“What…” I cleared my throat. “What are you doing?”
“It’s time to go exploring.”
“At least turn a light on.”
“No lights,” he said with a wicked grin. “Everything’s more fun in the dark.”
We made our way slowly past chairs and couches with only moonlight from the huge windows to guide us.
I bumped an end table, and Holden shot me a look over his shoulder.
“Try not to tackle anything out of habit.”
I smirked. “I’m a quarterback. I throw things.”
We passed through a formal living room and dining room for entertaining and into a game room with a pool table. A half dozen balls of an abandoned game were still on the green felt.
“Besides,” I said, “if I chuck a vase out the window, won’t you just replace it like you did the Blaylocks’ dining room table?”
Holden drained his martini and set the empty glass on a bookshelf. “Does that offend your noble sensibilities?”
“No. I just don’t like to throw money around.”
“I do.” He picked up a cue stick and bent over the table to line up a shot. The song coming in from hidden speakers sang of secrets and demons.
“Why?” I asked. “Because you have so much of it?”
“That, and because it’s my parents’ money until I graduate. When it’s mine, I’ll take better care of it.”
“Theirs is disposable because…?”
“Becausefuck them.”
With smooth power, he drove the stick into the white cue ball. It struck with aclackthat shattered the relative quiet. Balls ricocheted around the table, two dropping into pockets.
“They care more about money than they do about my happiness,” Holden said, his perfect face fierce and cold. “I spend it as fast as I can, but there’s always more.”
He sank another ball with precision and offered me the pool cue. I waved it off.
“Not a fan of the game?” he asked.
“I don’t want to leave fingerprints.”
He chuckled, and I was glad to see some of the anger drain out of him as we left the game room.
“When you say there’s always more, you mean like…millions?” I asked, feeling slightly tacky, but the beer had loosened my curiosity.
“Billions.” Holden peeked into a guest bathroom and a linen closet before starting up the stairs. “The Parish family is the last of the old money dynasties, like Vanderbilt or Rockefeller. You ever seenTitanic?”
“Sure.”
“My parents are the first-class assholes sitting in lifeboats while the people from steerage freeze to death in the icy water.” Holden’s eyes looked distant for a moment, and then he gave his head a shake and kept walking. “They were born old. I’m positive they fucked only once to create an heir for their legacy—me. Which is ridiculous. Even if I hadn’t failed spectacularly, there is no legacy. They’re not building or making anything worthwhile. They do nothing but sit around being rich.”
“Wait, what do you mean, you failed?”
Holden stopped at the top of the stairs. “They thought being straight was my default setting too.”
A moment of silent commiseration passed between us in the dark. Understanding that heated quickly. For a crazy, heart-pounding second, I had a vision of him grabbing me—or maybe I’d grab him—and we’d crush our mouths together…
