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Sadie: Fuck yes!
Shoving my phone back into my pocket, I shake off the shady feeling. Fallon and Griff will thank me for this later.
And I can’t fall for the wrong girl again.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Alone” by Halsey ft. Big Sean, Stefflon Don
ROSE
The frat doesn’t have a pool, but they do have a really nice backyard. I’m lying on my towel, just soaking up the sunlight. There’s a large patio just out the backdoor, and trees surround the yard. There’s a paved walkway that leads to a gazebo covered in vines. It’s beautiful at night, with the fairy lights all lit up.
After getting drunk and passing out on the couch last night, I figured I needed some time outside.
And a heck ton of water. It’s so bright out here that I can’t clearly see my phone’s screen when it starts ringing, so I just click the side button to answer and cross my fingers that it’s not Nix.
He never texted me back after my drunk text, but I wasn’t about to admit it was a mistake, so I just left him to his silence.
“Hello?” I say cautiously, then let out a sigh of relief when I hear my mother's voice.
“Rosebud. How are you, my darling?” She's so damn cheery all the time! I used to hate it, but now I appreciate my mother for the woman she is. The living embodiment of sunshine and rainbows.
“Hi, Mom,” I sigh, a smile tugging my lips up for the first time in days. “I’m okay.”
“Oh, baby, I’m sorry about Nix. He’s been struggling a lot lately, but that's no excuse!” She tries to do that a lot. Sound like she's not making excuses for my brother, but we both know she is. “Thank goodness for our sweet boy, huh? Where is he? Is he home?”
“How do you know I’m staying…with–” I stop. Of course, he told her. Holden is the literal golden boy poster child. If it can be done to please a parent, Holden’s done it.
My chest tightens like a fucking vice at the thought. My mom and stepdad are saints. To their damn core, they’re good humans. And even though he could be just as much of a shit as Nix, and they’d still love him unconditionally, Holden feels the need to prove himself to them.
Perfect grades from the day he moved into Scott’s. Best player on every sports team he ever joined, but most especially my stepfather’s favorite…hockey. He’s never been pulled over. Never gotten a ticket.
He goes home for every holiday, even though our family is atheist. My parents are some woke-ass boomers, who have done more drugs than the entire population of Woodstock. Though they were too young to attend, they sure made up for it in their youth.
Liberal ass parents in a small town meant they were well known.
So when my stepdad adopted Holden, it was a big deal. When his foster mother went to prison, that rocked our small town to its core.
I asked Holden one day if he wanted to tell me what happened. When he said no, I dropped it.
I was homeschooled until my senior year because I spent all day and night in a dance studio for over five years. My best friends were just as focused as I was. Our gossip was limited to the studio.
My stepdad paid a lot of money to keep the story as contained as possible and out of the local news. They focused on the positive. That Coach Scott now had a new son. Then two years later, Coach Scott and my mom got married, and Holden’s past was nearly forgotten.
All this to say, I don’t know the whole story. I know Holden was in a bad situation that ended with his foster mother in prison. I know Nix is the one responsible for getting Holden out of it, just like I know he’s at least half the reason Coach Scott adopted Holden.
Mom says Nix, in all his infinite wisdom at fourteen, looked Scott in the eyes and said “Well, he needs a dad, and you don’t have a kid. Why wouldn’t you adopt him?” The rest is history. Apparently, this was the moment my mother knew she was in love with Scott. They started dating a year later, and a year after that, they tied the knot.
But the thing is? I knew Holden before…long before I was told to call him brother. I was peeking through my lashes at the kid in clothes two sizes too small when he walked in the front door, only to leave in my brother’s clothes later that night.
They were best friends for five years before he ever became a part of the family officially. Mom and Scott were best friends for years before anything romantic happened and before Scott ever adopted Holden. I guess our whole family was written in the stars if you lay it all out like that.
“Rose?” My mother’s concerned voice breaks me out of my storm of thoughts. I jump to my feet and head inside.
“Sorry, yeah, he’s here. Give me a sec to find him,” I mumble, still half-lost in the past.
“So, how are you adjusting?” she asks after a prolonged silence while I search for Holden.
