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I fiddle with the strap of my backpack and then force myself to say exactly what I’m thinking. “I’ve always been here, Holden. Waiting. For years. You ignored me foryears. Why should I believe you’ve cared all along? About any of it? What happens the next time you’re angry or upset? The next time you tell me I’m just a fuck who means nothing to you?”
He winces. “I was drunk and pissed. It’s not an excuse. It’s just how I felt. My dad…it was a lot.”
“I know.” I manage to say, through a thick throat.
“You were trying to help. And I lashed out—because I was sad and angry, and I didn’t know how else to deal with it. I didn’t say it because I meant it. I said it because I’m in love with you, andI was trying to hurtme, more than you. Trying to take away the one thing that made me happy, so that I could just be miserable. It’s not an excuse, just the truth. And you deserve to know it. Deserve better than me. I’m the cautionary tale parents tell their kids—the guy who could’ve been something but self-destructed instead. There are so many things I’d go back and fix if I could. But you and me? The good parts? Cassia, there’s nothing I’d change.”
I swallow. “Did you sleep with her? Grace?”
“I haven’t been with anyone since you dry-humped me in my driveway.”
Despite my confusion, my anger, I feel myself blush. I look away, studying the empty rows of bleachers. “I have no idea what the size of Harrison’s dick is.”
I hear him exhale. It sounds like relief.
Part of me is scared to trust this place where we’re headed. The rest of me knows it’s inevitable.
Knows I’ll regret not falling into this far more than I’d ever regret not walking away.
I stand and walk down the bleachers. Don’t stop until I’m standing right in front of him, under the blinding lights of the gymnasium that is entirely empty. “I gave my heart to you a long time ago, Holden. Stop breaking it, okay?”
Holden’s smile is unexpected. Breath-taking. My heart thumps in my chest. Alive. Active.Whole.
“Those Friday nights when you’d come home, bloody and beaten up. Were you playing basketball?”
He holds my gaze as his head shakes. “Baker has a big mouth, huh?” There’s no venom in his voice. Mostly resignation. Maybe some regret. “The fighting was stupid, flower. I needed—Iwanted—an outlet. It felt good in the moment. I’m focusing on what makes me feel better all the time. What makes me want tobebetter. Basketball…and you.”
I scan his face, absorbing his earnestness. “Stop doing things I’ll have to forgive, okay?”
“Okay.”
“No more fights and no more shutting down. Or I’m done, Holden. I mean it.”
He nods. “I promise.”
We stare at each other. Tentative feelings bloom in my chest. Hope and anticipation and lust and love.
“So…dinner?” he asks.
I nod and turn toward the door. I’m embarrassingly eager to go out with him. To take what he’s offering and hope and pray this time will end differently between us. Holden grabs my arm before I can take a step. Stalls me in place and says, “You were wrong.”
“What?”
“You said I’m good at everything, remember? I’m not, Cassia. I’m terrible at a lot of things, and I’m especially bad at this.” He gestures between us, then tucks a stray piece of hair that’s fallen out of my ponytail behind one ear. “You’re easy to love. I’m just…really bad at loving.”
“But…do you? Love me?”
It was one thing to read it. Another to look at him while he says it. “Yeah. I love you, Cassia.”
The water in my eyes starts to overflow, dribbling down my face in thin streams. He brushes one tear away with his thumb. “Can I kiss you?”
“You’ve never asked for permission before,” I say.
And then I kiss him. It’s punishing and bruising. Desperate and deep.
But then something shifts. His mouth opens, his tongue tangles with mine. Holden is kissing me like I’m oxygen and water combined—like I’m something he can’t live without. Like he’s desperate for it and miserable without it.
Like he used to.
