Chapter 23
BIG PAYDAY (CLEO)
Can it just be over?
I don’t know how I held back the tears when I gave Kit the textured project we’ve been working on. A thank-you wrapped in a guilt trip, I guess.
Missed rent money—but so what? I couldn’t imagine selling it off to a faceless buyer who’d never grasp the true meaning. They wouldn’t treasure it the way it deserves.
Kit will.
I also couldn’t imagine hanging on to it and staring at it until my eyes bleed. Remembering everything that happened in an old house in Portland during the biggest, happiest accident of my life.
Holden. Kit.
The way we felt like a family.
Even if it’s basically a tombstone for my feelings now, it belongs with them. I’d rather have Kit and her emotional wall of a father staring at that scene, remembering our time.
Now I’m on the charter jet to NYC, and with Kit gone, there are fewer reasons to hide the distance. It’s written in the silence between us.
Holden sits up front with the pilot, and I’m in the back. The rest of the plane yawns between us like a luxurious white prison.
The fireproof briefcase with the egg sits at my feet, safely locked up.
Holden didn’t even fuss when I insisted on carrying the secured suitcase one last time. After all, what could happen on the plane?
I pick up the briefcase and pull it on my lap, opening it with a press of my finger to the sensor. A green light flashes and the lock clicks.
I push the top open and stare inside with a sigh.
How can something so beautiful be so terrible?
The jeweled egg sits inside the velvet interior like an armed bomb. Glinting diamonds, layered white spiraling through deep sky blue and gold accents. It reminds me of kintsugi, the Japanese art of fixing broken items with gold. Their imperfections only make them more beautiful.
The thought makes my throat close bitterly.
Hesitantly, I trail my fingers along the smooth, textured surface.
I know I shouldn’t touch it, but eh.
This feels like the only time I’ll ever touch it before it’s behind glass for good.
Of course, I can visit the museum anytime, even during off hours for my own VIP visit. I don’t know if I ever will.
It might be the most stunning treasure I’ll ever see, but there’s a harsh gravity only I can sense.
A heaviness that runs straight to my heart. Bad energy and worse vibes.
I wonder if PopPop’s feelings with this object were ever half this complicated.
Sighing, I jerk my hand back, then slide the briefcase back on the floor. Holden watches me from his perch at the front of the plane.
I stare out the window, ignoring him.
Eventually, the tingling on the side of my neck eases, and I know he’s looked away again.
The crappy feeling lingers long after we land and grab our rental car. Gramps’ penthouse was supposedly too risky after the break-in at his house in Portland, so Holden picked a condo being rented out in a secure, but underwhelming building.
There are other cars flanking us, private security Holden brought in to make sure we’re absolutely protected in transit.
I should be grateful.
But I just keep thinking how relieved he’ll be to finish this and get rid of me.
Very soon, we’ll be going our separate ways.
This is it, and my heart fragments a little more with every breath.
The condo is a small, one-bedroom unit.
Somewhere he might’ve stayed before, back when he’d travel with Gramps. There’s a slight stagnant smell in the air, like the unit hasn’t been lived in for a while.
I miss the penthouse already, even if it’s loaded with bad memories now.
I sigh and head out to the small balcony so I can avoid Holden’s scent. His laundry, his musk, his woodsy cologne.
Outside, there are traffic fumes and smells from a bakery down the road cutting through the city’s busy stench.
Growling chaotic sounds in cars and horns and people. A lot of people.
The sun glints against the skyline, turning tall buildings into shadowy peaks, and I don’t know what I feel.
Peace, maybe, or as close to it as I can get. Acceptance.
I flop down in one of the flimsy chairs outside and close my eyes. There’s something almost calming about being surrounded by so much energy, like a pebble in a raging river.
This city never sleeps.
Then the door slides open, and Holden takes the chair beside me.
I force my eyes open and look over before I can help myself, trying not to smile at the way he has to fold himself awkwardly to fit in the small chair.
It groans under his weight and his lip curls with annoyance, wondering if he’ll break it.
His wrists hang loosely over his knees as he leans forward. The most uncomfortable seat ever and he’s pretending it isn’t.
Happier memories threaten to rupture my defenses. The last time we were in New York. The way we shared a bed and decided we weren’t the worst people on Earth.
The first kiss.
Why does it feel like it was ten years ago now?
The ache in my chest deepens, a definitive stabbing twang, like someone yanking on my heart and snapping it back into place like a rubber band.
“Hey,” he ventures.
“Hey, yourself.” I close my eyes again, turning my face to the sky.
“You okay?”
I don’t answer.
I can’t bring myself to answer until I look at him. He’s watching me, those Mojave brown eyes all dark desert dusk.
I swallow hard.
“What do you want, Holden?”
“Came to check on you. Is that a crime now?” He hesitates. “Also, I came to let you know I’ll take the couch tonight. Bedroom’s all yours, whenever you’re ready.”
I shrug.
It’s still daylight. Sort of.
But we do have an early morning and I’m exhausted. But if we’re sleeping alone, I already know I’ll be lucky to doze off for a few hours.
It’s crazy how he tortures me without even trying.
“Yeah, fine,” I whisper. “Thanks.”
Another long, killing pause.
“Look, Clee, I’m sorry about… Fuck.” He sighs. I wait, wondering if he’ll work his way down the whole list of disappointments. “This,” he finishes. “This friction between us.”
“Okay,” I say numbly. “You don’t need to—”
“I do. I never meant to hurt you. Not ever.” Regret sharpens in his voice. He leans forward, elbows on his knees, and I look at him.
Huge mistake.
His eyes glow, twin moons boring into mine. He’s trying to lighten the mood, maybe make me feel better, but it just makes my heart drop thirty floors down to the busy street.
There’s no flippant clapback left in me.
No pretending I’m untouched.
Holden did fucking hurt me, and it takes all my willpower to check my inner bitch and refrain from telling him exactly how much damage he did.
But that won’t help anything when we’re trying to get this done and part ways on good terms.
The silence stretches between us, breathless. Waiting.
I know he wants me to say something, to forgive him, but I feel like a shattered vase, too many scattered pieces to pull together again.
With a slow, scratchy breath, I say, “I don’t know what you want.”
He blinks at me.
I want to shake him.
Smack him in the face.
Scream until his eyes go wide and he stops thinking he owes me some kind of half-hearted apology.
A jealous, evil part of me wants to hurt him like he’s hurt me.
Impossible.
The dark things I want burn my tongue from holding them in.
“I just wanted you to hear it.” He leans back in his chair until it creaks. Finally, he looks away, and I can breathe again. “Thanks for giving Kit the 3D art. She loves it. I know you wanted to sell it, and if you want, I’ll pay you.”
“No, that’s why I left it for her.” I grip the arms of my chair. “It wasn’t for you, Holden,” I lie.
“Of course not,” he says quietly.
“Okay. So we’re clear.” I wait, but there’s nothing more coming.
He joins me, ruminating in the cityscape, losing a final piece of us as New York slowly lights up like a firefly swarm.
The yawning quiet blanketed by the street noise stokes my anger.
“So that’s it, then? You wanted to apologize, but that’s all I get? You’ve done your job and you cut me loose. No more loose ends.” I bite the inside of my cheek until I taste blood. “Does it make you feel better?”
When he looks at me with his eyes darker than ever, there’s an emptiness that scares me. A blank, dead expression that scorches my throat.
“What else is there, Miss Blackthorn?” he whispers, defeated. “It’s the only thing left. I wish you’d realize that.”
Miss Blackthorn.
We’re right back where we started, the hate-to-love-to-hate cycle complete.
I hold my raging breath in and study his face, features I once knew like the back of my hand.
Just a few weeks ago, I could have found him in total darkness. I traced the shape of his cheeks, his nose, his jaw.
Now he’s a stranger again. Alien and glacial.
“Whatever, take the couch. Good night, Holden.” I turn back to the deepening sunset.
He takes the hint, thank God.
The chair groans under his weight as he pushes off it.
I close my eyes, and a few blazing tears slide down my cheeks, instantly turned to cold rain by the chill breeze sweeping past the building.
“Good night, Clee,” he says from behind me.
Then the door slides shut again and I’m alone in my desolation.
Holden Verity might have given me the bed, but I wonder if he’ll ever give me a sound sleep again.
I must have blacked out once or twice. An hour here and there somewhere in the hazy, itchy hornet’s nest of my overloaded mind. I wake up with grit in my eyes and an exhaustion in my bones.
By the time I drag myself out of bed, I’m pissed and tired, deprived of his forest scent.
Everything about me feels deprived.
Even in a separate room behind a door I locked, I feel like he’s everywhere, and I can’t get enough of this terrible man-drug.
I drag my brush through my hair, gazing into a mirror that’s perched on the wall slightly too high to be comfortable, then throw on a blouse and pants I’ve packed for the occasion.
It only felt right to dress up a little, though there’s nothing to celebrate here.
Reluctantly, I open my door and walk into the living room, ready to face the most bittersweet day of my life.