“Then we started being friends with benefits, and my fucking heart got involved. And I couldn’t ignore it anymore. I didn’t bring it up because, well, what if you didn’t feel the same? Then I’d be out a friend because it would be too awkward, and Holden, you make me laugh. All the time. You make mehappy, which I never expected, and I know I can’t lose that. I don’t want to pretend it’s still just a harmless crush that will go away, but I will if it means not losing our friendship.”
“I don’t want to pretend, either.”
I can’t help it: I dissolve into watery giggles at those words, words that shouldn’t hold so much weight but have the power to change everything. Holden’s face twists up, but I only shake my head and flap a hand vaguely in the air. When I calm again, I drag in a deep breath and wipe my eyes with my palm.
“Sorry. I just—I guess what I’m trying to say with all of that word-vomit is, I can’t do the casual kind of thing anymore.”
His voice is soft, achingly so, when he speaks. “I know I can handle it, but do you think you could? Handle a relationship, I mean, with us being so far apart all the time?”
“I think so.” I shove a hand through my hair. My lips curve with a smile I didn’t know was beneath the surface when I look back at him. “I think I can do it. At least, with you. You’ve already got a good understanding that Ash comes first, always, and well, I definitely can’t complain about the sex.”
His cheeks flush before my eyes, and he ducks his head as he laughs. I watch closely as he scrubs a hand over his face; my chest tightens with the bubble growing within my ribcage. It feels a lot like love, but what do I know? I’ve never truly felt quite like this before. Even with my more serious relationships, it wasn’t like this.
Besides, it’s far too soon for that.
We end the call a short time later, with shy grins and awkward goodbyes, and I sit on my bed for a couple of minutes to stare at the photo I’d set as Holden’s contact picture. I relish the warmth burning beautifully through my veins. Biting my lip, I open the camera and snap a quick photo of my smiling face. Sending it off to Holden, I push to my feet.
A laugh nearly breaks free when I step out of the room. Ashton has climbed into Tristan’s lap at some point during my call. The man himself gives me a long-suffering look, and I hurry to take the sleeping child from him. Ashton lets out a soft whimper, but he doesn’t wake. Thankfully, I get him in his bed without problems, and I make sure he has his purple lion before tiptoeing from the room.
“So?” Luci prompts when I flop down onto the couch.
I shift so I can rest my head on her thighs and my feet in Tristan’s lap. “My boyfriend’s pretty amazing.”
“You guys made it official?” Tristan squeezes my ankle, leaning forward, and he snaps his fingers until I look at him. “Like, for real?”
I nod then yelp when Luci’s legs bounce beneath my head. Gentle fingers push my hair out of my face, and I stare up into her dark eyes. She catches her bottom lip between her teeth; a bolt of unease flashes through me. I know my friends won’t try to convince me not to be with Holden—they’ve been pushing for the relationship since before they found out about the necklace. But there’s nothing stopping Luci or Tristan from saying things I don’t expect.
“I’m happy for you” is what she says. “You deserve to be happy and loved in ways I’m so very completely unwilling and unable to love you. I hope he treats you right.”
“So do I. It may be stupid, it may burn out and fuck up my life for a while, but I have high hopes.”
“Wine?” Tristan asks, already on his feet and halfway to the kitchen.
“Wine,” Luci and I respond in unison.
Once he’s back with three glasses pinched between his fingers and a bottle of white in the other hand, I sit up to relieve him of two of the glasses. He pours a healthy amount of wine in each glass and raises his in the air.
“To my best friend who finally got her head out of her ass and landed herself a hottie.”
“And to my best friends who kicked my ass into gear so I could land myself said hottie!”
My giggle cuts off with the sip I take, and a pleasant heat sets up residence in my soul. It sends a buzzing in my blood that has little to do with the alcohol I’ve been consuming this evening. It has everything to do with the conversation I had with Holden.
My phone screen lights up where it sits on the table, and Tristan lunges for it before I can even think of moving. I launch myself at him and grapple for the phone; I manage to yank it from his hands with a laughing ‘Give it here, you asshole!’ Luci laughs from behind me, but I ignore her in favor of reading the text that’s just come in.
Holden
How did I get so lucky to know you?
My cheeks burn as I count the kissy-face emojis attached to the message. Eight. Eight kissy-face emojis that warn me I’m falling too hard, too fast. I’ll scorch myself on the flames if I’m not careful. I can and will be careful. I make that promise to myself, knowing full well that logic seems to dictate otherwise: Something about Holden makes me want to dive headfirst off the ledge and never look back.
Selfish
Isighandsetmy phone down. Holden still hasn’t responded to the text I sent two days ago. He’d warned me he would start getting busier now that he’s writing music with his band, going into the studio at the end of the month. Though I know he can’t always be available, I’ve become accustomed to getting prompt responses at all hours of the day—and night.
We only made things official less than a week ago, and I’ve found myself torn between two minds. Half of me is preoccupied with thoughts of Holden, how happy I’ve been since he came into my life, and hopes of that joy continuing for as long as it possibly can. The other half whispers, late in the night when I can’t sleep, all the doubts and worries that I’m just barely able to shove aside. A sick sort of terror lingers under the happiness, a question of whether my feelings are real or whether this is all just a way of attaching myself to someone who’s shown me the slightest bit of intimacy. I live with the visceral fear he’ll find it too much to juggle a career and a long-distance relationship, that he’ll break up with me when Ashton continues to be most important to me.
Blowing a lock of hair from my face, I lean closer to the canvas and dab another tiny dot of white in the sea of slate-gray. Taking up running has opened me up to the idea of diving into my past hobbies, the ones I’d had before Ashton. I’m beginning to find who I was before. I swirl the paintbrush in the cup of water beside me and let my gaze take in the portrait before me.
