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“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.”
