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“Does your dad know?”
“God, no,” he rushes out. “And you can’t tell him.”
“I wouldn’t,” I say. “But you have to know that your dad’s so proud of you, Holden. He told me himself.”
“Trust me. He wouldn’t feel that way if he found out where the money came from. The betrayal is bad enough, but keeping it from him… I didn’t have any other choice.”
“I know,” I soothe. “I’m sorry.”
For hours, we let the heat of the flames from the torches warm our souls and light up our emotions. We ask questions back and forth and sometimes go off course. I tell him about my list of childhood memories and the people I’ve met on my travels. He talks about the friends he made in college, some he still keeps in contact with, and the shenanigans they got up to. I mention my monthly visits with Gina and the therapy I still attend when I’m there, and he tells me about the significant changes he wants to do within the company. He wants to try to get more corporate accounts. Offices, hotels, and malls.Think big, so he says, and I have no doubt he’s going to make it happen. And of everything we speak of, it’s clear that his greatest joy, his sweetest passion, comes from talking about little Benny Preston—Mia’s son, his nephew. “He’s really into rocks and minerals,” he says. “Like obsessed. When I was in college, he used to send me envelopes filled with random rocks he’d find. Swear to God, I could have the shittiest days, and then I’d get a package from him, and it was the only thing that could make me smile. He’s started reading a lot. He’s just turnedfive, and he reads better than I do. Not just that. He’s smart, Jamie. Like insanely smart. And he for sure got that from his dad because Mia’s a fucking dumbass.”
“Holden!” I laugh out.
“I’m kidding,” he chuckles. “But for real. I’ve been Team Leo—Benny’s dad—all this time, and Mia’s stubborn, bratty ass was too afraid to deal with it. Now look, they’re married and stupidly in love, and Benny has both parents, and she’s never been happier, and I don’t care what Mia says—I was right, and she was wrong. The end.”
What I wouldn’t give to see him and Mia in the same room. “I bet she loves that your parents are married now.”
He rolls his eyes. “Yeah, because she gets the mom she always wanted, and I get…him.” He sighs. “I’m being a dick. Joseph’s not that bad. I’m just really into holding grudges, which is dumb because the two people he hurt the most seemed to forgive him, and I… I guess I just don’t want to yet.” He stares at the darkness in front of us, his brow bunched.
I reach up, try to physically smooth out his features. “Tell me another favorite childhood memory,” I ask.
His smile is slight, but it’s there, and it’s kind of adorable. “It happened right here. That’s why I brought you here.”
“What happened here?” I ask, looking around.
“When I was little, and I’d stay at my grandparents, Granny Eastwood used to wake me up before the sun rose and bundle me up in the truck to bring me here. She swears it’s where the greatest sunrise in the world exists.”
It physically hurts to smile as wide as I am. But the image of a tiny, sleeping Holden Eastwood being carried to the truck by his grandma is possibly the cutest thing I can picture.
“She’d have hot chocolate and fresh, warm bread, and we’d sit in the back of the truck, like you and me now, and we’d watch the sunrise together.”
“Awwww.”I’m melting.
“She’d tell me that the sun rising every morning was the gates of heaven opening up for all those who had passed in the darkness. So we’d make up stories about all the people who had passed and what their lives were like.”
“Stop it!” I hold a hand to my chest. “That’s the sweetest thing.”
“Yeah, she’s pretty sweet,” he agrees, his mind lost in thought, his eyebrows dropping slowly. “I just remember… every one of my stories was old people. I didn’t quite grasp the idea that death could happen to anyone, anytime. And of course, they were ludicrous stories, like a guy who traveled back in time and was eaten by dinosaurs.”
A giggle bursts out of me, but Holden doesn’t react, too lost in his memories.
“But this one time—I think it was right before I started first grade—I asked her why, if God accepted everyone, there was a gate to enter heaven and why it was ever closed. I realize now, regardless of my religious beliefs, that evil exists in this world, and there’s nothing you can do about it. But for me, as a kid, evil meant villains in Marvel movies and comic books. I didn’t realize it was real life…” He drops his chin, his eyes leveling mine. “But you knew that, didn’t you?”
It’s immediate—the way he pulls my raw emotions from me, flips them upside down. Through the ache in my chest, I tell him, “You can’t let my childhood take away from yours, Holden.” I pause a beat. “What did your grandma say when you asked her?”
After a sharp inhale, he sits taller. “She said that sometimes life ends too quickly and that some things are left unresolved. So, to save people from purgatory, they had the opportunity to ask God one thing. It could be forgiveness, or it could be a question, or anything, really.” He faces me again. “What would your question be?”
I mull it over a long moment, my breaths becoming shorter with each passing second. Finally, I blink back the tears before replying, “I’d ask if He knew my mother.”
Holden nods as if he knew my answer before I said the words aloud.
“What would yours be?” I ask.
He sniffs once, his eyes red and raw as he stares ahead. Seconds pass, turn into minutes. I don’t take my eyes off him. “I would ask why he made it so easy to fall in love…” His gaze lands on mine, unwavering. “Butalmostimpossible to fall out of it.”
* * *
It rains. And not the kind of rain that comes slowly in droplets and showers. No. It buckets down. “Sorry! I should’ve checked the weather!” Holden shouts over the noise of thunder clapping and large drops hitting the metal of his truck.
