Page 31 of Off the Beaten Path

I was right. The redness does spread. I have the sudden urge to peel back the collar of his jacket and find where it stops. My fingers itch with it, and a startling beat of want courses through me at the thought.

“Right,” Holden says, and I shake the thought away, feeling unsteady by it. I don’t know wherethatcame from, but it’s dangerous. And unwanted. And unwarranted. Sure, Holden is nice to look at, but he’s a jerk to me most of the time.

My brain unhelpfully decides to remind me of all the late-night messages and times that I felt less alone in my cramped, cluttered cottage simply because I knew he was just a tap away.

Swallowing hard, I say, “I was at Stevie’s. I had too much strawberry wine to drive home.”

I must be mistaken, because the expression on his face looks a lot like relief. Even his shoulders seem to loosen, like they’re no longer holding a tension that was there just moments before.

“So you’re a little hungover today?” he asks, holding his thumb and pointer finger an inch apart. I think I catch a faint twitch of his lips, the barest hint of a smile. I don’t know why those half smiles always make me feel more victorious than someone else’s laugh or grin.

Reaching out, I pinch his fingers a little closer together. His skin is warm against mine, his gloves pulled off and hanging haphazardly out of his jacket pockets, unlike mine, which has been exposed since I climbed out of the car in a jacket not made for this kind of weather.

“Just a teeny bit,” I say.

Shock ripples through me when his hand closes over mine, the fingers he was just holding apart now coming to rest in the web between my thumb and forefinger.

“There’s a pressure point right here,” he says, his voice low and rough, whispering across my skin. “It helps with headaches.”

“Oh,” I respond, feeling his touch everywhere as he applies pressure to the spot firmly but not painfully. I expect him to let go, but he continues the pressure for several seconds, his lips moving as he counts silently.

When he reaches ten, he moves to my other hand, repeating the same process. My breath is heavy in the air between us, and it feels as if there’s an electric current zipping up and down my spine.

Holden’s eyes meet mine, his fingers still pressed to the pressure point on my hand. “Any better?”

“Mmm,” I say, my mind not really able to form words. For some reason, I’m still zeroed in on the feeling of his skin against mine, rough and calloused from working in construction, so much bigger and warmer, smelling of that faint scent that I can never fully detect. Something exclusively Holden.

“Wren?” he asks.

I can feel his warm breath on the chilled, exposed column of my neck. I’m telling myself the goose bumps that spring up there are from the cold.

“Right,” I say, focusing on his question. The pain is still there, a dull throb at the base of my skull from too much wine and not enough water. I never remember to drink enough water, which is why the wine always hits me harder than it should. “Headache is still there.” Although slightly relieved.

Holden’s hand drops mine, and I feel momentarily disappointed at the loss of contact, before he slips it beneath my hair, his fingers pressing into the exact spot the headache has gathered. My head lolls against his hand, my eyes meeting his. I think his might be as heavy lidded as mine feel.

He applies firm pressure to the base of my skull, although I notice his lips aren’t forming the numbers as he counts. I’m counting, though, which is how I know he’s gone past ten, how I recognize that the pressure in his fingers softens until his hand seems to just be supporting my head, threading through the fine curls at my nape. I can feel each tug of those tiny hairseverywhere, not just on the back of my neck but traveling down the length of my spine, settling warm and heavy in my belly, seeping into my cold fingertips, in the sensitive skin behind my knees and the hollow of my throat.

“Daddy!” June yells, bounding down the hall to the front door.

We spring apart, and I feel dizzy, my head swimming, although I’m not sure if it’s from the hangover or his touch. I’m not even surewhatexactly that was.

“Mommy’s on the phone,” June says, holding up what I’m assuming is Holden’s cell phone. “Guess what? She said she’s going to come to my musical.”

The change in Holden is instantaneous, his jaw locking, his shoulders tightening, the furrow returning to his brow. He looks like every iteration of himself that has ever turned up on my doorstep, angry with me about some neighborly code I’ve broken. Nothing of the soft touches and heavy eyes and faint smiles remains.

“Do you want to talk to her?” June asks, looking at Holden with wide, innocent eyes.

Holden shakes his head. “No thanks, June Bug. I’ll be inside in just a minute.”

“Okay,” she says, spinning on her heel to bound back into the house, chattering a mile a minute into the phone.

A muscle flickers in Holden’s jaw as he watches her, and I grasp at something to say to soothe him, to bring back the soft version of him that fled at the mere mention of his ex-wife.

“Hey, you okay?” I ask, my hand landing on Holden’s shoulder. But he moves, letting it fall back to my side. Cold sweeps in the place where he was just standing, and I feel it right down into my bones.

He doesn’t look at me as he speaks, his eyes still focused on the spot June vacated. “I’ll see you later, Wren.”

“Oh,” I say, unable to look away from him, though his eyes don’t even flit in my direction. “No hot chocolate.”

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