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“Instead of dealing with her feelings, what any bartender is best at. Building other people up. Make them happy. Not a fucking front since it fills her up. But she’s depressed. William picked an old wound. It’s festering. You gotta give Hol time to feel all the shit she is. Process it.”
“You don’t get over ten years of hurt in a few months,” I reply.
Hell, I proved that this summer by blowing up at Davina at the beach house.
My friend taps his skull.
“She takes care of everyone else first.” I wish I said it with pride. My words come out dejected. “Since I understand, I can save her.”
“No, you fucker.” Dusty gets agitated. “You need to st-top using happy coincidences to ssave her… Follow a-long here since I have a little princess at home and you don’t. The kind of chivalry Hol wants is for you to give her the sword to slay the dragon. She’s been through battles without you that she can save herself.”
“Trust her.”
That’s what Trig said to me.
“Once you do, she’ll begin trusting herself again.” Dusty gives a new perspective to what I thought I knew.
________________
Dusty and I shoot the shit for the next hour.
He emphasizes that after everything Holly’s been through, she doesn’t know how not to work harder. And no matter how hard she works, the custody battle with Willam makes her believe it won’t ever be enough.
I guess she’s even got it in her head that the cash Jake’s been throwing her way since she became the manager at Sweet Caroline’s belongs to her by default. Holly’s boss is PO-ed at somebody else, and she’s the beneficiary of Jake’s foul mood.
The thing is, I always do things for Holly because she doesn’t expect it. This woman isn’t out scamming anyone for a free ride. The blush on her cheeks is a giveaway that she appreciates me being thoughtful, whether that’s toward her or anyone else. Uniquely enough, Holly is far happier sprinkling kindness on others than comfortable accepting a shower of accolades.
She’s entitled to be happy too.
It’s past midnight when I leave the twenty-four-hour breakfast joint. Dusty’s perspective lifted a weight and gained me the big guy as a groomsman. I hope the tailor makes Incredible Hulk-size suits that come in more colors than green and purple. Although the wedding has a carnival theme, so he could don a cheetah print loincloth and go as the strong man and fit right in. Nah, Dusty is more like the Hulk after Banner exposes them both to more radiation and their personalities merge. A rocket scientist before his accident, Dusty’s still genius enough to pull that trick off.
Wedding on the brain, I’ve assigned each of my groomsmen two alter-egos: a superpower and a circus-themed one. The latter makes me want to ask Isobel to shake it up some more and search out funhouse mirrors that stretch and widen and distort bodies. I’m running that idea by Holly once I’ve apologized to her.
She’s going to love it. Holly’s the yin to my yang. I need her maturity and she needs my goofiness to emphasize she’s not over the hill yet and that she can recapture her youthfulness.
But I have to say I’m sorry first for yelling and making wild accusations about her not trusting me. For making it about myself when I should have freely given what she actually needed from me; a reminder that she has the power within.
I worried she was giving up on us, and my outburst might have given her a reason to. After all, Holly stayed when I lost my shit at Davina this summer. She didn’t make it about how I embarrassed her. Holly wouldn’t have ever brought up William all those months ago if I hadn’t been so rip shit over the way my mom had acted. And Holly accepted that she’d never understand Davina’s motives, yet hasn’t once held them against her.
I love her for that and for showing me I can have a relationship with my mom and my sister.
Since we began, our conversations have always come easy. That level of intimacy is something I’ve never encountered with any woman. I want it back. But I also want her confessing every heartbreak instead of hiding it from me. I should have pushed more for her to confide her deepest darkest fears so that Holly understands I can be her bartender and listen the way she does for everyone else. I could have reminded her she rebuilt my confidence when I’d given Holly every reason to doubt she should let me be responsible for the most important person in her life.
She’s proven she trusts me. She needs me to show her I trust the person she is.
Dusty is right, Holly doesn’t need me to be her savior, but she does need to know I have her back. With the chinks in her armor exposed, it’s apparent I wasn’t doing near good enough a job of proving that. We’ve both sort of been stumbling through the unexpected, haven’t we?
I jog up the front step, certain we’re halfway over the speed bump.
The light is on in the formal living room. Davina’s folding the comforter I left on the floor.
“What are you doing up?”
“Holly woke me when she left. She didn’t want me to worry in the morning if neither of you were here.”
Sounds like my girl but, “Why did she go? Where did she go?”
“I’m assuming to Laurel’s. Holly had her and Bhodi’s things packed. I know you argued. I heard you leave…” Mom’s voice trails. She lifts an envelope from the coffee table and hands it to me. “It’s not my place to butt in.”
