Page 56 of Naughty November
I didn’t like that. Not at fucking all.
“Button?”
He shook his head, looking down. “No, um, she… well, she broke up with me, I guess?”
A hot, primal sense of satisfaction flashed through me. Which immediately made me feel like an ass, since he was obviously upset about it.
I crossed my arms over my chest so I wouldn’t tug him against me for a comforting hug. “So, she really is still as dumb as I remember.”
His eyes jerked up to mine, going wide again as a hint of color finally came back to his face. “What?”
I grinned. “I said what I said. But anyone lettingyougo? Big mistake. Huuuuge.”
His mouth dropped open in a perfect O of surprise, giving me all sorts of dirty ideas I definitely shouldn’t be having about him. “Did you… Did you just quotePretty Womanat me?”
I grinned a little harder. “Did you justrecognizea quote fromPretty Woman, straight boy?”
“It’s a classic,” he mumbled, blushing again.
“Agreed,” I said. “Now, why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”
He started shaking his head before I even finished talking, holding his hands up like he was trying to ward me off. “No, um, that’s okay. Really, it’s… it’s fine? I’ll just wait for Ev to get back. Will he… um, will he be home soon?”
I frowned. “No. Don’t you guys still keep in touch? Everett made it sound like you two were still close. He’s out of town for the whole week.”
“Oh, right,” Holden said, his shoulders slumping. “I forgot. The conference thing, right? He asked me to feed Lucy, but Cindy wouldn’t let me.”
Those words failed to compute for a minute. But then, when I finally made sense of them, I saw red. “She wouldn’tletyou?” I growled. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“Oh, um,” he mumbled, his hands fluttering like they didn’t know where to settle, “I don’t, uh, it’s… it’s all over now.We’reover. She dumped me, so I just need to, um… you know what? I can wait for Everett to get home. It was really nice to see you, Fletcher, but I should just go.”
He started to turn away, and my hand lashed out without my consent, wrapping around his wrist and yanking him against my chest.
“Oh, hell no. Tell me what you needed from my brother.”
“I can’t,” he breathed out, staring up at me wide-eyed and quivering in a way that made me all too aware of just how long it had been since I’d had someone in my arms like this.
I pushed that thought aside. It wasn’t in the cards, and rampant libido or not, he was too flustered for me not to try and make whatever had him so jittery right again.
“Try again, button.”
Oh fuck, that blush. He looked down, dodging my eyes again. “I, um, I don’t want to.”
I tipped his chin right back up, and not just for an excuse to touch him.
“Because?”
“It’s… it’s embarrassing.”
I grinned. “I’ve known you since you still needed a booster seat to sit at the dinner table. I have incriminating pictures of you wearing nothing but Scooby-Doo underwear and a cape at Ev’s eighth birthday party. I remember you refusing to eat pancakes at our house after my mom cut them into cookie cutter shapes because you thought she was hurting them, and I’ve seen you cry over Ev killing a spider instead of taking it outside. If you honestly think anything you tell me as an adult will top allthoseembarrassing moments, you’re sorely mistaken, Holden James Sinclair.”
He ducked his head, but not before I saw him smile.
“Oh my God, you’re not actually making me feel any better, you know.”
I tipped his chin up again. “Liar.”
He chewed on that lip of his again, then grinned so brightly that it did something funny to my heart. “Okay, maybe a little. I guess you do know all my secrets.” Then his face fell again, and he sighed. “Well, not all of them. And this really is embarrassing.”