Page 34 of Broken Romeo
I lean forward into him. Relentless. That’s my problem. When I get on a tear, I’m ruthless about taking down my prey.
“Oh, I know you are. I know you better than anyone in this theater, Holden. You’re so goddamn afraid of not being taken seriously, so desperate to prove yourself, that you stomp around and yell and try to establish dominance. And who can blame you? With your dad, whoever yelled the loudest or walked away first won, isn’t that right?”
His spine straightens. “Whoever yelled the loudest or walked away first, won,” he repeated.
Oh, damn. What did I say?
“You read my journal,” he says quietly, a smile edging the corners of his pillowy lips up. “That’s straight out of—”
I cross my arms and huff loudly. Childish, yes. But I’m running low on options. “Well, it was my homework. You made that crystal clear.”
He nods. “It was. Any discoveries?”
“None that change my opinion of you,” I snap.
“Yet.”
Silence suspends between us, and I hold my breath for the longest thirty seconds in history.
Finally, Holden sighs, a weariness softening his otherwise hardened features. “You have to stop bailing people out of their own shit. Especially when you won’t do the same for yourself. I wanted Nolan to admit publicly that he didn’t bother to remember your name. I wanted him to announce it to everyone in the room so that he could maybe, finally, learn his lesson.”
I swallow and harden my gaze. “Except you weren’t just embarrassing him, Holden. You were humiliating me, too.”
Holden’s gaze is piercing, his face stormy and dark. “Why should you be embarrassed because he was being an asshole?”
My stomach muscles clench, and I squeeze my crossed arms tighter around my body like a shield. “I don’t know. Why are women ashamed when a man in the workplace sexually harasses them? Sometimes, we react out of instinct. And for self-preservation, I gave Nolan my name so that I didn’t have to stand there for another painful second while he admitted that I was so fucking unmemorable, he couldn’t remember the simplest name ever!”
Unmemorable. The irony isn’t lost on me that Holden was chastising my co-star for not remembering my name when he himself had told the production team that I ‘wasn’t exactly memorable’ less than a week ago.
I hate that he’s witnessing the tears filling my eyes. My throat clogs, and I swallow against the thick blockage, then meet his gaze. “It reminded me a hell of a lot of someone else I once knew who couldn’t get my fucking name right.”
His eyebrows lift with impressive bravado. Shameless. “I knew your name. I just chose to call you by your full name. Not the shortened version.”
I glare at him. “So, I should have just continued calling you Oldie or Denny, then… even though you hated it?”
His masculine chuckle resonates deep in his chest as he leans closer to me. So close that his warm, soft breath floats across my skin, sending a wave of goosebumps skittering down my arm. “The difference is, we both know you didn’t hate it when I called you Katherine.”
We pause, close enough that a single movement—a push on our toes or a sway forward—would cause our lips to connect. The energy between us tingles down my body.
A knock pounds on the outside door. I launch myself to the other side of the stage like an antelope on crack. Crackelope.
A young man pokes his head inside, holding up a large plastic bag. “Delivery for Holden James.”
An amused smile crosses Holden’s face as he watches me panting from across the stage.
“That’s our dinner,” he says as he strides to the door.
“Our dinner?” I ask with a glance at my phone. It’s already six-thirty.
He hands the delivery boy some cash with a quick nod and a quiet exchange I can’t hear, before turning and heading back towards me. “Yes. Our dinner. You need to eat. Especially since I doubt you ate at all during your morning shift at the café. The only thing I’ve seen you eat in three days is a granola bar and coffee.”
He meets me back at center stage and sits, pulling takeout containers, chopsticks, and napkins from the bag.
“That’s not all I eat...” Sometimes I grab a pack of almonds.
I swallow and do some quick math in my head. I’m desperately trying to save money… and an extra fifteen bucks may not seem like a lot to Holden, but to me? That’s another hour and change I will have to work at the café just to pay for one meal.
I reach for my wallet and tug out the only cash I have left in there—a ten-dollar bill—then hold it out for Holden.