Page 33 of Rebel Romeo

And in some ways, he did.

“Thanks.” I tell myself that the flush on my cheeks is from the hot beverage in my hands, but I’m pretty sure we both know the truth.

For the first time since I began rehearsals, it feels like Holden isn’t waiting for me to fail. For the first time, it’s like he’s rooting for me, not betting against me.

He picks up his messenger bag from the ground between his feet and jerks his head to the left. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?”

His grin widens. “You’ll see.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Holden

Five years ago…

The next day, inspired by our run-in at the ramen place, I was fully in operation apology mode. I set the two cups of coffee I’d bought on the hood of my car, pausing briefly to light my cigarette before I headed into the theater building for class.

I made it as far as the steps before her scent hit my nose and I stopped dead in my tracks. She was alone in front of the building, leaning against the brick with books clutched in her arms. “Those things will kill you,” Katherine said.

She looked adorably pissed off, her bright blue eyes pinched in anger as she glared at me.

With the cigarette pinched between my lips, I took a deep drag and exhaled the smoke slowly, balancing two coffee cups in my hands as I approached her.

“Yeah, I know,” I said, the cigarette bouncing against my lips. “I’ve seen the after-school specials, too.”

In truth, I’d been debating quitting, ever since I started training for football this year and found myself winded after a fifty-meter dash. I’d only started smoking initially as a way to metaphorically give the middle finger to my parents. As it turned out, I was giving the middle finger to my lungs.

Unsurprisingly, even though I’d only been smoking a few years, it was already pretty hard to fucking quit.

“My dad smokes. I flipping hate it,” she said, eyeing me warily.

I stared back at her and took another long, slow drag. She never revealed a whole lot about her family. Other than briefly talking about how protective they are of her, this was one of the few times she brought them up.

I guess we had that in common.

Katherine screwed her face into a frown and waved a hand in front of her nose to blow away the second-hand smoke. “You’d find it easier to project your voice, too, during rehearsal?—”

“Jesus, I get it. You weren’t joking when you said you wouldn’t make this easy, huh?”

“Make what easy?” Her eyes slid to the bit of ash that fell from my cigarette and landed between us on the sidewalk.

“My apology.”

She scoffed, a snort-sound that on anyone else would have been the antithesis to sexy. But with Katherine? Literally everything was sexy… even her snort.

“Your apology?” she repeated, incredulously.

With a roll of my eyes, I shoved one of the coffees toward her. “I wasn’t sure what you’d like, but you strike me as a sugary frappe kind of girl. So here.”

I looked like a dickhead carrying that thing—domed with whipped cream and caramel syrup—out of the coffee shop. It was a chick drink. And I either looked like a pussy or pussy-whipped. Either way, not an image I tend to embrace.

“I know I’d fucked up the other night. Fucked up bigtime. I’m an asshole. But in my defense, I did warn you of that the first time we met.”

She didn’t take the coffee from me, instead merely eyeing it like a live bomb that may detonate at any second.

“Jesus Christ,” I muttered and managed to remove the cigarette from my mouth with the hand that held my simple cup of black coffee.

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