Page 77 of Broken Romeo
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Holden
Five Years Ago…
Someone was pounding on my bedroom door. Bleary eyed, I checked my phone. 1:35 a.m.
This was why I made sure to lock my bedroom door every night. If that door hadn’t been locked, Duncan or Chris would’ve just barged right in.
I crawled out of bed, grumbling, “Jesus Christ, hold on.”
As soon as I unlocked the door and tugged it open, Kate swept into my room in a blur of blonde hair and frenetic energy.
Katherine.
In my bedroom.
Again.
“You owe me a kiss!” she said, poking her bony index finger into my chest. Gold bangles clanked against her thin wrist, sliding around as she waved her arms dramatically before she clamped her hands to her hips.
“What?” I really wasn’t sure I’d heard her correctly or if my hormone-addled brain was still in dream mode.
“You. Owe. Me. A. Kiss.” She spoke slowly, like she was a teacher trying to get a point across to a bored student.
“How’d you get in here?” I swiped my hand down my face and rubbed the sleep from my eyes, still trying to figure out if this was some weird, fucked-up fantasy I was having in the middle of the night.
“Duncan was up playing video games,” she said, then pointed a finger into my face. “Now… kiss me.”
“Kate, I’m not going to kiss you. Go home.” I grabbed a bottle of water from my desk and took a swig.
“Oh, no,” she said, yanking the plastic water bottle from my hands and tossing it aside. “You’re not getting off that easily. You think I don’t know that you sent Duncan out to break up my date with Dave earlier tonight? He could have been my first kiss, but no. Duncan had to come running after us with some ridiculous excuse that his car was out of gas. So Dave rushed me home in order to take stupid Duncan to the gas station.
“So?” I asked.
“Do you think I’m a total idiot? Come on. I know that was some sort of code. I searched that parking lot for Duncan’s car and didn’t see it anywhere.”
I snickered. “Fine. You’re right. ‘My car’s out of gas’ is the code we all use when we’re telling each other to end a date early.”
Her expression dimmed, growing serious. “Why would you do that?”
My stomach turned with guilt. Maybe it was shitty to have ruined her date. Juvenile. Cruel. A storm of remorse churned in my stomach. “You’ll have to ask Duncan—”
“Oh, please. I know it was you. You were glaring at Dave all night. Staring at his hand when it brushed my shoulder. So, let me get this straight. You don’t want me, but you don’t want anyone else to have me. Does that about sum it up?”
It did, actually. And it was super fucked up. “It was for your own good, okay? Dave’s a fine guy, but he’s a serial cheater.”
Kate snorted and crossed her arms. “A serial cheater is a ‘fine guy’ in your book?”
“No—I mean, yes. He’s a good enough friend, but I wouldn’t want my sister to date him or anything.”
She stared at me, her eyes irritatingly bright and unblinking before saying, “Oh. So now I’m your sister in this scenario?”
“No!” I threw my hands in the air and growled, frustrated. I never expected to want Kate—not as badly as I did.
“Look,” she said, “I wasn’t planning to marry the guy. I just wanted to kiss him! And you ruined it.”
I kept my composure for all of a second before I cracked under the thought of her wanting to give Dave her first kiss. “Why? Why the hell do you want to kiss Dave so damn badly?”