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“Wait,” I said as Holden removed his jacket and shoes. “What are we doing?”
“I just told you. We’re taking a nap.”
“Don’t fuck with me, Holden. I mean, what are you doing here? I haven’t heard a word from you in two years and I’m feeling a little fucking raw right now. Honestly, I don’t know what I can handle. If you’re just going to take off again—”
“I’m not, I swear it,” he said quietly. “But you’re literally swaying on your feet. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know but please lie down before you fall down.”
I stripped down to my boxers, my limbs feeling like they weighed a hundred pounds each. We climbed into bed facing each other.
“I missed your face,” I said tiredly. “But I’m afraid if I close my eyes…”
Pain flashed over Holden’s features. “I know. I wanted to call you every day—every fucking second—over the last two years, but I had some work to do.”
“Like what? Aside from writing a critically-acclaimed bestseller.”
Holden didn’t smile. “I’ve been sober for two years. I found a therapist I click with. I go to meetings.”
“You quit drinking?” My sluggish brain tried to process all of this. “Damn, that’s amazing. I’m so happy for you.”
“That’s not all I gave up. I haven’t so much as looked at another man since our night in Paris.”
“No one?”
He shook his head. “I’m trying to be good for you, River. But I had to be good for myself first.” He glanced down uncertainly. “But I understand if you…I mean, if you’ve been with other guys. You’d have every right…”
I grinned, watching him stammer and fumble.
He scowled. “Something funny?”
“You’re fucking adorable when you grovel.”
“I’m happy my discomfort amuses you, but can you please put me out of my misery and tell me if there’s someone else?”
I gave his arm a tired shove. “I told you, I only love you, dummy.”
“You never took another model out for a test drive? Never?”
“I tried. Once. Just last week, actually.”
Holden’s jaw ticked. “Yeah? How’d that go? Cataclysmically awful, I hope.”
“You’re even more adorable when you’re being possessive,” I said and smoothed the frown off his lips with my fingertips. “Nothing happened. He wasn’t you. I told you, you’re it for me, Holden. There’s never going to be anyone else.”
His green eyes shone. “Me too. There’s no one else, River. And I’m going to be here for you however you need me to be. I’m supposed to be on a thirty-city book tour, but I’ll cancel all of it. Or you can come with me, but I don’t want to be apart from you again.”
“You’d be willing to stay in Santa Cruz? You hate it here.”
“It’s grown on me.” His smile softened. “And it’s where you are. I might go slightly stir crazy if we don’t travel now and then, but that’s nothing we can’t work out, right?”
“We can work it out.” I smiled, and something settled into a place deep inside me. The last of my tension and uncertainty fled, and my eyes fell shut.
Holden rolled me to my side, pulled my back to his chest and wrapped his arms around me. “Sleep. You need the rest.”
“I need you.”
Holden held me tight, his lips on my neck, softly kissing.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
