He needed to navigate the space in the dark, otherwise the growing pit in his stomach, the shallow breathing, the throbbing headache in the back of his head, it was all going to come together to become a panic attack.

  He couldn’t afford to have a panic attack in Sean’s house, not after what he had done. He leaned over the counter and told himself to breathe deeply. T

  he countdown technique rarely helped him, but he had no access to anything else in Sean’s house. Everything there was just evidence of how crazy he was, how stupid he had been.

  He needed to get out.

  He needed to talk to Gabriel, and he needed to talk to Gabriel right now, before he decided that going off the grid again was the only thing that he could do.

  It was tempting, he had to admit. He wouldn’t have to deal with any of this.

  He vaguely remembered that was the same thing that he had thought when he had first walked out of Gabriel’s house, after the wedding hadn’t happened.

  He put the knife back on the knife rack. This time, there was no way that he could miss how much his hands were shaking. They were also sweating and Holden had to wipe them off on his shirt, groaning as he did so.

  Even his stupid hands couldn’t do what he needed them to without protesting, he thought. He practically scoffed at them, fully aware of how ridiculous that was, then he grabbed his phone.

  His heart was still beating very fast, and part of him wanted to just go get a taxi, go home and hide. Forever, if possible. He hadn't brought his car here, he knew better than that.

  But he couldn't just disappear again, because this time it would have been his fault, and he wouldn't have been able to explain it. He wouldn't have been able to explain to his parents, to his friends, but most importantly, he wouldn't have been able to explain it to Gabriel.

  Gabriel.

  Holden needed to speak to him.

  He unlocked his phone and tried to call him, but the call went to voicemail.

  That happened sometimes if Gabriel wasn't paying attention to his phone, so he called again.

  It went to voicemail again.

  The shaking started to get worse, so much so that he was having a hard time holding his phone in his hand.

  He sat down on the cold tile floor of Sean’s kitchen, sliding along the counter, hardly noticing the hard handle of the drawer digging into his back. He tried to swallow, but it felt like there was something in his throat, and when he pressed on Gabriel’s contact card again, there was no answer.

  He could hear Gabriel’s cheery voice from faraway, telling him to leave a message, but all that he could focus on was the way that his cold sweat felt going down his back and his inability to catch his breath.

  He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, trying to remind himself that he was fine, but there was no room for any thoughts in his head right then. It was fear, all fear, and he was sure that something terrible was going to happen, that he was about to die. He knew that he would be found in the kitchen floor next to his ex-fiancé’s knife rack after ransacking his house, reduced to a quivering pile of nothing, after his own body had turned on him.

  He curled his toes as he tried to make himself aware of his body again.

  He pressed his fingertips against the skin on his face, which was warm. For the first time since he had arrived at Sean's house, he realized that his face was wet. Holden thought that it was covered in sweat. But the wetness on his face wasn’t sweat. His face had been wet ever since he had grabbed the knife, and he hadn't even noticed that he been crying all the way through, even as he had felt victorious, even as he attacked Sean’s furniture and tried to flood his house and pictured the way that he would feel when he unlocked the door and walked into his beautiful house, totally ruined.

  He wasn’t sure when it stopped. All that he could feel was the way that his clothes were digging into his skin, how cold his feet were, how soaked his sandals still were. He was vaguely aware that his phone was still in his hands, and that he had tried to leave Gabriel a message. His phone had stopped the call a little while ago, but Holden wasn’t sure when.

  Then he called again. And again, and again, and again. He wasn’t sure exactly how long he had done it for, but there was no answer, and Holden was tired. He didn’t think that Gabriel was going to answer. He was pretty sure that he couldn’t stay there, he couldn’t wait for Sean to come home and call the police.

  He grabbed the black marker on top of the fridge and tried to write on the magnetic blackboard with the tidiest handwriting that he could. He still felt drained and even writing simple words was hard.

  I’m sorry. I’ll send you a check in the mail.

  He read the words several times, put the marker back on top on the fridge, and wondered if Sean was going to call the police. He couldn’t think about that right then. He couldn’t think about what was going to happen. He needed to get out of there and try to get in touch with Gabriel.

  He texted his mother to tell her that he was going to be crashing at Gabriel’s place and he got a smiley face and an ‘okay’ immediately in return. At least that was a weight off his shoulders. He didn’t want to think about how awful it would be if he also had to justify himself to his parents.

  He looked around the house once more, at all the mess he’d made, and closed his eyes tightly again. There were tears streaming down his face, hot tears that felt like fire on his skin. This wasn’t the time to cry, though. He could cry when he got home.

  He could cry when he was in familiar territory, with Gabriel again. He wiped his face with the back of his hand and stepped out of the house. He closed the door softly behind him, grabbed the key out of his pocket, and tucked it under the hideous porch planter with the hostas that Sean loved so much.

  He walked to the park, his hands in his pockets, feeling the heat on his face. Since it was night time, he wasn’t feeling the sun, but that didn’t mean that it wasn’t unreasonably hot. He sat down on a bench next to a streetlight and texted Gabriel.

  [Hey. Let me know that you’re okay. I’m worried about you.]

  Then he sent it off. He watched his screen, expecting a text to come back immediately, but nothing did. He couldn’t go back to his apartment, all that he would think about was how worried he was about Gabriel. He was the one that had pushed Gabriel into this, and this fell on him.

  He took his phone out again and looked down at the empty space below his message. If Gabriel wasn't talking to him because he was mad, he had every right to do that, he thought.

  He just wished that he would get in touch with him. He needed to hear something from Gabriel, anything. Holden knew that he owed him more than just a simple apology. Gabriel had gone along with him because he cared about him, but Holden had ended up taking advantage of him.

  He hadn’t meant to, he had just gotten so caught up in his own pain that he hadn't realized just how horrible it had been for Gabriel.

  Worst of all, he had practically forced him to go meet Sean, and it wasn’t as if Gabriel and Sean were buddies before Sean had jilted him at the altar.

  In fact, Holden was pretty sure that they hated each other from the get-go. If Holden had stopped to listen to what Gabriel was trying to tell him, he might not have ended up in his ex's house, cutting up his stuff and acting like a teenager.

  He leaned his head back and closed his eyes as the wind picked up slightly. He could smell the ocean from where he was sitting. It was better to focus on the salt and the sounds of the people laughing than on how tired he was. He felt like he had just run a marathon and had barely gotten to the finish line.

  He closed his eyes and focused on everything going on around him instead of what was going on inside his body. It could have been five minutes or three hours, but soon, his phone was vibrating in his pocket.

  He took it out and looked at Gabriel’s photo on his screen. He wasn’t sure when he had taken this picture, but it was at a party, and Gabriel was grinning at the camera in a way that he never did. He was always fierce and guarded, his pictures showing off his cheekbones and his lips, his eyes wide. But this picture was nothing like that, he was wearing a huge goofy grin and his eyes were narrow, and he didn’t appear to care that there was a camera in front of him. It was his favorite picture of Gabriel ever and he thought it was always going to be.

  The phone vibrated in his hand again and Holden shook his head. He couldn’t just sit there and let the phone ring, he needed to answer.

  “Hello?”

  “Holden? Thank God! Are you okay?”

  Holden swallowed. “I’ll be okay. Are you okay?”

  There was a long pause on the other end of the line before Gabriel answered. “I’ll be okay too.”

  Holden closed his eyes. “We need to talk.”

  “I know,” Gabriel said. “Your place?”

  “Sounds good,” Holden said. “See you there in twenty minutes?”

  “Sure,” Gabriel replied. “See you there.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Gabriel was waiting outside of Holden’s door, leaning against the wall and trying to keep his breathing under control.

  Even though his face hadn’t hurt at all when he had first been hit, he felt nothing but pain now.

  He needed to put ice on it and he hadn’t managed to because the police had taken both him and Sean into custody.

  Gabriel was pretty sure it was mostly to scare them, since he didn’t want to press charges and neither did Sean, but he could have done with medical attention.

  Still, he supposed he deserved the outcome of the fight. Youthful indiscretion was one thing, but he wasn’t sure exactly what had gotten into him when he had punched Sean. He was being a child.

  He knew better than to do that, and yet, he had found himself rolling around on the ground with another guy and there had been absolutely nothing sexy about it.

  The police had let Gabriel go after a stern talking to and when he had gotten out of the police station, Sean had nodded at him. Neither one of them had said anything else to the other one. Everything that needed to be said had been said.

  Sean wasn’t likely to be part of his life anymore, but that completely depended on what Holden had done.

  He sounded upset when they had been on the phone, but more than upset, he had sounded tired.

  Gabriel wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.

  The plan was to ask when they saw each other, but Holden was taking his sweet time. Gabriel looked around for a second then decided that he didn’t care if people saw him sitting down outside of Holden’s door.

  The moment that he was on the floor, though, he heard someone coming up the stairs. He turned his head to see Holden and smiled at him.

  He looked like shit; his face was wet, his make-up runny and his hair was sticking to his skin. Even though Gabriel was far away, he could see that Holden had been crying. His eyes were puffy and blood-shot and his lips were swollen.

  The moment that Holden saw him, he practically ran toward him. “Holy shit,” he said, kneeling down in front of him. He grabbed Gabriel’s chin and moved his head so that he could see his face more clearly. “What happened?”

  “I got in a fight with your ex,” Gabriel said, groaning when Holden gingerly touched the skin on his face. “Careful. He has a mean right hook.”

  “You got in a fight?”

  “Well, the bruises didn’t just manifest themselves on my face,” Gabriel said. Holden shook his head, letting go off Gabriel’s face and sitting down in front of him. For a second, Gabriel thought about how ridiculous they must both look, two fully grown adults sitting outside one of their apartments, both of whom looked like absolute messes.

  “But you don’t fight,” Holden said quietly, so quietly that Gabriel almost couldn’t hear him.

  “That’s what I thought too, but apparently, I do fight,” he said.

  Holden trained his gaze on him, a question in his eyes.

  Gabriel licked his lips before he answered. “He was saying all this shit about you,” he said. “It’s one thing to leave you at the altar, but to disrespect you even more after that? I just, I couldn’t take it.”

  Holden bit his lower lip, obviously trying to contain a smile.

  “What?” Gabriel asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Tell me.”

  “It’s just kind of cute,” Holden said. “That the first fight you ever got into was to defend my honor.”

  Gabriel rolled his eyes and laughed, but it hurt, so he stopped almost immediately. “Shut up, Holden.”

  “No problem,” Holden said, which made Gabriel laugh again. His laughter turned into a pained groan. He flipped Holden off and shook his head. “What happened to you? You look like shit.”

  “I look like shit?”

  “You know what I mean,” Gabriel replied.

  Holden nodded. “Yeah, I don’t know what happened,” he said. “I guess I realized I was making some poor decisions.”

  “When?”

  “When I was done making them,” Holden said. “Do you want to come inside? We can put some ice on your face.”

  Gabriel nodded. “That sounds good.”

  Holden stood up and extended his hand. Gabriel took it without hesitation, becoming aware of how sweaty and warm his skin was.

  He was pulled to his feet and accidentally very close to Holden.

  Normally, one of them would have pulled away from the other one, but Gabriel was too tired. He didn’t want to move at all, and there was something nice about this—something about this that was entirely familiar in the best of ways.

  It was weird, though—he didn’t think that they had ever been this close to each other before, but for some odd reason, it felt right.

  Like he had done this a million times already. His gaze darted down to Holden’s lips and for the first time in a long time, Gabriel felt like he was really seeing him.

  Holden’s mouth was beautiful, even when swollen and puffy. Before he could think about it, Gabriel’s hand was on his face, tracing his lips. He knew that he shouldn’t have done this, it was too much, it was crossing a boundary that couldn’t be uncrossed—something he had been so good at doing for the last decade of his life.

  “Jesus, Holden,” he said. “What happened to you?”

  Holden closed his eyes and breathed out deeply. Gabriel could tell that his breath was trembling, that he was shaking.

  “I don’t know,” he said, swallowing so hard that Gabriel could hear it. “I have no idea what I was thinking.”

  “It’s okay,” Gabriel said.

  “No, it's not okay,” Holden said, shaking his head. His eyes opened again, and Gabriel noticed how red they were, how big and blue and red they were. He traced Holden’s jaw with the tips of his fingers and Holden fell into his touch, putting his cheek entirely in Gabriel’s hand. “It’s not.”

  “It’s going to be okay,” Gabriel said.

  “Maybe,” Holden nodded. “But we both know it's not okay right now.”

  Holden held his hand up and touched Gabriel’s, their fingers interlacing.

  It was such a small gesture, it shouldn’t have sent the shiver it did down Gabriel’s spine. There was something about this interaction that was more intense than anything Gabriel had ever felt before.

  He wasn’t sure if it was because of the fight or because he had been very tired that day, but everything about the way that Holden was touching him, looking at him, standing so close to him—it felt real and heightened, like every second that they were standing there sparked electricity in his brain and expanded it through his body until it was almost all that Gabriel could feel.

  Holden swallowed again, grabbing Gabriel’s hand and putting it at his side. He disentangled his fingers from Gabriel’s and everything went back to normal in a second. Well, not exactly normal. There was something there, something weird and lingering that felt like too much, and Gabriel didn’t think that he was going to be able to ignore it for long.

  For the time being, though, the most important thing was that Holden be okay. He clearly wasn’t, so Gabriel was about to open his mouth to tell him that they should head inside, but before he could, Holden was speaking again. His voice was so quiet that Gabriel had to strain to hear him. “I left him an apology note.”

  Gabriel swallowed. He didn’t want to think about all the legal implications that might have. Holden—or more adequately, Holden’s parents—could afford good legal representation, but Gabriel didn’t think that many people would want to work with someone who had effectively incriminated himself.

  “I don’t care,” Holden said, as if he could read Gabriel’s mind. “I don’t care what happens to me.”

  “Holden—”

  Holden shook his head. “I'm sending him a check in the mail. I thought about how much it would cost to repair all the damage I've done, but I think I'm just going to leave the check blank. He can decide.”

  Gabriel narrowed his eyes. “And if he cleans you out?”

  “Honestly, I deserve it,” Holden said.

  Gabriel knew better than to try and talk Holden out of this right now. So instead, he nodded, and gestured toward the door.

  “Come on, let's go have a cup of tea or something,” Gabriel said.

  Holden nodded, digging the keys out of his pocket. He opened the lock and leaned against the door to open it.

  “You’re right,” Holden said as the door creaked. “I think we both need a hot drink.”

  “I was going to say stiff drink, but a hot drink will do,” Gabriel replied with a smile.

  “I think I have wine,” Holden said. “And you know, I could do it a hug.”

  Gabriel laughed. “I’ll give you a hug the moment that everything stops hurting like a bitch,” he said, walking next to Holden as they went inside the apartment. Holden closed the door behind them, turning around to look it.

  “Do you want some painkillers? I can get you some ice for your face.”

  “Yes, please,” Gabriel said. He walked over to the sofa and sat down, sighing heavily. “God, today was a shit show.”

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10