams and haunting me forever.