I stopped in front of his bookshelves. Classics shared space with modern stuff I’d never heard of, plus volumes of poetry, Greek plays, Latin dictionaries, and at least three encyclopedia sets.
“You’ve read all these?” I asked. “Even the encyclopedias?”
Holden approached with two IPAs and handed me one. He was standing close to me; I could feel the heat emanating from his skin. I took a deep pull of cold beer.
“You can’t be a writer and not read,” he said. “To put it in automotive terms you might appreciate, writing is driving the car and reading is refilling the tank.”
“Sounds about right. What’s your favorite?”
Holden set his bottle down—I was glad he was drinking just beer tonight—and pulled out a huge, floppy softcover book from the shelf.
“Calvin and Hobbes? Are you kidding?”
“I never kid about Calvin and Hobbes.” Holden flipped through the collection of comics about a young boy and his stuffed tiger. “This isn’t just a comic strip. This is a philosophy manual on human nature. It just so happens to use snowman monsters and imaginary rocket ships to illustrate its point.”
“Okay, what makes it your favorite?”
“Because I like things that seem simple on the surface but are complicated and deep if you examine them up close. Like you. You’re like Superman who never takes off his Clark Kent costume. How many of your so-called meathead friends know you read Joseph Heller? Or that you know how to find derivatives using the chain rule?”
“I don’t go shouting it from the rooftops.” I shot him a dry look. “Or tap dance on dining room tables.”
“Because you don’t need to,” he said. “And don’t get pissy, I’m paying you a compliment. I’d give anything to have a steady mind instead of…” He waved a hand in the general vicinity of his head. “This.”
I sipped my beer, washing down the anger for all the people who’d made him feel less than he was.
He scrutinized my gaze. “Throwing me a pity party? Don’t.”
“I’m not. I feel sorry for your parents. They fucked up. Hard.”
Holden’s pale skin warmed and he looked away, no snappy comeback. Before I could let myself think, I took the beers out of our hands, and I cupped his jaw like I had the night at the pool. Only this time I was deliberate. This was not a stolen timeout from real life where we could blame the heat of the moment.
He let me turn his face to mine and I kissed him. Deeply. Thoroughly. Kissing him just to kiss him because if nothing else happened but that, I’d be happy.
I felt Holden sink into the kiss, leaning against me, letting me prop him up. A groan rumbled out of my chest at how the earth fell into perfect alignment when I was with him.
Holden breathlessly wrenched his mouth from mine. “That’s not keeping it casual.”
He brushed my hand aside and crashed his mouth against mine, igniting the heat that was constantly simmering between us. It exploded in a white-hot blaze that began where our mouths were crushed together and surged through my entire body. We kissed as if we were starved for each other; the hard, biting kisses that he preferred.
Holden lifted my sweater off while I pushed the robe off his shoulders and tore at his shirt, wanting skin. To see and touch him but careful not to lose myself in the moment. To be there with him.
He let me pull his shirt over his head and my breath caught at the sight of so much smooth skin over lean muscle, honed to perfection. Not as big as me, but strong. Strong enough to take whatever I had to give.
And what is that? What is happening…?
“Wait, wait…” I breathed, my forehead leaning against his.
In that small space between us, Holden’s eyes were warm. “We can slow down. I keep forgetting your new at this.”
“So do I,” I said. “I don’t want to get carried away and regret it later.”
“Regret for getting carried away is the best kind. But we don’t have to do anything. I think my aunt and uncle left some board games here. We can have a rousing game of Parcheesi—”
I kissed him to shut him up. To slow everything down and let us catch our breaths. I let my mouth move over his gently, while my hands slipped around his back.
“So that’s a no on the Parcheesi…”
“Let’s go to your room.”
Outside, the storm was waking up. Silvery light streaming in between lashes of rain at the windows was the only illumination as we reached for each other in the dark, making our way to the bed. We lay on our sides, kissing and letting our hands roam.
“Are you nervous?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “I thought I’d be but I’m not.”
Just the opposite. Every kiss and touch was like reclaiming a piece of myself I’d broken off and given to my fake life.
“What do you want?” Holden whispered hotly against my neck. “You can do whatever you want to me.”
“I don’t want to do whatever I want. We should do what we want. What feels right.”
He pulled back to study my face as if he couldn’t believe I was real. As if no one had said something like that to him before. Worse, as if it had never occurred to him that he deserved to hear it.
“Don’t get all noble on me now.”
“I don’t feel noble,” I said. “I feel like ripping your clothes to shreds with my teeth.”
“Good God, man. What are you waiting for?”
I laughed a little and shook my head. “Not tonight.”
“What’s happening tonight?”
“I don’t know just…stop talking.”
I kissed him, pushing him back and lying over him. We tugged at
