“Yes! God yes! A hundred-thousand times—yes!” Holden nodded his head so hard it bobbed. “Of course, I am. I’m the brain-damaged idiot who finally had the girl I wanted and let my stupidity stand in the way. I’m the fool who saw a picture of her with a gay guy and lost my shit! I’m the same jackass who found out it was a misunderstanding and hauled ass to stalk you here and stop you from sleeping with…with that…”
“Other gay guy.” Mary Allison’s tone was casual.
Holden gasped in relieved delight. He turned to meet her gaze, his grin stretching across his face. “Really, Redmond doesn’t want to hook up?”
“Pfft.” She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “Oh no, he absolutely wants to hook up…with Donnie. Wanted to since high school but never had the nerve. He was asking me to pave the way.” She pursed her lips and snickered.
“I’m so glad.”
She ran a finger down the side of his face, her green eyes glimmering before she turned around. “Help me with my zipper.”
“What?” Holden’s heart pounded.
“Well, we can leave it on but don’t rip my dress.” She looked over her shoulder, her eyes darkening as her pupils dilated while her cheeks flushed. She looked amazing.
He lifted an eyebrow. “Why Mary Allison Applegate, are you propositioning me in a girls’ locker room?”
“Isn’t that what you came all the way here for?”.
“No, not at all.” He shook his head, his eyes growing large as he eyed her.
Chapter Ten
Mary Allison knitted her eyebrows and balled up her fists. “I will slap the taste right out of your mouth if you keep jerking me around. I’m not here for your sadistic amusement.”
He lurched his head back. “What?”
Huffing, she threw up her hands. “You fucker! Please enlighten me as to why you barged into my high school reunion and embarrassed me?” The tears she had been struggling to hold back streamed down her cheeks.
Holden sat down beside her and took both her hands. “Please don’t cry. I came here for you, not for a fling at your old alma mater.”
“This place was hardly a nourishing mother,” she scoffed as she pulled one hand away and then wiped her cheek with the back.
“What?” Holden seemed thrown for a loop.
“Latin…alma mater, never mind,” she answered with a wave of her hand, recognizing her geek-slip was showing. “I don’t understand you or know what you’re after.”
“You! I want you. I have for so long…and not just for tonight but for a hundred-thousand-times-a-hundred nights. That’s why I got scared and pulled away when I thought you had something going on with Donnie. I like you too much to have a one-nighter with you. I have to know you’re all in.” His eyes glimmered with passion.
She tilted her head, impressed by his sincere expression and body language. “I’ve been all in from the beginning.” She looked off to the side, twirling a piece of her hair.
He leaned in closer, placing his hand under her chin so she’d look at him. “Are you sure?”
Nervous energy twisted and turned in her tummy as if a hose turned on full blast has been let loose inside. She pulled her face away and touched her bottom lip. He’s already hurt her once, and she hadn’t even expected him to be so invested. Now he wanted her to put her to commit to something serious. She rubbed her head, a barrage of flings and casual dates rolling through her memories. Those times had been fun and exciting, but she never had to put her heart on the line. Except for Donnie, Mary Allison had never trusted anyone that much.
“I-I don’t know if I can…um.” She took a step back, palming her neck. “You see, I’ve had some issues with betrayal…my mother, father, even my sister turned their backs on me because I wouldn’t turn mine on Donnie. Aside from him, most of my relationships—past and present—are kind of shallow.”
“I know.” Holden held her in his gaze, never flinching.
“You know?” She tossed her hair to the side while throwing him a skeptical side-glance.
“Yeah, I understand you better than you might think. You and I are a lot alike.” He took a step closer.
“And how is that?” She folded her arms over her chest.
She watched as he pulled something out of the inside pocket of his jacket. “I carry this around a lot…always open to this page.”
Examining the object, Mary Allison recognized the faded illustration on the page of a worn and well-used copy of one of her graphic novels. As Holden unfolded the book and smoothed out the page he had marked, she trembled, her heart skipping a beat. She bit down on her bottom lip as she remembered the agony of putting the scene on paper. In order to expose the desolate emptiness and desperate longing her main character, Kat, felt in those pages she had been forced to strip naked a hidden part of herself in front of the whole world. Then a few pages later, she had turned around and the story so Kat received what Mary Allison had always wanted for herself but had never found.
She sucked in her breath remembering those dark few days of locking herself away from the world and immersing herself in the character while drawing until her fingers ached, barely eating or sleeping. By the time she had finished, she’d emerged in need of
