His silvery eyes drop to the boxes and then slowly rise back to find mine. They’re glassy, probably swimming in tequila like the rest of him. I can smell it, along with the natural scent I’ve noticed is grown-up Holden. I can’t describe the smell only the feeling it gives me: a happy flutter deep inside my gut. The same feeling I get when I hear waves crashing or smell a salty ocean mist.
“Peace?” he repeats skeptically but not maliciously. He raises one of his eyebrows. “I’m not at war, Winona.”
Why does he call me by my full name? No one has, since birth. I was actually shocked to find out at five years old that my full name wasn’t actually just Winnie. I rearrange the boxes in my hand so the one with his pizza is on top and open it. “I’m sorry for being a bitch when you were just trying to help me with my knee. And I’m sorry that helping me messed up something for you. This pizza is my way of trying to express that.”
He looks down at the contents of the box and gives me a big drunken grin. “Pineapple, mushroom, pepperoni?” I nod and his grin somehow gets even bigger as he reaches for a slice. “Shit, I forgot how much I fucking loved this.”
He takes a huge bite, closing his eyes while he chews. I just stand there, leg throbbing, staring at him. Why am I so…mesmerized. It’s just a drunk childhood bully eating pizza. Yet I’m captivated and…well, a little enamored. He’s not mean drunk Holden like he was way back when. He’s actually kind of goofy. And cute.
I jerk slightly at that thought. I just called him cute. He notices the movement and our eyes meet again. “What?”
“Nothing.” I shake my head. “So where’d you go tonight?”
“I went for a walk. Ended up buying some booze and drinking it down by the beach.” He takes another big bite and cocks his head toward his trailer. “Wanna come inside and grab a beer?”
I nod again. Why am I nodding? This was not part of the plan. The plan was to hand him the pizza and go back to my cottage and finish my bottle of wine and cry some more. But I’m doing that every night, and it’s a habit I should be trying to break. He walks over to his trailer and opens the door, holding it for me to enter.
“Drunk adult Holden is not what I expected,” I blurt out as I walk up the steps and into his trailer. I’m as surprised as I was the first time I came in here to take a shower. It’s so clean and well kept and smells like pine and lemon. I was expecting some dank, run-down thing that smelled like stale beer and mildew. He slips past me, placing a hand on my hip like it’s not big deal. It isn’t. It just feels like one.
“Have a seat, gimpy,” he says casually and points to the built-in couch at the end of the countertop. I shuffle that way and sit. As he opens his fridge, he says, “You expected me to be the same ranting, rage-filled drunk I was as a kid, right? Sorry to disappoint. I can go outside and punch something if it will put you at ease. Wanna head to the beach and watch me tip a lifeguard stand?”
A laugh bubbles up from my chest and escapes, making a light cackling sound. I haven’t laughed in literally months. It feels as awkward as it sounds. He hands me a Sam Adams and reaches for another piece of pizza. I open the other box, grabbing a slice and taking a bite.
“I’m not that guy anymore, Larry,” he replies and I snap my head up to see a feisty grin on his face and he winks at me. I smile. “Careful now, you almost look like you’re happy.”
“I’m not,” I reply firmly. “But I’m working on it.”
“Wanna finally tell me why that is? Or do you want to just keep crying and bitching like Emo Barbie until I figure it out?” he says with a teasing smile.
I slowly swallow down a bite of pizza, take a deep breath and say it. “My dad died.”
It’s like someone hit a pause button. He stops chewing, stops breathing, stops moving. The only thing that changes is his expression. The cheeky, self-assured drunken glimmer in his eye and smile on his face disappear and are replaced with pure and simple sympathy.
“Winnie, I am so—”
“Please don’t offer condolences,” I say as tears prick the back of my eyes. “I don’t want to cry again tonight. I’m not handling it well at all. Obviously. I’m in a very dark place, but that didn’t give me the right to be a bitch to you when you were helping me out.”
He pauses to take another bite and wash it down with some beer. “You have every right to be in a dark place. I was in a dark place for a very long time after my mom died when I was ten.”
That information is completely new to me. I knew his mom wasn’t around when he was younger. He never talked about her or where she was but he would constantly mention his dad’s girlfriends and how much he hated them. I thought maybe his mom had just left the family.
“Is that why you were such a dick as a kid?” I ask boldly because I’m tipsy myself and this whole day has turned me upside down emotionally. I’m not sure where my—our—boundaries are and I’m wondering if we have any. “Because your mom died?”
He nods. “Mostly. I mean there were a lot of factors, but that was the trigger. She was no Randy Braddock, but she was the best thing I had.”
I feel winded by that statement. By the fact that he lost someone who clearly meant everything to him and by the declaration that he, a relative stranger, knew my dad was something special. “What happened, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“One March we had one last blowout storm, as we do here in New England,” he says, winking at me. “My dad ran the trailer park in the summer but in the winter he ran a snow- removal company and he was out all night clearing driveways and roads for his contracts, but he didn’t bother to clear ours yet. So my mom went out there, at like five in the morning to shovel the driveway. I don’t know why she didn’t wake me to do it. I always shoveled. But she didn’t. And she slipped on some black ice, fell and hit the back of her head on the steps. And she died. Just like that.”
“Oh my God,” I whisper. He nods.
“Yeah. It was so stupid and so fucking random.” The bitter quality in his voice that he had in the past is back, as if it never left. He takes a long, deep breath before speaking again, his eyes on the floor of the trailer. “I handled it as badly as anyone possibly could have. But you know all about that.”
I blink and he looks right at me. “I could handle it a hell of a lot worse, trust me.”
“That statement wasn’t a challenge,” he replies quietly with a small smile. “It’s not a hold-my-beer moment. I’m just saying, it’s clear you’re struggling. And I’m not judging that. I just would hate for you to make mistakes, because you’re so blinded by grief, that you live to regret.”
“I’m not doing that,” I reply. “I’m doing the opposite.”
