by Kendall Ryan
We’re close enough that he can ask me in a quiet grumble, “Is my present wrapping really that bad?”
I bite my tongue, suppressing a smile as I give his giant thigh a quick squeeze. “Sort of. But you make up for your wrapping inadequacies in so many other more pleasurable ways . . . so I like you anyway.”
It’s a quiet, silly comment, but it’s the first time I’ve admitted it out loud. I have feelings for Holt. And the more I turn the words over in my head, the more I know they’re true.
24
* * *
HOLT
“You want another one, man?” Madden looks over at me with a concerned expression.
Looking down at the beer in my hands, I notice it’s gone warm. While he’s been rambling on about something, I’ve been sitting here lost in thought.
I shake my head. “Nah, I’m good.”
He chuckles darkly. “You’re not good. I don’t know what you are, but whatever it is, it’s the opposite of good.” He grabs himself another beer and then takes a spot on the couch across from me.
When I invited him over, I was hoping to get out of my head a little bit—enjoy a casual night and a couple of beers with a friend. But so far, the mission is a failure. I can’t seem to stop obsessing over this thing with Eden.
Our date the other night was transformative. For me, anyway. But I still don’t know where we stand. How she really feels about me. When we’re together, things are easy. Awesome. But when I step back and think about our future . . . that’s where things get murky.
We’re on two different playing fields, and I’m really struggling with how to rectify that, if it’s even possible.
“You gonna tell me what’s going on, or what?” Madden says, his tone hinting at his annoyance.
I give him a long look, trying to figure out what he’s wanting me to tell him. “About?”
He rolls his eyes. “What the hell you’re so hung up on.”
I guess I’ve been more obvious than I thought, with all the shit storming through my head. “It’s nothing.”
He chuckles darkly. “Fine. Be an asshole.”
This pulls a surly laugh out of me. “All right. I’ll talk. But let’s order some food.”
Madden agrees and pulls out his phone. We decide on Vietnamese and place an order for delivery, and then he’s back to looking at me with that same expectant expression.
“It’s Eden.”
His brows jump. “Yeah?”
I nod. “I told you I knew her in college. And yeah, we have a history.”
He snaps his fingers. “I knew it was more than just an acquaintance thing.”
Bastard. I remember that day in the gym when he pressed me for details.
“And we’ve started seeing each other again,” I say slowly, “outside of work.”
He takes another sip of his beer and waits for me to continue. “So, what’s the story?”
“I honestly don’t know. Things are casual, I think. I know she’s serious about her career.”
He nods. “Isn’t her family rich? Like billionaire rich?”
I shrug and lean back on the couch. “I don’t know. I assume so. I mean, they own a freaking NHL team and all.” I really don’t know the extent of the Wynn’s family fortune, nor do I need to. Their money doesn’t concern me. “They’re wealthy, yeah. Why does that matter?”
Madden meets my gaze. I mentally prepare myself for him to point out how someone like Eden Wynn would never go for a guy like me, and my grip tightens around my beer.
Instead, Madden only shrugs. “That’s cool, but you’re right, I guess it doesn’t matter. If you’ve got a connection, then go for it.”
He takes another leisurely swig of his drink while his words bounce around inside my head like a pinball.
Like it’s so easy. Like Eden and me being together is the simplest thing in the world.
Nothing about my life has been easy, so I have zero expectations that it will start now. Still, there’s something that lingers deep in my chest . . . a flicker of hope that can’t be extinguished.
• • •
“Mom?” I call out as I crack open her unlocked door.
“In here,” she calls from somewhere deeper inside the apartment.
I balance two bags of groceries in my arms and let myself inside. It’s been a few weeks since I’ve seen her, and the guilt was starting to wear at me. I didn’t particularly want to come over here today, but the desire to be a good son was eating away at me, and so here I am . . . son of the year.
When I find Mom, she’s in the kitchen, coloring in a notebook.
“Hey,” I say, setting the bags of groceries down on the counter. “Brought you some bananas. Soup. That bread you like. Just some basics.”
“Thanks, baby.” She looks up at me and smiles.
Mom looks good—there are no dark circles under her eyes, and she’s curled her hair. All good signs that she’s taking care of herself.
“What’s that?” I ask, confused as I watch her select a yellow-colored pencil from the table.
“It’s an adult coloring book.” She smiles, and my eyebrows must dart up, because then she laughs. “It was a gift from my addiction counselor.”
“Oh.” I shove my hands in my pockets.
“Come on. I’ll share.” She pats the seat next to her.
With a sigh, I join her at the kitchen table. From this vantage point, I can see what the image is she’s coloring. It’s a farm scene—complete with hills and a barn in the background, and a bunch of baby animals in the foreground. She hands me a pencil that’s somewhere between gray and brown.
“You can do that wheelbarrow.” She nods to the paper.
I obey, scribbling the color onto the page while my mom watches. This is so weird.
“How have things been going since you got home?” I ask.
Mom smiles as she colors each daffodil on the hill a bright, sunny yellow. “Just fine. Better than fine. How about you? Still on that job with Eden?”
I know better than to believe Mom is past her addiction, but I’ll take whatever good news I can get. Even if she’s just trying to change the subject.
I hesitate, unsure of how much to tell her. “Uh, yeah.”
Mom stops coloring to appraise me. “Uh-oh. I know that look. You’ve gone and fallen for her, haven’t you?”
I swallow and finish coloring the wheelbarrow. “We’ve started spending some time together outside of work.”
Mom makes a sound in her throat, then grabs a pink pencil and gives the piglet some color.
“Say it,” I say sharply. “Whatever’s on your mind, just say it.”
She lifts one shoulder and gives me a sympathetic look. “I worry about you, is all. Girls like Eden, they’re . . . different, Holt. Different from you and me.”
As I process her words, I realize that somewhere deep inside, I used to agree with her. I used to believe the lie that I told myself that Eden and I were just too different, that we could never work. But now I know better. And while there may be some things holding us back, it’s not our economics, or the number of zeroes in her bank account versus mine.
“That’s just it, Mom. Eden doesn’t care that I don’t have money. She doesn’t bat an eyelash at my lumpy mattress, or the chip in the mug when I serve her coffee.”
Mom’s silent for a moment, and she pauses in her coloring to look at me.
Rising to my feet, I continue. “I’m falling for Eden, and I think she feels the same about me. If you can’t accept that two people can care about each other without money having a damned thing to do with it, then I won’t sit here and be lectured about it.”
“I’m sorry.” Mom’s voice cracks. “All I ever wanted was to keep you from getting hurt like I did all those years ago. I’ve seen how those kind of people treat people like us.”
“There’s no such thing as those people, Mom.” My tone softens. “We’re all the same. We all have fears and insecurities and things about o
urselves that we want to change. And we all want a shot at love.”
Mom smiles sadly at me. “Then you go take your shot, baby.”
25
* * *
EDEN
“Would you believe me if I told you this is my first time at this beach?”
It’s a rare warm day in late October—just over seventy degrees, according to my weather app—and Holt and I are walking hand in hand down the Harbor Walk, strolling from the parking lot toward whatever he has planned. He refused to tell me what’s on the agenda today, and my only clues are the suspicious canvas tote slung over his shoulder, and the fact that we’re walking toward the beach.
“No way,” he says, arching a brow at me.
I look at him and nod. “My family used to go to the Cape several times a year. And we took plenty of tropical vacations during the winter. But this beach?” I wave my free hand toward the shoreline, dotted with clusters of happy Bostonians enjoying the weather. “I’ve only ever driven past it.”
I’m not sure if it’s the sun or embarrassment that makes my cheeks go warm, but Holt doesn’t act surprised. Instead, he keeps asking questions.
“The Cape, huh? I’ve never been out there. How does it compare?”
“It’s gorgeous,” I say with a smile, my memory flooding with happy vacation moments from before my parents’ divorce, back when family trips to the Cape were as frequent as bank holidays. “My mom has always been a sun-and-sand type. She usually said the beaches here in Boston were . . .”
I cut myself off, biting down on my lower lip, but Holt nods, fully understanding where I was headed.
“I get it. They have a certain reputation,” he says, kicking a discarded cigarette butt in the sand to emphasize his point.
Seconds later, we reach the main entrance to the beach, but Holt doesn’t halt his stride, leading us past it. When I raise a brow, he just squeezes my hand.
“I know where I’m going. Trust me.”
The airy, tingling sensation in my chest spreads through my body. I do trust him. Maybe more than I should after just a few weeks of having him back in my life.
But everything about him, about us together, sends me positive signals. Even the way he holds my hand, his fingers laced tightly with mine, but with such a gentle touch, like I’m a bird he doesn’t want to fly away. Beneath his rough-and-tumble exterior, Holt Rossi is a gentle giant, and I would follow him just about anywhere.
After we’ve passed the busiest portion of the beach, he steers us off the Harbor Walk and through a patch of knee-high brush to a small stretch of sand that looks like it’s been pulled from a postcard. Here, the crowds of families and college students are nowhere in sight. It’s just the two of us, surrounded by white sand and the steady lap of waves against the shore.
I’m so enthralled by the view that I hardly notice Holt unpacking the tote bag. When I turn around, I find him sitting on a red flannel blanket, puffed up with pride as he pours wine into two travel glasses. It’s a sight that makes my heart turn half a dozen backflips.
“C’mon.” He pats the blanket next to him. “Let me show you what I brought.”
I join him, feeling my smile widen more with each item he pulls from the tote.
A box of crackers, a plastic container holding slices of salami and cheese, and a family-size bag of my favorite honey-mustard pretzels, the kind I keep on my desk at work. A simple, romantic picnic containing all my favorite things—good wine, good snacks, and Holt.
When I reach for the bag of pretzels, though, he stops me, reaching back into the tote.
“Hold on. I haven’t shown you the best part.” He retrieves another plastic container from the bag, tugging off the lid to reveal bite-size bacon-wrapped goodies. “Don’t worry, they’re dates,” he tells me with a hint of a smirk. “No shellfish this time.”
A deep belly-laugh bursts from me. “Okay, that’s actually hilarious,” I say, popping one into my mouth. It’s all the maple, bacon-covered goodness a girl could ask for without any of the emergency trips to the hospital.
We bask in the salty air, snacking and soaking in each other’s company as the sun begins to sink in the sky. Today is nothing extravagant, nothing out of the ordinary, but I’ve never been so fully aware that this is exactly what I want. Something simple and sweet and easy. Not the fancy restaurants or dimly lit bars with overpriced cocktails other men have tried to use to impress me, as if their black AmEx cards could somehow prove their worthiness. Sitting here with Holt on a secret stretch of beach, seeing his attention to all the little details, I’m more impressed than I’ve ever been with a man before.
“So, tell me,” I say, polishing off what’s left of my wine and cozying up to Holt. “How’d you become such an expert on the beaches of Boston?”
“I used to take my little cousins here all the time,” he says, sliding one big arm around my waist. He pauses for a moment, and when he speaks again, his voice is a bit strained. “After my brother got locked up and Mom got into painkillers, I became the go-to babysitter of the family. It was easier to keep them occupied here than in my aunt Lori’s two-bedroom in South Boston.”
His words weigh heavy on my chest. There’s so much to unpack in his statement, I’m not even sure where to begin, so I trust my instincts and ask the first question that comes to mind.
“How is your mom doing, by the way?”
With my head pressed against his chest like this, I can’t see his expression, but I can feel his body rise and fall beneath my cheek as he heaves a sigh. “She’s doing okay. She enrolled in an outpatient program through her rehab facility to keep her on track, and they seem happy with her progress so far.”
“That’s good to hear. But it still has to be hard for you,” I whisper.
“It’s been tough forever. I’m used to it by now. Not that it ever gets easier, but you learn to adapt. Let the struggle make you stronger.”
I uncurl myself from him, shifting back to meet his gaze. “Still. It’s not fair, and I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
“We all go through shit,” he grumbles, offering a forced smile that doesn’t quite meet his eyes. “I’m more concerned with how it affects you.”
My brow crinkles. Of all the responses he could have given, I never would have expected that one. “What do you mean by that?”
“I’ve had years to get hardened to this shit. But you . . .” He shakes his head as his gaze slips away from mine. “You don’t need any additional baggage.”
My heart constricts at his words. He sounds so defeated, like his family life is too much for me to handle. Maybe he’s forgotten that I come with my fair share of family drama too.
“We all have skeletons in the closet,” I tell him, laying one hand on his. “You remember who my father is and what he did, right?”
Holt’s gaze flickers back toward me, one dark brow arched. “The governor?”
“Former governor.” I swallow the sour taste in my mouth that always appears when this topic arises. “I was just starting middle school when he was removed from office. As if dealing with my parents’ divorce wasn’t enough, having his affair with his secretary be the talk of every news outlet wasn’t exactly fun. It was easy fodder for the bullies at my private school.”
“Kids can be cruel.”
“And adults. You know I’ve dealt with my fair share of grown-up bullies ever since I took on the team.”
Holt’s lips press firmly together as he draws in a deep breath through his nose. “I guess, in our own ways, neither of us have had it easy,” he says with a sigh.
“Don’t get me wrong. Your upbringing was way harder than mine. I don’t want to demean that. But just because my family has money doesn’t make us any less screwed up. Believe me.”
A small smile forms on his lips, his whole body relaxing as he pulls me back into his arms. “I guess we’re more similar than I thought.”
I nestle my head into his shoulder, breathing in his woodsy scent. “Twin
flames.”
We sit like this for a long moment, watching the waves roll in as he strokes my knuckles with the pad of his thumb. When he breaks the silence, it’s in a voice so soft, yet so sure, it sends a wave of heat rolling through my system.
“I don’t know how I got lucky enough to find you again, Eden.”
Before I can respond, he lifts my face and presses his lips to mine in a warm, tender kiss that makes my whole body light up in response.
What he said is true. By some miracle, we found each other in this crazy world a second time. And I can’t say for sure, but something tells me we would find each other over and over again, in this lifetime or the next.
We stay tangled up together, cuddling and kissing until the sun has sunk low in the sky. As much as I wish we could stop time in this moment, the oncoming darkness has other plans.
With the sky burning orange, we pack up our picnic, loading up the blanket and remaining snacks, and make the trek back to Holt’s car. When he slides into the driver’s seat, he turns toward me, his gray eyes dark with want, and asks the question I’ve been desperately waiting for.
“Do you want to head back to my place?”
It’s the easiest, most enthusiastic yes I’ve ever given.
• • •
The drive back to Holt’s apartment is short, but each minute crawls past slower than the last, each second filled with the need to be close to him, to be gathered up in his big arms again. When we finally arrive, I sink into his soft gray couch while I wait for him to put away the snacks we didn’t finish.
“Can I get you anything?” he calls over his shoulder from the kitchen. “More wine? Something to eat?”
I shake my head, and moments later, he joins me on the couch, pulling me against his bulky frame, close enough that I can rest my head against his chest.
It’s far from the first time we’ve been close like this, but something about him feels different tonight, more at ease. While he toys with my hair, running his thick fingers through my wind-tousled waves, I tune in to his heartbeat. It’s a steady rhythm thrumming against my cheek, until his hand travels from my hair to my hip, then slowly begins stroking the curve of my ass. Suddenly, his pulse quickens, as does mine.