Page 105 of Caught Stealing

“I’m all he has, Holden. His family life is…” I trail off, shaking my head. It’s not my place to tell Holden the things that happened behind closed doors in Kason’s childhood. The trauma rooted in his upbringing. “My parents didn’t legally adopt him or anything, but they might as well have with how much he was with us to escape the horrors that awaited him at home.”

Understanding swirls in his whiskey eyes as he murmurs, “The kids at school weren’t the only ones to…”

He can’t even finish the sentence, and no part of me wants him to. Not when the bruises and cuts I witnessed over the years are burned into my retinas for the rest of my life.

I nod, doing my best to ignore the gut-wrenching feeling swirling inside me. “He became my family the moment he walked into my life. So I don’t know how not to feel guilty for being just another person to hurt him.”

“By telling yourself the facts of how this all happened. From where I’m standing, the only thing that we’ve done wrong here is keeping this and our history a secret from him.” His eyes are warm, filled with compassion, as his skin swipes over mine. “You know just as well as I do that Kason and I were never serious. Not down in Florida, and definitely not before then. No rules, no exclusivity, nothing. So even if he did start getting more of a crush and feeling things I wasn’t on that trip, it’s not going to devastate him the way you’re thinking. He’ll be mad, sure, but he’ll forgive you.”

My teeth scrape over my bottom lip, worrying the flesh before whispering, “And what if you’re wrong?”

“I don’t think I am, Nix. Not when it comes to this.” His thumb shifts over, pulling my lip free before he presses a kiss there instead. It’s soft and gentle and makes the vise he’s placed around my heart clamp even tighter, but not nearly as much as the way he brushes his nose along mine.

Silence falls over us while his hand gently sweeps up and down my back. The only sound comes from the episode still streaming from my laptop, but eventually, Holden interrupts Monica’s dialogue with his own. “I hope you know I’m not trying to pressure you into this, but I want you to know it’s an option. We can take baby steps toward it in the meantime, and when you’re ready, we can sit him down and tell him everything. I can even do the talking, if that makes it easier. Anything to get this weight off your chest.”

I can tell from his tone, he means it. Hell, I bet he’d be more than happy to go into Kason’s room right now, hand in hand, and come clean if it finally eased the guilt warring within me. After all, keeping this a secret wasn’t Holden’s idea.I’mthe one who insisted on this remaining quiet—at least where Kason is concerned.

And I want to tell Kason. No part of me likes the sneaking around, the secrets, and the God-awful churning in my gut when I think about how much of a hypocrite this makes me.

But I just can’t bring myself to look him dead in the eye and say the words, knowing they could very well be the end of our friendship.

“I don’t know what to do,” I mutter, my voice sounding like it’s been grated over shards of glass.

“Eyes and mouth, Nix.” His attention flicks between the two before settling on my lips. “Choose you.”

He doesn’t give me a chance to respond, instead kissing me softly all over again in a way that has my stomach doing little flips. I can hear his words loud and clear in my head after we break away from one another.

Choose you.

His nose brushes against mine when he murmurs, “Am I allowed to stay tonight?”

My immediate thought is, yes, that I want nothing more than his presence and reassurance and gentle touches to continue calming the chaos in my head. But Kason is right down the hall, and I know there’s not a chance I can explain this away if he finds Holden here in the morning.

So logic wins out.

“It’s probably not a good idea.”

He nods, and even though I can tell he’s disappointed, he starts shifting away from me to rise off the bed. “Then I can go.”

Instinct has the arm slung over his body tightening, and I shake my head.

“Just not yet.”

There’s another smile on his lips as he settles in beside me again, and if possible, he pulls me even closer to his chest before his lips sweep over mine in a whisper of a kiss.

“Okay. I’ll stay as long as you want me.”

I’ll always want you.

The thought is immediate, and it only makes me feel more helpless. I don’t know how, in this short amount of time, Holden’s made himself an intrinsic part of my existence. I don’t know what my reality is without him anymore, either. More importantly, I don’t want to find out.

Silence descends again, and though I told him he couldn’t stay, Holden falls asleep before the episode playing behind him ends. I don’t have it in me to wake him so he can leave, and honestly, I don’t really want him to as it is. Which is why I set an early alarm for him to sneak out before settling deeper into his embrace, all the while trying to ignore the niggling feeling in my gut that tells me this is wrong.

His words are still clear as day in my head, rolling around in my thoughts while they attempt to find a place to finally penetrate into the depths of my brain.

If I’m being honest with myself, I know I’ve been enabling Kason. Being a place of solace and home and comfort for him was as easy as breathing, despite the way it overshadowed my own happiness at times. But it was never something that mattered until now.

Now, it might matter more than ever.

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