The Old Wheel, page 28
part #2 of The Adventures of Holloway Holmes Series
“For these stupid fucking games that you and your mindfucked family play.”
“For keeping you safe, you idiot! How do you not understand that you are the most important person in my life, and if I am not in control, I cannot keep you safe? If something happened to you, I would die!”
The fury in his voice sucked the air from the room. I rubbed my chest. His trembling had become violent now; I thought I heard his teeth click together.
“I don’t need you to keep me safe,” I said. “And that’s all bullshit. The stuff about your dad. The stuff about being in control. It’s bullshit. It is fucking bullshit.”
His breaths were labored and pained. The springs rattled as he continued to shake. He sounded on the verge of tears.
“I’m sorry,” I muttered. In a louder voice, I said, “H, I’m sorry.”
He was still taking those panicked, struggling breaths.
“I shouldn’t have—I didn’t mean it. It’s like you said. I don’t understand, that’s all. If you say he helped you—”
“Stop,” he said as he started to cry.
I watched him, his shoulders heaving as he came apart. Then I reached for him. He stiffened in my arms, and then he twisted. He probably could have broken my jaw and my elbows and all my ribs if he’d wanted to—hell, he probably could have done it while he was still crying himself to pieces. But when I tightened my hold, he let me, and he let me pull him against me. I leaned against the wall, and he lay against me, sobbing. I stroked his hair and rubbed his back. It didn’t last long; a Holmes must always be in control.
When he’d calmed himself enough to take a deep breath, he sat up and wiped his face with the sheets. He sat there in silhouette, head down. I knew the curve of his spine. I knew the span of his shoulders. Anywhere, I thought. I could be anywhere and know you.
“Do you want me to leave?” I asked.
He shook his head. His voice was rough but surprisingly steady when he said, “I will never want you to leave.”
“Do you want to lie down, then? We can lie down. How about that? Let’s get some sleep.”
He let me pull him down, and this time, his body bent into mine. We fit together perfectly, my arm around his waist.
“If I have a, um, reaction,” I said, “please don’t freak out.”
He gave me one of those dry little huffs of breath.
I wanted to kiss the back of his neck. Instead, I tucked him against me more closely and closed my eyes and thought pure, chaste thoughts about traffic accidents.
When he moved, I knew. He couldn’t stand it. It was too much, being vulnerable like that, and (full disclosure) I was already chubbing up. So, he’d ask me—politely—to leave, and—
His mouth was hot against mine, uncertain, hard.
When he pulled back, I got up on one elbow. I could feel my pulse in my throat, in my face, in my lips.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. His voice was sandy, dissolving. “I’ve never kissed anyone before.”
I found his hip with one hand, his jaw with my other, pulled him closer, cupped his face, fingers curling along his nape. He was close enough that his breath felt hot and made my skin tighten. I wanted to say again, I love you, but instead I whispered, “Let me show you.”
Chapter 26
Even a Holmes
We didn’t do anything—not that it’s any of your business. I was a perfect gentleman. Basically. He didn’t even take off his Rudolph shirt, in spite of my best efforts.
But I will say this about Holloway Holmes: he’s a fast learner.
At some point, we slept again, and I mean slept. I woke twice during the night to the sound of Holmes’s deep, even breathing. I wondered how long it had been since he had slept—days probably—and how long since he had slept this deeply, without the night terrors that came for him. Since September, when we’d shared the couch in my living room? I kept one arm around him, and he stayed close to me all night.
The next time I woke, though, there was the distinct aroma of onions and hot carbs and a slight, vinegary kick. A herd of horses had been running through my head, taking horse dumps wherever they pleased, and where I’d gotten punched, my eye was swollen and throbbing. I groaned.
“We’re skipping class,” Holmes said. “It’s only a matter of time before they begin looking for truants.”
“How are you up so early?”
“I slept six hours.” Like he’d said sixteen.
“I’m dead.”
“You’re not dead.”
“You can’t be truant if you’re dead.”
His touch was hesitant as he brushed the hair from my forehead. I opened my eyes. He had showered and dressed, of course, and his hair was dark where it was still damp. The oxford and chinos were back, but I was having a hard time not thinking about what was underneath them. I smiled at him, and after a moment, he smiled back at me. You could see it then—how unsure he was about what was happening, about what would happen next, and how dangerously happy he was and, at the same time, aware of the danger of that happiness. I held out one hand (flopped it onto an empty expanse of mattress, if we’re being technical), and after a moment he took it.
“A-minus,” I said and squeezed his fingers. “You’re still a dork.”
Relief softened the lines around his mouth and in his shoulders. “Since you’re dead,” he said, “and I am such a dork, I suppose I should throw away these breakfast burritos.”
“No!”
“Then you’ll have to get up and eat—quickly—before the truant officer finds us.”
I tapped my mouth.
Holmes rolled his eyes.
“You’re my dork,” I said.
“Jack.”
I puckered up.
He didn’t roll his eyes, but he did give me that amused little breath. He bent, and it was clear he was going to try to get away with one quick little brush of lips. So, instead, I twisted his collar and dragged him closer and gave him the business.
A while later, while I had my hand up his shirt, Holmes wriggled away. His hair was mussed, his cheeks were flushed, the waistband of his chinos hung open. “No,” he said, more like he was trying to convince himself. He started stuffing his shirt back into his chinos, and that’s when he noticed the waistband. His head came up. Shock painted his face. “Jack!”
“Just in case,” I said.
“In case of what?”
“In case of a medical emergency.”
He fastened the button on his waistband, face flaming. His hard-on was more visible when he finished, and I watched him hesitate, trying to decide if this was worse.
“H?”
He threw me a wary glance.
I pointed to my own below-the-equator situation, which my boxers were doing nothing to hide. “It’s ok. It’s good. We’re good.”
He nodded, but his gaze slid away from mine.
“It’s supposed to happen,” I said. “It’s supposed to feel good, and it’s, you know, a way for us to show each other how we feel.”
He nodded again, but he still wouldn’t look at me.
“H—”
“Jack, please.”
I stopped. After a couple minutes, Holmes’s face cleared into its usual cold reserve. He moved over to the desk, where he’d improvised takeout containers by doubling up foam plates. He brought them over to me and sat on the bed. When I touched his back, he flinched and tried to hide the movement by removing the top plate from one of the makeshift containers. It held a breakfast burrito the size of a small bus, along with several salsa packets of varying heat, and plastic flatware. I propped myself up, tried to resign myself to blue balls for my foreseeable future, and went to work on the burrito. Fire-level salsa, by the way. There’s no point if it doesn’t burn going down.
“It’s not that it doesn’t feel good,” Holmes said. He released a jangled laugh. “Quite the opposite.”
Bacon, eggs, crispy potatoes, cheese. I took another bite.
“I didn’t want you to think I didn’t enjoy it.”
“Trust me, I know you enjoyed it.”
He turned enough to glare at me, and in spite of my best efforts, I grinned. After a moment, his face softened, and he said, “It is frightening to me. And more frightening that—that I can be so distracted that I don’t even notice…”
“Me trying to free the weasel?”
“Jack!”
I laughed, almost choked on some burrito, and saved myself by coughing and hacking and eating more burrito. Holmes didn’t do anything to save my life, of course. He also didn’t often look quite so satisfied, but I figured he deserved this one.
When my airway was clear of breakfast deliciousness, I said, “It was when I bit your nipple through your shirt.”
Holmes’s jaw dropped. He raised a hand halfway to his chest, where the wet mark was drying on the oxford.
“You were distracted,” I said through another mouthful of bacon and potato and eggs. “It happens to the best of us.”
Something changed in his face.
“No,” I said and put the burrito down. “You’re human. You’re allowed to be human. I only make out with human boys, and I only let human boys grind on me like it’s going out of style.”
He let out a frustrated breath and shook his head.
“Yes,” I said.
“Jack.”
“Yes.”
He was quiet for a long time. “You do not understand.” And then, before I could say anything, he added in a small voice, “I do not want to fight with you this morning.”
I thought about that. Then I flipped the plate off of his burrito and pushed it toward him.
He shook his head.
“You want to try that again?” I asked. “Seeing how you don’t want a fight and all.”
In the end, he ate half the burrito, and I did garbage disposal duty by finishing it off for him.
“So,” I said, “not trying to be weird, but could I borrow some clothes? I’m not moving in, I promise, but I’ve got to figure out what I’m going to do next. I should be able to get some of my stuff while my dad is out of the house today.”
“Jack, you have to talk to your father eventually.”
“No, I don’t.”
Holmes looked at me.
“I’m not going back there,” I said.
Holmes reached out, hesitated, and touched my eye. How long, I wondered, would he hesitate before he felt safe touching me? How long before it wasn’t always the ultimate risk? He asked, “Did your father do this to you?”
“God, no. Some Subway douche. It’s a long story.”
Holmes let his hand fall. A familiar rattle came from the window—the blinds were closed, but I recognized the sound of snow spitting against the glass.
“Your father loves you,” Holmes said. “He’s worried about you. I understand that you had a fight—”
“He doesn’t love me, actually. He loves the me—whoever he thought I was. And I’m too old to care what he thinks about me.”
Holmes’s mouth slanted with amusement. “You’re sixteen.”
“I’ve been taking care of myself for over a year. I’m not going to let him make me feel like shit about—” But I stopped. In part, because Holmes was some of it. And in part because I didn’t want to hear it out loud.
Holmes waited for the rest of it, but when I stayed silent, he didn’t press. Over the sound of the snow spinning against the window, he said, “The situation is more complicated than that.”
“I’ll figure it out.”
“Jack, please. He was desperate when he came here last night.”
“I said no. I’m done talking about it.”
He opened his mouth.
“Are you going to lend me some clothes or what?”
Whatever he’d been about to say, he changed it to, “Of course.”
So, I showered, and naturally, Holmes had an extra toothbrush. His clothes fit me alright; we were the same height, but I was broader across the shoulders, and built—well, thicker didn’t sound super flattering, but maybe more substantially. I mean, I wasn’t a speedhead with a jack-in-the-box ass. I settled on a Lake Powell t-shirt I’d never seen him wear and, surprise of all surprises, a hoodie and joggers he kept folded in one of the drawers. I tried to figure out my hair in his mirror, and after a while, Holmes came over and did it for me.
“How did you do that? I can spend an hour and it doesn’t look like that.”
He frowned. “It’s hair, Jack. What do you mean?”
Instead of engaging with that, I gave him a look and said, “What now?”
“Class—”
“Unh-uh. Nice try. The minute I walk into class, they’ll call my dad.”
“Jack, consider your long-term options.”
“No. I refuse to consider anything long-term, options or otherwise. Besides, you’re trying to distract me. What are you going to do next? Scheming? Plotting? Skulking?”
“Even if we omit, for the moment, the question of food and housing and other necessities, your education—”
“Holloway Holmes.”
One corner of his mouth fish-hooked. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes, you do. The game. This stupid game with Paxton.”
He thought about this for a while. “It’s not with Paxton. Or rather, he is a piece being moved in the game. He is not one of the players.”
“Are you sure about that? Because it looks like he’s been playing us pretty well.”
“I’m sure.” He bit his lip, the movement unguarded, and seemed to be thinking. Then he said, “I was given something valuable. Someone is trying to steal it.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maggie?”
“Possibly.”
“Aren’t the Moriartys your family nemesis? Nemesises? Nemises?”
“It may be Maggie. I don’t have enough information yet.”
There was another option, of course. Holmes’s father, Blackfriar, might have been the one behind these events. It could have been one of his bizarre trainings, another way to test his son. Or it could have something to do with whatever secrets he was hiding—he’d killed Sarah Watson to keep them, so I didn’t think he’d be bothered by a little blackmail and theft.
“I still believe our best course of action,” Holmes said, “is to discover the truth behind Dawson’s murder. That is the moment when everything went awry; up to that point, my opponent’s—”
“Our,” I said.
Holmes’s eyes flicked to mine. His throat moved, and after a moment, he said, “Up to that point, our opponent’s gambit had been successful. They deployed Paxton to distract me, which Paxton did quite effectively by embroiling us in this blackmail investigation. But something changed. Someone stole the blackmail material and killed Dawson. Now someone has killed Kazen. This suggests a possible opening; any disruption to the initial plan offers a chance to see who has orchestrated these events.”
“It’s hard to believe we’re dealing with two killers, so I guess we can assume that whoever we’re looking for, they were at the party at the Youngs’ house. Do you think it was Emma?”
After a pause, Holmes shook his head.
“Neither do I, but it looks bad for her.” I told him what Ariana had told me, about the night of Wintersmash, and Emma’s bizarre behavior in the tunnels. “She got into a fight with somebody. I guess it could have been Dawson, but honestly, I just can’t believe it. I’ve talked to her. Rowe and Glo love her. She’s not a killer.”
Holmes studied me.
“What?”
“Do you believe you can tell when someone is lying to you?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“But you believe you can sense deception?”
“No, not all the time. But I think I would have gotten a vibe if she was the crazy killer type.”
In the silence that followed, a door opened and shut somewhere else in the building.
“The evidence suggests that Emma is not the killer,” Holmes finally said. “She was not in possession of the weapon used to kill Kazen, and more to the point, if she were the killer, there would be no reason for her to be covered in blood the way she was. Kazen was killed with a single shot from close range. Emma would have been covered in blood spatter. Instead, she had blood on her hands, as though she had tried to turn the body or check him to see if he was still alive.”
“Or search him,” I said. “Someone went through his clothes. They were looking for something.”
Holmes grimaced and nodded.
“You’re sure it’s not Paxton?” I asked. “He was there that night. Hell, H, he locked us in that closet.”
“Aston was there. His father and mother and sister were there.”
“This is what I’m talking about. I don’t know what this thing is between the two of you, but I think it’s affecting your judgment.”
“There is no thing between me and Paxton,” Holmes said. “There is nothing between us.”
“H, come on.”
He drew in a breath. Then he flattened his hands on his knees and let it out slowly. I watched him, and when he still didn’t say anything, I picked up one of the takeout plates and folded it. The foam squeaked as I creased it.
“When I was younger,” Holmes said, the words brittle and cut like crystal, “Paxton was a guest of my family’s. For quite some time, actually. The Holmeses and the Adlers go back; they are one of the three families: Holmes, Adler, Moriarty.”
“Four, right? Watson?”
He gave me a strange look, but all he said was “You’ve met Paxton. He is brash. Charming. Intelligent. In many ways—perhaps in every way—he was the son my father wanted. He was also, believe it or not, kind, which is not a trait my father cultivates.” Holmes swallowed. “I found my father’s training to be…difficult. There was always another lesson. Always another game. Always another difficult truth or unyielding reality against which I was expected to test myself. I understand, now, that it was for my benefit. But at the time, I wished it were otherwise.”
