“Yeah, thanks.” I jammed my hands in my letterman jacket pockets. “So…have you put in college applications?”
“We’re doing small talk now, are we?”
“I don’t know. Better than not talking at all. Isn’t it?”
He regarded me for a moment and then lounged against the wall. “I’m not going to college.”
“What are you going to do after we graduate?”
“Disappearing.”
A chill swept through me. “What does that mean?”
“I’m going to travel,” Holden said. “Or not. I haven’t really planned it beyond getting my inheritance from my parents and having nothing to do with them ever again.”
“With your smarts, you could have your pick of colleges. Hell, you probably could’ve had three advanced degrees by now. Or teach somewhere.”
“Can you really see me at the front of a classroom? Grading papers and holding office hours like a regular schmuck?”
I crossed my arms. “Yeah. I can.”
He studied me as if trying to decide if I were kidding or not, then shook his head, his voice low. “It’s not in the cards for me this time around.”
I leaned against the wall beside him but not too close. “Do your parents ever try to contact you?”
“No. Which is preferred. They’ve done enough damage, don’t you think?”
“I don’t think you’re damaged.”
“You don’t know me very well.” His piercing green eyes bored into mine, a challenge. Daring me to recall everything that happened between us that night at the pool.
As if I could forget.
“What about you?” he asked. “Have you decided which lucky university you’ll grace with your presence?”
“Got it narrowed down to a few. Texas A&M or Alabama, probably.”
“That will make Dad proud.”
“Yeah, it will,” I said, giving him a hard stare, daringhimto remember how I’d told him things about my life I hadn’t told anyone.
He looked away quickly, the hostile expression softening. “Sorry. It’s none of my business.”
“I made it your business.”
“True. You made a lot of things my business that night,” he said with an arch look and brushed his thumb across his lower lip.
I laughed even as my skin heated. Jesus, I couldn’t stop staring at this guy who looked like a goddamn work of art, his body concealed in expensive clothes, waiting to be unwrapped.
“What will you do with all your free time now that the season’s over?” Holden asked.
“Spend more time at the shop. I was thinking about suggesting to my dad we expand the business to do car restoration.”
“Making old, broken-down shit shiny and new?”
“I like to think of it more as bringing them back to life.”
“Sounds like a noble endeavor. Do you think he’ll go for it?”
