“Hey, man.”
“Yesss,” he drawled, spinning on his heel to face me, his coat flaring around him. I was almost glad it was winter. Now his outfits made sense and weren’t a constant reminder of the horrors he’d suffered.
Today he looked goddamn devastating in a slate gray turtleneck sweater, black pants, and a long gray tweed coat. But then he always looked devastating. His very existence was a challenge to my willpower.
“How have you been?” I asked.
“Great. Never better.” He managed a dry smile. “Congrats on the big win.”
“Yeah, thanks.” I jammed my hands in my letterman jacket pockets. “So…have you put in college applications?”
“We’re doing small talk now, are we?”
“I don’t know. Better than not talking at all. Isn’t it?”
He regarded me for a moment and then lounged against the wall. “I’m not going to college.”
“What do you plan on doing after we graduate?”
“Disappear.”
A chill swept through me. “What does that mean?”
“I’m going to travel,” Holden said. “Or not. I haven’t really planned it beyond getting my inheritance from my parents and having nothing to do with them ever again.”
“With your smarts, you could have your pick of colleges. Hell, you probably could’ve had three advanced degrees by now. Or teach somewhere.”
“Can you really see me at the front of a classroom? Grading papers and holding office hours like a regular schmuck?”
I crossed my arms. “Yeah. I can.”
He studied me as if trying to decide if I were kidding or not, then shook his head, his voice low. “It’s not in the cards for me this time around.”
I leaned against the wall beside him but not too close. “Do your parents ever try to contact you?”
“No. Which is preferred. They’ve done enough damage, don’t you think?”
“I don’t think you’re damaged.”
“You don’t know me very well.” His piercing green eyes bored into mine, a challenge. Daring me to recall everything that happened between us that night at the pool.
As if I could forget.
“What about you?” he asked. “Have you decided which lucky university you’ll grace with your presence?”
“Got it narrowed down to a few. Texas A&M or Alabama, probably.”
“That will make Dad proud.”
“Yeah, it will,” I said, giving him a hard stare, daring him to remember how I’d told him things about my life I hadn’t told anyone.
He looked away quickly, the hostile expression softening. “Sorry. It’s none of my business.”
“I made it your business.”
“True. You made a lot of things my business that night,” he said with an arch look and brushed his thumb across his lower lip.
I laughed even as my skin heated. Jesus, I couldn’t stop staring at this guy who looked like a goddamn work of art, his body concealed in expensive clothes, waiting to be unwrapped.
“What will you do with all your free time now that the season’s over?” Holden asked.
“Spend more time at the shop. I was thinking about suggesting to my dad we expand the business to do car restoration.”
“Making old, broken down shit shiny and new?”
“I like to think of it more as bringing them back to life.”
“Sounds like a noble endeavor. Do you think he’ll go for it?”
“Probably not.” Holden started to speak but I cut him off. “Things are good right now. Mom’s better. We all thought this was going to be a very different kind of Christmas. Like, un-fucking-bearable. But it’s…good.”
“And you want to keep it that way.”
“Yeah. I do.”
“So why, River Whitmore, do you keep talking to me?”
“Because…” My jaw worked.
Because I can’t stop thinking about you. While I’m driving. At practice. In class. In my bed at night…
“Because I want us to be friends. Or at least not ignore each other in class.”
Friends was such a weak word to describe the maddening swirl of emotion I felt for Holden Parish. But it’s the best I can do.
“Friends,” Holden said as if the word amused him.
“Look,” I said, lowering my voice. “We said a lot of shit to each other that night. And again when I called you from the hospital. You could’ve just hung up on me and I would’ve deserved it. But you didn’t and that means something, okay? I don’t want to pretend like we don’t know each other after everything we talked about. I can’t do it.”
He considered this for a moment. “You don’t want to be friends with me,” he said finally. “I’m not a nice person.”
“How about you let me worry about that?”
His voice grew sharp. “Is that what you really want? For us to be pals? You going to invite me to hang out with your buddies on Saturday night to talk about girls and football?”
“No, but…” I sighed, ran a hand through my hair.
Holden faced forward again, his jaw tight. The bell clanged through a thick and heavy silence.
“All right, well… I gotta go,” I said, pushing off the wall. “See you around, I guess.”
Except we wouldn’t. Next semester our classes would change, and we wouldn’t have Calculus anymore. This was the end of whatever we were.
“River.”
I turned.
“I’m glad your mom is better.”
Six words in a soft tone and my stupid heart sank deeper into his green eyes.
“Careful, Parish,” I said, smiling like a dope. “That sounded pretty fucking nice to me.”
That night we ordered pizza. Dad, Amelia, and I watched Mom eat two slices without letting on that we noticed, smiling into our plates. Dazia had gone back to Washington DC, ready to fly back in a moment’s notice if we needed her. As much as I appreciated everything she did for us, I was glad it
