by Sarah Kleck
“Can I help you with anything?”
“No. Just sit and be the guest.”
“OK. Fine by me.”
The table was already set. He’d even made a salad. I sat down but immediately jumped to my feet again when he took the hot casserole from the oven and started walking one-legged toward the table while dragging the cast behind him.
“Can’t I do anything?”
He forcefully shook his head. “You’re my guest tonight.”
When he finally made it without mishap, I breathed in relief.
“May I?” he asked, pointing at the plate.
I nodded, and Holden promptly slapped a too-large portion on my plate. I had to grin. He hadn’t lied—it was obvious he didn’t have many visitors. Or, at least, didn’t cook often for a woman. Or cooked at all, for that matter, as the far too coarsely cut onions told me. The even bigger portion he served himself surprised me. Was he really going to eat all that?
“Bon appétit,” he said.
I took the first bite with a smile. The lasagna was good. Not the best I’d ever eaten but really good.
“Do you like it?” he asked after a while. It only dawned on me then that he’d been waiting for me to comment on his culinary skills.
“Oh yeah. Tastes fabulous,” I quickly answered. “But please don’t hold it against me if I don’t finish it. This is an athlete’s portion.”
Holden looked satisfied. “Yeah, leave some room for dessert.”
“There’s dessert, too?” Now I was impressed. He’d really put in an effort.
“Ice cream.”
My eyes widened with surprise. “Made it yourself?”
“Bought it myself.”
I soon had to declare defeat—I pushed the plate away and leaned back.
“If you hear a loud pop, it’s because I’ve burst.” I was breathing heavily.
Holden smiled and finished off his family-sized portion. When he got up to clear the plates, I was shocked to see that his belly was still fairly flat despite the enormous amount he’d eaten. Mine was bulging over my belt.
“Can we wait a little for dessert?” I asked pointing at my belly.
“Sure. What about walking some of it off?”
“Sounds good. Will that work with your crutches?”
As if to answer, he swung his legs around like a gymnast on the bars and winked.
“OK. You sold me.”
Five minutes later we were out the door heading toward Riverbend Park. We strolled along the bank of the Charles River, feeling spring’s mild evening air and taking in the scent of the first lilacs of the season.
“Who taught you how to cook?” I asked.
“You can’t quite call it taught, but I watched my grandma. When I started cooking for myself, I experimented a bit. Some was OK, a lot landed in the trash can.”
“Trial and error,” I said with a noncommittal smile one uses to suggest friendliness to strangers. I wanted to bite my tongue. What a shallow phrase.
It was completely illogical, but I had serious doubts whether I should be talking about what we had written to each other. I felt like I was dealing with two people. Virtual Holden, with whom I’d chatted till late in the night, to the point of feeling I knew him inside out. And the other Holden, Live Holden, with whom, before tonight, I’d only spent a single evening on which we weren’t even alone. I found it difficult to see Virtual Holden and the one hobbling on crutches next to me as the same person. Was he the same person whose mother left him when he was just six years old? Who’d grown up with a father who was almost never home, and whose grandma, whom he loved above anyone else, was the only constant in his life? Was he the one who told me that, as a child, he’d always looked at a picture of his mother and dreamed night after night that she’d died?
“What’s on your mind?” he suddenly asked.
I felt caught, and I was surprised by how much I’d lost myself in thought.
“Is it that obvious?”
He smiled gently. “I can almost hear the wheels churning inside your head. So, what is it?”
“Well, to be honest, I don’t know how to say it. It’s . . . that, somehow, I feel like I totally know you because I already know so much about you. Then again, I think . . .”
“That we’re only just getting to know each other?” he finished the sentence for me.
“Yes, exactly.”
Holden looked at me from the side. “I feel the same way.”
“Really?”
He nodded slowly. “Like, I know that when you have kids of your own, you will do a lot of things differently with them than your mother did with you.” He suddenly stopped walking, turned toward me, and looked straight at me.
“But that little mole,” he took both crutches into his left hand, so he could lift the right one, “there, by the left corner of your mouth,” he cautiously brushed over the tiny round bump on my face with his fingertip, “I only noticed it for the first time a moment ago.”
I forgot to breathe for a second. Holden’s touch was no more than a whisper and yet it jolted my entire system. I felt it run through every fiber. Hairs rose over my entire body. My cheeks glowed. His eyes rested on my face as he let his hand drop. Like I was paralyzed, unable to move. He looked as if sizing me up, as if he were waiting for a reaction. I blinked, cleared my throat, and started again along the path.
Why are you running away, you chicken?!
I had to be in shock, I couldn’t explain it otherwise. I had imagined him touching me a thousand times. Totally fantasized about how it would feel. His skin on mine. I had longed for Holden’s touch, but now it had happened so fast that I was completely overwhelmed by the situation and left him standing there.
For a moment, he froze as if petrified, then hurried to catch up with me. His gaze rested on my face while I was doing my best to control my heartbeat. Did he know what he’d just triggered inside me? I’d never felt this with Tom. Not even with Seth.
“Can we sit down for a moment there?” Holden asked, pointing to a park bench under a mighty linden tree. “My leg needs a break.”
“Sure.” My voice still sounded alien. I had to clear my throat again. While Holden propped up his leg on his crutches, I took a moment to become myself again. I let my eyes wander. It was really beautiful here. I had been jogging along the Charles River several times but had never noticed this spot.
A group of teens was loitering nearby. They laughed and talked. Two girls about sixteen hummed along with the pop music coming from the small speakers paired with an iPod.
“I’ve had my eye on you for a while, you know,” Holden suddenly confessed.
I turned toward him. “What’s a while?”
“Since I first saw you, to be honest.”
“When was that?”
“At a dorm party last fall. You were there with some guy.”
He could only mean Tom. The way he said guy confirmed my assumption. Tom thought he was better than others and made them feel it.
“That was a while ago,” I said.
“I had a girlfriend then,” he said, and in the same moment it clicked. An image sprang to mind. I’d also seen Holden for the first time at that party. Making out uninhibitedly with a busty blonde.
“Oh. Now I remember,” I said ambiguously. “And I even remember your girlfriend.” Only now did I dare look at Holden again. The amused look in my face resulted in a shared smile. “I remember wondering whether you two were going to do it on the dance floor.”
The color of Holden’s face changed conspicuously.
“Yesss,” he answered. “Monica was very . . . special.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Special?”
“We didn’t stay together for long.”
I had to laugh. “And you noticed me? Despite your enrapturing company?”
He nodded. “I watched you the whole evening.”
“It didn’t look that way,” I answered, still smiling.
“Believe me.” Hi
s voice suddenly took on an entirely different tone. Ernest and somehow imploring. “I watched you the whole evening. And any other time I saw you.”
At first, I didn’t know what to say. That it was the same for me? That I thought of him in very . . . private moments? That I hadn’t been able to think of anything but him for days.
“Me too,” I answered plainly and looked straight into his eyes.
Coldplay’s “Fix You” was playing through the teenagers’ speakers. I loved that song. It was the perfect soundtrack for that moment.
I noticed the movement of Holden’s Adam’s apple as I looked at him, and that he swallowed hard. He seemed frozen—as if overcome by a sudden bout of insecurity. Then he moved really close to me and looked straight back into my eyes for so long that it almost became uncomfortable.
“Green eyes are the rarest.” His voice was so gentle. “Only two percent of people in the world have them.” He was so close that the tips of our noses almost touched. “And green eyes are the only ones that can change color, did you know that?”
He put his hand on my cheek, and my entire body twitched as if a thousand volts shot through it.
“Depending on the mood, they may appear blue, gray, or even golden.”
“Really?” My voice sounded far too shrill.
Holden came the last inch toward me. I held my breath. He was so close, I could feel his warm breath in my face. Holden closed his eyes, only for a second or two, then opened them again, and their ocean-blue gaze blasted right through my heart.
“You have the most gorgeous green eyes I’ve ever seen,” he said.
Then he kissed me.
Chapter 9
For her birthday on June 15, Grace held a warm-up party at our apartment before we headed out to a club. She had invited thirty of her best friends, so our kitchen and living room were bursting at the seams, and our tiny balcony was overloaded beyond calculation. I sat in the middle of the commotion at the kitchen table, sipped on a glass of cheap wine, and laughed at Grace’s jokes. Loud music reverberated through our walls, and people danced. You had to yell to be heard. The mood was exuberant, but that’s how it always was when Grace had people over. She was a born party animal. I preferred to keep a little more in the background but still enjoyed the good mood.
“And then,” Grace was arriving at the climax of her anecdote about the stats prof whose belt broke in the middle of the lecture and the pieces dropped to the floor. “He was clutching desperately at the waistband of his pants to keep them from falling past his hips”— she laughed so hard that she was struggling to finish her story—“as he was on his hands and knees collecting the pieces of his belt buckle. You should have seen it! Oh man, we were dying from laughter.”
I had already heard the story a couple of times but had to laugh. At that moment, the Rhianna song that had been playing ended and “Fix You” came on. The first notes enthralled me. I closed my eyes and was back with Holden. I ran my tongue over my lips, where I still felt his kiss.
Fix me. That’s just how it felt. Like he’d make me whole again. As if he’d heal me . . .
“Annie!”
“Yes?” I opened my eyes, startled. The whole room was staring at me.
“Is Holden still coming?” Grace asked, and from her expression and her raised voice, I guessed it wasn’t the first time she’d asked.
“Um, yeah.” I looked at the clock. “He said about nine.” It was already nine thirty.
“Well, that’s probably him,” she mused.
“What?”
“At the front door.” She looked at me as if I were daft. “Didn’t you hear the bell? Patrick said it’s been ringing for a while.”
“What? Really? Why didn’t anyone open it?” I jumped up lightning fast, grabbing my phone off the charger at the same time. Three texts appeared on the display.
Hi Annie, u there?
I’ve been ringing the doorbell for ten minutes.
Is your bell not working or is the music too loud?
Damn! Hopefully, he was still there. I bumped into three people on my way out, rumbled down the stairs, and pulled the door wide open. There he was.
“Holden! I’m so sorry! Seriously. I didn’t hear a thing. How long have you been waiting? I’m really so sorry.”
“Hi,” he said casually. A smile glimmered in his eyes.
“I’m so sorry,” I repeated.
“What distracted you so much that you forgot about me?”
If you only knew . . .
“Nothing. Really. It’s just that the music is so loud.” I stood nervously on the front step, just looking at him.
Holden raised his eyebrows and frowned. “May I come in?” he asked when I just kept staring.
“Um. Yes. Of course. Come in.” I hastily stepped aside. Man, was I confused.
“Thanks.” He stepped across the threshold. It was only then that I noticed he was without crutches and cast.
“Your cast’s off!” I screamed enthusiastically.
“Yeah. Since this afternoon.” He turned the liberated leg back and forth. “I feel all new.”
“It’s only been four weeks, hasn’t it? You’re walking OK?”
He nodded, took two big steps toward me, took my face between his hands, and pressed a warm kiss on my closed lips.
“Hi,” he whispered.
“Hi,” I breathed back, trying to stay steady on my wobbly legs.
The stairs gave him some trouble, but he didn’t want to show it. When we’d made it to the top, I led him into the apartment, introduced him to some people, and asked what he wanted to drink.
“So, you’re Annie’s new friend,” babbled Heather, Grace’s on again, off again study partner as she looked Holden over from top to bottom. I never could stand her. Figures she’d put me into an awkward situation. Holden and I hadn’t talked about who we were and where we were going.
Clearly amused, he casually sipped his beer. His eyes rested on my face.
“We . . .” I stalled, not knowing how to finish the sentence. Why didn’t I just ignore her?
“What’s your name again?” Holden stepped in.
“Heather,” she answered with disbelief in her voice. You’d have thought it was blasphemy that he’d forgotten it so fast.
“Since you’re asking, Heather,” he emphasized her name in a way that didn’t please her but warmed me right up. “We haven’t talked about it yet, but, yeah, I’m Annie’s new friend.” He grinned crookedly. “That is, if that’s what she wants.”
I laughed—amused at the brush-off he gave Heather and because he’d just asked whether I wanted to be his girlfriend.
“Yes,” I answered.
A beaming smile spread across Holden’s face. He leaned toward me and kissed me so softly and gently. Everything around me melted away.
“Aw, how sweet!” Heather cooed as if she’d just watched two kindergarten kids pressing wet smooches on each other in the sandbox. Figures. If he wasn’t interested in her, she had to ridicule what we had.
Note to self: Remind Grace not to invite Heather again!
“Holden, your cast is gone!” As if on command, Grace swayed into the living room, tripped over her feet, and would have fallen into the ceiling-high ficus tree if Holden hadn’t caught her at the last moment.
“Happy Birthday, Grace,” he said, holding her until she regained her balance. How did she manage to get drunk so quickly? Were they playing drinking games in the kitchen? We had talked about that. Last time, someone almost fell off the balcony.
“I’m fine,” she stammered. “We should get going,” she said, first just addressing us, then shouting into the crowd, “We’re heading out! Everybody out!”
“Where to?” Holden asked.
“To the Prime,” I answered. “Over on Franklin. Have you been?”
He sighed quietly. Then he nodded.
There were so many of us, we had to spread out through three subway cars, but we did it, and Grace had worked out a c
lever ploy to get everybody into the club. The doormen would have never let a group as large as ours in. So, we gathered on a side street, and Grace, who had sobered up fast, divided us into smaller groups.
“Annie?” Her tone was imperative.
“Yes?”
“You go with Holden, Kate, and James.”
“Aye aye, Captain!” I saluted while Grace called out the next set of names, took Holden by the hand, motioned for Kate and James to follow us, and was about to join the line outside the club when Holden firmly pulled me forward. I followed him past the line with the other two tagging along behind.
“Crane,” one of the doormen greeted him as they bumped fists. “Been a while. Good to see you, dude.”
“Yeah, had a broken leg.”
The doorman looked at me and then back at Holden.
“How many of you are there?” he asked.
“Four.”
He nodded, unhooked the red velvet cable, and waved us through while ignoring the boos from the people in line.
“Enjoy,” he shouted after us.
“I’ve never gotten in here so fast.” Kate sounded impressed. She seemed in awe of Holden. “You’re a regular, huh?” she asked in a flirty tone.
I closed my hand a little firmer around Holden’s. His smile spoke volumes. He seemed to like my jealousy.
“Catch you later,” he said, leaving Kate and James behind and pulling me to the bar.
“Do you want something to drink?”
I glanced at the menu. “Vodka martini.”
“Two vodka martinis,” he ordered from a skimpily clad bar tender. Did she just wink at him? I was satisfied to see that he didn’t pay much attention to her or her exposed midriff.
“You’ve been here a few times,” I observed. I had to stand on my tiptoes, lean toward him, and talk into his ear so he could hear me over the booming bass.
“You might say so,” he answered but didn’t dwell on it.
“OK, ’fess up! What’s going on? What’s with this club?”
“I know the owner.”
Again, it sounded as if something important were missing from his answer. I frowned, giving him a questioning look.
He rocked his head back and forth in a winding motion. “I used to date his sister,” he finally confessed.
