Page 87 of Our Secrets and Scars

“Jesus Christ,” I groan with no attempt to hide my words. “You don’t know how to take a fucking hint, do you?”

She blinks at me, shock written across her face. “W-what?”

“You think me ignoring every single one of your come-ons for the last hour or so is an invitation to get ‘under’ you?”

“I—that’s not—I didn’t mean—”

I roll my eyes at her stuttering. “Yeah, you did.”

She sits up on the bed, not even bothering to pull down her shirt that is still bunched on top of her breasts where she’d pulled it up before to give me access to her back. Her chin tilts upwards as she regains her confidence.

“You know what?” she says. “Yeah, I was hitting on you, but I take it back. You’re not good enough for me anyway.” She punctuates her point with an elaborate flick of her badly-dyed hair.

I shake my head with a laugh. “Honey, if you think you can hold a candle to my girl, then you must be fucking deluded.”

“Holden.”

The sound of my uncle’s voice snaps my attention to the doorway. His face is a picture of surprise and gut-wrenching disappointment.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he says to the woman with her tits still on display. “Go wait in my room down the hall and I’ll finish up for you, okay?”

Her eyes light up when she looks at him, seeing a man with salt-and-pepper hair and a face younger than his years. She nods, sucking her lip into her mouth in a poor attempt at seduction, and sashays her way out of the room.

I wouldn’t be at all surprised if my uncle has to clean her red lipstick off his cock later this afternoon.

“You wanna tell me what that was about?” he asks pointedly.

“Not really.”

I take off my plastic gloves and throw them in the direction of the trashcan. They miss, but I don’t give a shit. I leave them there, flopped pathetically on the floor like I wish I were right now.

“I get that you’re hurting, son, but that doesn’t mean you can take your shit out on innocent people, especially my clients. I raised you better than that.”

My head falls. Twenty-one years old, and it still stings like a bitch to let him down.

Does it ever go away? That shame that comes with disappointing the people who raised you? Will I ever reach an age when I can just let it roll right off my back?

Probably not.

I guess it only hurts so bad because he means so much to me.

“Take the rest of the day off, kid.”

“What? No.”

He waves off my refusal with a quick flick of his wrist. “I shouldn’t have let you work today to begin with. That’s on me.”

I’d actually begged him to let me work today.

I couldn’t bear the thought of spending Christmas Eve alone in the apartment that is haunted by memories of Kinsley. The ghost of her is everywhere. Making coffee in the kitchen wearing only my shirt. Sleeping soundly in my bed with her hair fanned out across the pillow. Taking her roughly against the glass wall of the shower.

There isn’t a single corner of that place that doesn’t remind me of her.

“Go upstairs and wash yourself. You stink of heartbreak.” He grimaces like the idea of love alone is enough to make him sick. “I’ll be up later with a bottle of bourbon, and we’ll drink your sorrows away together. Sound good?”

And though every part of me is shattering into millions of unmendable pieces, I find it in me to smile. Because even though I’m now an adult myself who is supposedly capable of taking care of himself, my uncle still does whatever he can to look after me no matter how old I am.

Admittedly, his methods have just changed throughout the years. He’s swapped the vanilla milkshakes he used to make when I was a kid with hard liquor, and his words are rougher now rather than the softened ones more suitable for a child. Even so, no one could ever accuse him of not being there for me.

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