“Why?”
“The thrill of it, mostly. And because I’ve only ever lived in a house and don’t know what a home looks like. And yours, River, is the homiest home to ever home.”
I sipped my beer to soothe the sudden ache in my throat. “Not for long.”
“How long is not long?” Holden asked softly.
“She’s a fighter so…a few months? Maybe.”
“I’m sorry. But I’m even more glad that I brought you here. You need a timeout. Whatever you want to call it. A break.”
I started to protest but he was right. I was tired. Mentally exhausted. I took another pull from my stolen beer. The tightness coiled in my muscles loosened and I settled into being here. With him.
A few minutes of easy silence passed. The night air was warm, even this close to the ocean. I loosened my tie and shook out of my tux jacket, while Holden seemed perfectly content in his heavy clothes.
“Aren’t you hot?” I asked.
“I thought it was obvious.”
I rolled my eyes. “You know what I mean. Maybe not now but what about during the day? When it’s pushing eighty.”
“No.”
“Okay, but…why?”
“Why do I dress like it’s winter? Because it always is.”
The words were dramatic but came out on a current of pain, and he drew his thick coat tighter around him.
“You want to talk about it?” I asked after a minute.
“Are you always like this?” he asked, perplexed. “This…nice? I’ve given you no reason to trust me or even like me and here you are.”
I grinned and took another sip of beer. “I’m still waiting on my apology.”
“Do you still need one?”
Or was I right?
I heard his unspoken question and sighed, toying with the label on my bottle. “I don’t know. That’s the story of my life—I Don’t Know.”
“How does it start?” Holden asked quietly.
“You really want to hear this?”
He held out his hands. “We’re here, aren’t we?”
I nodded and picked at the beer label, slowly peeling it off the glass, letting myself just talk.
“I’ve been eating, breathing, and sleeping football since I could get my hands around a ball. My dad was set to go pro, but an injury killed his career before it got started. He was devastated, so he poured all of his broken dreams into me. Pushed me to be the best. From Day One, the NFL was the only goal. Early on, I liked the game. Loved it, even. But it took over everything and I just…got lost.” I glanced up at Holden. “The question you asked me in the closet at Chance’s party?”
He nodded slowly.
“The answer is no one. Not even me.”
I peeled more label, careful not to tear any off from the whole.
“I was thirteen when Dad gave me the sex talk. Mostly warning me that if I got a girl pregnant, it would derail our plans. But he never asked me if I was interested in girls in the first place. It never occurred to him, so I didn’t know it could occur to me.” I hunched over the beer bottle, peeling. “It’s like everyone assumes we’re all built the same way—as if we have a default setting. If you’re different, you start to believe something’s wrong with you.”
Holden nodded. “I know what you mean.”
The twinge in his voice told me there was a story there too—and not a good one. But he was waiting for me to continue. Letting me talk when I’d never talked this much about anything before.
I kept peeling. The label was nearly off.
“Once, when I was fourteen, I was hanging out with a buddy of mine. I found myself watching how he laughed, how his mouth moved when he talked. Whenever he touched me—if our hands brushed or whatever—it went straight through me. Like electricity. But no one had to tell me that you can’t have those kinds of feelings and play football.”
“Football has a default setting,” Holden said.
My eyes shot up to his, relief and gratitude flooding me that someone else got it. That I wasn’t crazy. The solidity of my life cracked a little but refused to break.
“Yeah, and to try to change it is impossible, so I played along. I dated girls a few times but never had those same reactions so I just…shut down. Refused to question it.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m questioning everything. All the time. Which is totally your fault.”
“I’m totally okay with that,” Holden said. “In every possible way.”
The few feet of space between us thickened and grew heavy. His gaze, fiery hot under all that ice, watched me, promising answers. All I had to do was ask…
I tore my eyes off of him and shook my head. “It’s too late.”
“Why?”
“Because my mom is dying.”
The label came off, whole and curling on itself and I tore it to shreds, my heart tearing along with it. “My father turned his dream into my future, and now he’s losing the love of his life. My career is the only thing that makes him happy. It gives back something he lost. If he knew I wanted a different life, it’d destroy him.”
“Quite the predicament,” Holden said, though there was no mocking in his tone. Only a heaviness, as if he felt the weight of it too. “And what does your different life look like?”
“You’ll think it’s dumb. Or cheesy.”
“Try me.”
“In the offseason, I work at our family’s auto body shop. I want to do it full time and eventually take over the business and stay in Santa Cruz. I love this town. I want to have a home and…raise a family. Somehow.”
Holden stared at me for long moments; then he downed the
