Page 41 of Exception

“Hey, how are you feeling? Haven’t seen you since you took off into the jungle the other night. Pretty wild.”

“Yeah, I’m okay,” I say and then feel my cheeks heat. Damn, that’s embarrassing. I’m trying not to think too hard about it.

“Happens to the best of us. Holden’s weed is pretty lethal to the newbies.”

“Yeah, and so is Holden,” I murmur and then shift on my feet. I can’t believe I said that out loud.

“Ah, yeah, that he is. He has a bit of a reputation. Never tied down, that one.”

I nod my head because I don’t want to tie him down. I don’t know what I want. I just know that I like being around him. He intrigues me. It’s more than just his dick and the fact that I’m so fucking curious about him.

It’s more.

I think.

“It’s…I’m not trying to tie him down. He’s just…” I peel the wrapper around my burrito and shove it into my mouth so I stop talking. I don’t need to explain myself, and yet with Atlas, here I am…explaining away.

“Right, yeah, no totally. I get it.”

And I just bob my head around a mouthful of eggs and potatoes. It’s stuffed so full I can’t even shut my mouth all the way to chew. Listen, I have nothing else to say. I already said too much. And thank god, Atlas seems to get a clue because he steps back and waves me off, and I’m left to wander down the path toward work with a lot on my mind.

I’ll figure out what the fuck to do later.

Much later, but still.

I’ve got time.

* * *

I slog through the workday,the burrito sitting heavily in my stomach. And the ale. So much ale. I’m never drinking anything but Bud Light again. There’s a reason it’s my preferred drink. I never really feel it when I wake the next day.

I could drink a whole twelve-pack and be fine. But what Holden gave me was toxic. He totally did that on purpose. He probably hoped the monkey would come take advantage of me again. Probably liked seeing me hobble home with my legs in my shirt holes.

“What are you staring off into the trees for?” Devon asks as we make our way out of a bungalow. Some rich kid put a waist-high, dick-sized hole through the wall…a glory hole, I think. Devon just sighed, squatted down, and peered through it. It was a little too close to his eyeball for comfort, if you ask me. Could get pink eye. We had to patch it up and then paint over it so the next guest could have a dick-hole-free room.

Although, judging by the way these people behave on the island, they’d probably like a glory hole.

Hell, if I was rich, maybe I’d like one too.

My mind immediately conjures up Holden fucking me through a wall, and I sigh. I was gonna try to forget him, but it seems I can’t.

“You see something up there?” Devon asks, his big mitt shading his eyes as he glances up at the palm trees. “I don’t see nothing.”

“Just thinking.”

“Pfft, thinking is overrated. Actions are better.”

I eye him because he didn’t act at all when Molly made an appearance earlier. He just hid behind some towels. She found him back there pretending to screw something into the wall with a tape measure.

She wasn’t fooled.

“What’s up with you and Molly?” I ask, and Devon glowers at me.

“What’s up with you and Holden?”

Fair enough, Devon. Fair enough.

The two of us stare at each other silently until we both look away. “Alright, then, good talk. Let’s go. Work’s done until the next glory hole tomorrow.”

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