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“Never. They’re the reason you’re in Santa Cruz and I’m here.”
“Doesn’t have to be this way.”
“Yes, it does. You’ve seen me at my worst.” I swallowed hard. “I’ve seen you in a banged-up car with blood trickling out of your ear.”
River’s fork clattered to his plate. “That accident was not your fault.”
“You don’t understand—”
“I do understand. It’s that goddamn conversion therapy, Holden. Every goddamn word of it was bullshit.”
“Logically, I know that. But it goes deeper than thought. What they did…it burrows down into the marrow of your bones so that you’re cold even when the sun is shining.” I blinked hard. “So when the person you love says he loves you too, the first inclination is to call him a liar. Your second is to run away. Your third is to fuck someone else. And your fourth is to drink and make it all go away.”
“How long can you do that for?”
“What’s the alternative? I was in a sanitarium for an entire year. Round-the-clock treatment. It didn’t help. Nothing will.”
“You deserve another try. You deserve a lot.”
“In the immortal words of Pretty Woman, the bad stuff is easier to believe. Especially when it’s been ingrained in me since birth. My parents have been telling me I’m a mistake since the day they learned who I was. You want to take that on?” I shook my head. “I won’t do that to you, River. I won’t force my mess on you.”
He looked as if he wanted to say something else but kept it to himself. We finished our meal over lighter talk. I had to practically wrestle him for the check, but we left the bistro with me victorious and River with a cute glower on his face.
We walked to his grubby little hotel, up four flights with no elevator. He unlocked a door that opened on a tiny room, hardly bigger than my closet at the Bristol.
“This is cozy,” I said, glancing around. “Where’s the bathroom?”
“Down the hall.” River smirked at my aghast expression. “It’s not Versailles but it works.”
A cutting joke came to my lips, but I was with River. The room could’ve been a literal hole in the ground and I’d never want to leave.
We stripped down to our underwear, me in a sleeveless T-shirt and boxers, and him in a plain white shirt and boxer briefs.
“How exactly is this going to work?” I asked. “The bed is small, and you cannot sleep on this dirty floor. I will not allow it.”
“We’ll both sleep on the bed. But that’s all we are doing. Sleeping.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’ve made it abundantly clear there will be no fucking.”
He smiled grimly. “I’m reminding myself.”
We lay side-by-side on the bed that was too small, River on his stomach, me on my back. He draped his arm over my chest. My arm curled under it, my fingers playing in his hair. Exhaustion weighed over me like a heavy coat.
“I don’t know what to do,” River said after a few moments, his voice heavy with sleep. “I want to help you, but I don’t know how.”
“Neither do I.”
“But I can tell you that if I didn’t have a car to restore, I’d be wrecked too. It helps to have something to work toward. Something real that’s not damn thinking.”
I inhaled. “An agent approached me a couple weeks ago. The night I sent you my journals, actually. He wants me to write a book.”
River lifted his head. “Holden… Shit, that’s amazing. Do that.”
“I can’t write a book.”
“You’ve already written a hundred books,” he said with a grin. “What’s one more?”
“Stop it,” I said. “If you smile like that at me one more time, I’m going to have to sleep on the floor. I won’t be able to keep from kissing you.”
