“Nope!” she practically shouted.
“Cool. So…would you like to go with me?”
“Yeah. Yes. I’d like that. Thank you.”
Mission accomplished.
“Great. We can work out the details later.”
“Sure.”
Another silence fell. I’d come to do what I needed to do, but Violet’s expectations filled the quiet until a rapping on the door jolted us.
“Time’s up! Come on out, Violet. River, stay put.”
“That’s my cue.”
Violet started to rise and all I could think about was Holden Parish lying stretched out on the carpet, watching me. Getting into my head and monopolizing my attention.
His tongue tasting that drop of tequila…
My hand shot out and grabbed Violet’s like a lifeline. I inhaled the scent of her perfume—something sweet and flowery and feminine—and willed it to have the same intoxicating effect on me as Holden’s cologne. Violet’s breath caught, waiting for my kiss. I waited, too, for my body to respond to the beautiful girl in the dark, wanting this.
My lips landed on her cheek.
“Thank you, Violet,” I managed weakly. I lingered there for a minute because I should kiss her again. A real kiss. She was ready, and I should’ve been willing…
Instead, I let her go and slumped back down on my side of the closet, humiliation burning my skin. “You’d better get out of here before Evelyn starts screeching.”
“Oh. Right.” Disappointment laced Violet’s words as she stood up and made her way to the door. “Okay…uh. Bye.”
My head fell into my hands. I had a beautiful girl waiting for me to kiss her in the dark, wanting me to kiss her. From somewhere inside, deep and neglected, a small voice whispered, What do you want?
Before I could contemplate an answer, the door opened, and Holden Parish stepped into the closet.
Because of course he did. Goddamn this stupid game.
The light from the living room outlined his tall form, and I stuffed my hands in the front pockets of my jeans. The closet went black as he shut the door, but I’d have known it was Holden if I were blind; the closet was infused with his clove-and-cologne scent, overlaid with the stringent sting of tequila. It hit my senses harder than the booze I’d drunk and was a million times more potent than Violet’s feminine scent.
“Hey, man,” I said. Casual as hell.
“Hey, man,” Holden mimicked me, and his dark shape slid down the side of the wall perpendicular to me. There was a metallic scrape and his Zippo flared to life, illuminating his face and nothing else.
I held perfectly still, watching as the shadows cut his cheekbones into even sharper lines, contouring shadows that lead to his full lips and the cleft in his chin. His green eyes glittered over the flame, then he snuffed the light.
It was too dark to see; my body sensed Holden instead. I felt his presence in the small room like a low hum. A current moved between us, but he said nothing, and I had nothing to say. I felt guilty of a crime I hadn’t committed…or had yet to commit.
“So,” Holden said after a minute of silence. “River, was it?”
“Whitmore, yeah.”
“Tell me something, River Whitmore…” Light flared as he lit his zippo. His eyes bored into mine, seeing through me as if I were made of cellophane. “Aside from me…who else knows you’re gay?”
I froze, every molecule in my body petrifying at once. I couldn’t move or breathe and yet I fell into the clear green depths of Holden’s eyes, tinged gold and fiery in the flickering light. He watched a storm of emotions I couldn’t control play over my features, and the sharp angles of his face softened.
“You’re crazy,” I said, my voice hoarse. “And drunk. You don’t know shit about me.”
Holden leaned forward until our faces were inches apart, the flame dancing between us. His nearness was all over me; I felt it along my skin, a tingling shiver that danced up my arms, down my spine, and straight to my cock.