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“I was in the hospital with Riley.” He grabs my hand and pulls me to Riley’s bedroom. “Ry, can you please tell her where we were last night?”
“Emergency Room. Someone must have slipped something in my drink.” Riley looks up from his phone and reaches over to the packet on his nightstand. He stands up and brings them over to me. “Here are the discharge papers. Holden stayed with me all night.”
Skimming through the pages, I see that he got there around the time Holden stopped answering me. He wasn’t discharged until half an hour ago. The story seems to check out.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask Holden. “And what was she doing in your bed?”
He leans against the doorway, looking relieved. “I lost my phone in the commotion of getting him to the hospital. I would have used his but I don’t have your number memorized. And as for why she was in my room – your guess is as good as mine.”
I close my eyes and take a deep breath. “She planned this.”
“What?!” Holden and Riley ask in unison.
“Think about it. Someone drugs Riley, and your phone – which is always in your pocket – gets lost as you’re trying to get him to the hospital? It hardly seems like a coincidence.”
Holden sighs, looking at Riley. “Man, I am so sorry.”
He shakes his head and waves him off. “Nah, it’s not your fault she’s crazy. Don’t worry about it.”
I smile sadly at Riley before walking back down the hallway toward Holden’s room. As soon as we get inside, I go to sit on the bed when he stops me. He strips off the sheets and goes down the hallway to get new ones.
“Who knows what she may have done in here.” He explains.
The two of us spend the next hour going through everything in his room, making sure nothing is out of place. It amazes me how much someone would go through, to try to ruin our relationship. First Bianca, and now Abby – it’s really starting to get old.
When everything is done, I throw myself backwards onto the newly made bed. Holden exits the shower and comes into the room, dripping wet with only a towel around his waist. His hair is damp, making it obvious he just ran his fingers through it to push it out of his face. Beads of water accent the definition of his abs. He is, by far, the hottest guy I’ve ever seen in my life – and sometimes I need to let myself acknowledge that.
“Hey, can I ask you something?” He questions as soon as he’s done pulling his sweatpants on.
I hum. “Is it an important question? Because if you want me to take you seriously, you may have to put a shirt on.”
He chuckles and sits on the bed next to me, then looks me in the eyes as he grabs my hand. “Do you trust me?”
“I think so. Why?”
“I don’t know. You were just so quick to believe Abby without even speaking to me first.” He looks hurt, like me thinking he would cheat on me is burning a hole in him.
I sigh, sitting up and making myself eye level with him. “I know, I’m sorry. It just looked really bad, and she said you were talking to her about your parents. How does she even know about them?”
“She’s friends with Jo, remember?” He points out. “They’ve been friends since middle school, and my parents’ death isn’t exactly a secret back home. Speaking of my sister, though, I should call her.”
Leaning over to kiss me once, he grabs his phone and presses on her contact – preparing himself to tell her what her so called “friend” just tried to do.
A FEW DAYS LATER, I’m standing in front of the mirror, fixing Holden’s jersey so it hangs on my shoulders just right. It’s unnecessarily large, but he insists on me wearing one of his, and not ordering my own that fits. My boyfriend comes up behind me and wraps his arms around my stomach.
“I will never get over how good this looks on you.” He murmurs, checking me out in the mirror. “I’m sorry we’re spending our Valentine’s Day at my game. I wish I could have gotten out of it.”
?
??No, don’t worry about it. Really, it’s fine.”
We finish getting ready and as we’re walking down the hallway, we stop at Jason’s room to grab him and Josephine. We’re all riding over to the area together. They get up from his bed and come out into the hallway.
“Aw, we’re twins.” Jo coos about our matching jerseys.
“Except for the captain patch.” Holden points out, rubbing in Jason’s face that his doesn’t have one.
Jo and I laugh as we all walk down the stairs. However, as soon as we get outside, the smile falls off my face.
