Holden
Back at the apartment, my brother is laying on my couch and eating my food while drinking my beer. “How long you plan on being here, man?” I ask, kicking his foot off my coffee table. He’s nothing but fucking trouble. I don’t need his brand of bullshit, but he’s all I got. I won’t turn him away. I forgave him a long time ago for this shit with Reese. If she truly loved me she wouldn’t have done the things she did.
He makes a face and sits up. “I’m looking for a place. Rent here isn’t as cheap as it used to be. Hell, you could clean out that office and offer me the room.”
“I could, but I don’t want you here.” I slap a newspaper at his chest. “There’s a few advertisements. If you get off your ass, maybe you can go view them.”
He blows out a frustrated breath.
“Why are you here?”
“I told you. I need to get back to my roots, Hold. I lost my way.” He rubs a tired hand over his face and starts flipping through the paper.
I make my way to the kitchen and find Conleigh and Ezra sitting at the table together looking at cars on a laptop.
“Hey, man.” Ezra nods.
“Sup?”
“I am trying to gain my independence and buy a car.” Conleigh smiles at me and Ezra squeezes her hand.
My jaw ticks as I notice how close their chairs are pulled together.
“Good for you.” I grab a bottle of Heineken from the fridge and knock it back eagerly.
“I have to work early. Do you think you could drive her to that buy here pay here place off the interstate in the morning?” Ezra looks to me.
I swallow hard unsure of how to proceed here. “No problem.” In the end, I agree because we need to talk. Her and me, no outside influences. Glancing down at her crossed ankles as her cheeks blush, I see her socks rolling down her calves at their own accord and it takes everything in me not to drop to my knees and run my rough, splintered, calloused fingers over her smooth skin. Fuck she’s so beautiful without even trying.
She licks her lips, drawing my attention to that tempting and so damn kissable mouth. “Thank you,” she whispers and her hair lops to the side as her bun comes undone as she tilts her head up at me. Her eyes holding waves of emotion all crashing against me. Beating me down, daring me to say fuck it all and stake my claim. Pump my fist against my chest and roar like the king of the jungle or some shit.
I want to get in Conleigh’s face and scream at her and demand she tell Ezra to get lost, that she belongs to me. But I don’t. I grit my teeth.
Wren comes strutting into the kitchen. “No one invited me to the kitchen pow wow. Are you whispering about me?” He pulls out a chair and sits next to Conleigh. Scooting his chair as close to her as physically possible without sitting in her lap.
“Hello, Wren.”
“Hello, love.” He smirks and takes a drink from her wine glass.
“Excuse you,” she scoffs, scooting back her chair.
“I gotta get busy,” Ezra announces. “Hey, Con?”
“Yeah?”
“Will you put me a pot of coffee on, I have to work on the proposal for the Miller account, it’s going to be a late night. I just have to run down to the car and grab my suitcase.” He loosens his tie as he stands up. His cell phone rings and he answers it telling whoever is on the line to hold on.
She shrugs. “Sure.”
It pisses me off. Why is she doing anything for him? My jaw ticks as they smile at each other. If I hadn’t sunk so much time and money into my workshop below us, I’d say screw it and give my place to them to rent and move the hell away from here.
Wren looks at me and shakes his head.
“Don’t,” I growl at him.
He smirks and rubs his chin. “You see Reese around? I thought she’d be around more than she has been.”
I roll my eyes and stroke my chin. “No, you’d know a helluva lot more about her than I would.”
He chuckles. “Conleigh, love dove. You going to come to my show this weekend?”
“If I’m working,” she answers over her shoulder as she puts a new filter in the coffee maker.
“I don’t think I can perform if you aren’t there to watch,” he attempts lamely to flirt.
“Get out of here.” I shove him toward the living room as he gets up from the table with the rest of Conleigh’s wine in tow.
“What time do you want to leave in the morning?”
Her shoulders sag and she turns to face me after pressing the brew button. “I guess around eight or nine unless you have somewhere to be. I can ask Bailey or get an Uber or cab.” At the mention of Bailey, I remember our conversation. Her telling me to fight for Conleigh but I don’t know if I have it in me. Reese being here has reminded me all too much of what happens when I let anyone in.
“I have an appointment at ten.” I don’t know why I don’t explain that it’s a meeting with a divorce attorney. I don’t know why I never told Conleigh about Reese. It just never seemed important until now.
Does she know? Do I care? Yeah, I care a helluva a fucking lot. More than I want to. More than I should.
“Pull up your socks,” I tell her.
Her lips twitch into a semblance of a smile as she stares at me.
“Why don’t you pull them up?” She challenges and my dick jumps.
“Don’t tempt me,” I warn.
“Are you chicken?”
I take a step toward her as her elbows rest calmly on the counter. “Don’t fuck with me,” I whisper, my eyes traveling down her thighs and down to those socks that are now hugging her ankles.
In a breathy whisper, she teases, “I plan on doing more than fucking you.” She smirks being brazen.
Just as I am about to go down on my knees Ezra calls from the dining room, “Con, will you bring me a cup of coffee?”
“I got it,” I tell her as I reach around her, pressing my hardening cock into her stomach to get a mug from the cabinet.
Her chest shudders as I brush against her and whisper in her ear, “This is far from finished.”
She bites her lip and nods.
“Maybe you had better bring it to him after all,” I tell her, adjusting my dick in my pants, wishing I could bend her over the counter right now, Ezra be damned.
By the time my hard on fades, Conleigh is seated in the living room watching trashy reality TV with fucking Wren and laughing. Ezra has his work spread across the dining room table and is concentrating on his task. I find myself going into my shop downstairs. The butterflies I made for Conleigh stare at me, taunting me to go back upstairs, drag her to my room and fuck her brains out until she truly submits to me. I don’t do that though because deep down I know I don’t want to hurt Ezra even though the bastard deserves to have her taken away from him. I see the way he still looks at her. He still loves her.
I take my frustration out in the form of working. I start working on an order I received online to make a rocking chair. I mostly make signs and take on custom jobs when they come in or generally whatever inspires me. Grabbing my measuring tape and pencil, I take out my pattern and start gathering the wood I will need.
An hour or two later I step outside in the chill of the night to cool down and take a break. Reese is walking down the street with her arms wrapped around her center, shivering. I pretend I don’t see her but she comes straight to me. “I went to the bar, you weren’t there.”
“Nope,” I answer shortly. Why is she here? I look over at her as she leans against the building next to me. She’s about five years too late. Sure, she’s as beautiful as she ever was. Blonde hair, big blue eyes, huge tits, and a tiny waist. Years ago, she was my world. I thought she would be the mother of my children. I was so young and naïve. It wasn’t just her looks though that drew me in, back then she was so innocent and sweet or so I had thought. I guess I never knew the real her.
Now when I look at her, I don’t feel anything but pity. She’s pathetic. Her and Wren are so alike it’s almost funny. When she left me, she told me she chose the wrong brother and now here she is begging me to take her back. She ruined my life, or at least that is what I thought at the time, but in reality, she did me a favor. Thank God we never had any kids because we would have ended up where we are now, but a child would be the one hurting. We never would have worked long-term. I can see that now. She’s one of those people who will always be searching for the next best thing and sadly for her she let me go. And now that she knows no one will ever be as good to her as I was, she’s back. Thinking we can just go back to how things were before she took off. I’m not wired that way.
“Can we talk?”
“Nothing to talk about. Me and you got nothing in common other than Wren.”
“Holden…” she grabs my arm. “I’m still your wife.”
I remove her hand. “Not for long. Should have gotten those divorce papers drawn up when you left, Reese. It’s time we both let go and moved on. I forgot about you years ago. You need to do the same. We’ve been done a long time.”
“It’s that girl, isn’t it? The puker.” She snorts and shakes her head. Her blonde hair falls around her shoulders in waves with the movement. I used to love wrapping my hands in her hair but not anymore. The thought of being with anyone else after Conleigh makes my chest hurt. Reese’s blue eyes stare at me still holding on, still believing she can get me back.
“There’s been plenty of women since you’ve been gone. Conleigh doesn’t have a thing to do with how I feel about you ,which by the way, is nothing at all. You don’t mean shit to me, Reese. Time you get it through your dense head. Now, if you’ll get the fuck off my property, I got shit to do.” I don’t give her a second glance. I leave her standing in the cold and start back inside when she grabs my hand. “Don’t embarrass yourself, Reese.”
“Holden, kiss me and tell me you don’t feel anything for me,” she pleads, tugging on my fingers, bringing them to her mouth. She sucks my ring finger between her teeth and nibbles it. I’d be a liar if I said it didn’t feel good and that for a brief moment I didn’t remember how good we once were together.
The first time I saw her I thought wow. Her family was unloading a moving truck. She stood in her yard, her blonde waves blowing in the breeze as she smiled at me and waved. She was like an angel standing there. Only thing missing was a halo around her head. The next time I saw her she was sitting on the bleachers and looking lost. She was new to our school and had moved two houses down from me. Anyway, I had finally gotten up the courage to approach her. She made me so damn nervous. My stomach was in knots. She had remembered me living near her and told me she couldn’t remember the name of our street. I walked her home that day and every day after.
Jerking my finger away as her teeth rake over my skin, I tell her, “I don’t need to kiss you to remind myself. I already know. I told you there is no chance in hell I would ever go there with you again. Not in this life or any other.”
“I never meant to hurt you.”
“No one ever does do they? Not you. Not Wren or my parents.” I shake my head. I don’t want to think about them either. I’m the son who never did anything right. I’m the son that threw his future away because I didn’t follow the plan they mapped out for me. I married Reese against their wishes and they cut me out of their lives as though I never existed. They knew she would ruin me but they should have been there for me.
“You’ll see, Holden. I’ll prove it to you. We’re meant to be together.” With that she lets go of my hand and goes back the way she came from.
I hope it is the last time I watch her walk away and that its finally for fucking good.