Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9

Lala

“Oh no…”

I frantically turned the bathroom knob back and forth a third time. But it still didn’t budge. It was like someone had locked it from the outside.

Feeling a panic attack coming on, I grabbed the doorknob with both hands and yanked as hard as I could.

Still nothing.

Leverage…leverage is what I need.

So I planted one foot on the wall to the left of the door and gripped the knob with both hands again. This time, when I pulled back, I let my weight do the work while I pushed from the wall.

It worked! The knob moved…

Only the door didn’t come with it, and I flew backward across the bathroom, landing on my ass with the knob in my hand…

And the door still shut.

Shit.

I didn’t even have my phone in here. Not to mention, it was probably around two in the morning. I’d been up all night working on the presentation I had to make tomorrow—or today, that is—to the grant committee, and I still had another hour or two of work before I’d be done. I needed to get the hell out of here.

But playing with the mechanics inside where the knob used to be proved fruitless, and the damn doorknob wouldn’t click back into place. After about twenty minutes, I had no choice but to try to wake Holden. I felt terrible doing it at this hour on a Monday, but I couldn’t be stuck in here all night. Luckily, our bathroom walls were adjoining, though I wasn’t sure if he would hear me. Or if he was even home. But I had to try.

“Holden!”

Bang, bang!

“Holden! It’s Lala. I’m stuck in my bathroom and need help!”

Bang, bang, bang!

That went on for a few minutes, and then suddenly I heard a crash inside my apartment.

“Lala!”

“I’m in here, Holden! In the bathroom! I’m stuck!”

“What the hell?” He stood on the other side of the door. “Where’s the doorknob?”

I leaned down and spoke through the hole where the knob used to be. “It’s in here with me. The lock jammed, and the knob came off in my hands when I tried to pull it open.”

“Alright. Give me a minute. I need to run next door to get a screwdriver.”

“I have one now! I picked it up after the beeping incident, so I wouldn’t need to bug you again. It’s in the top drawer in the kitchen!”

“Okay, great. Hang on.”

Two minutes later, the door popped open. It wasn’t until I saw Holden’s face that I remembered I was only wearing a tank top and underwear, sans bra.

He gulped and took a long look before turning his head. “Sorry. I didn’t realize you weren’t dressed.”

I wasn’t the only one scantily clad. Holden had on only a pair of boxer briefs, his beautiful tanned skin and carved six pack on full display for my eager eyes, yet again. I couldn’t stop myself from staring. Silence ticked by until Holden turned his head back, probably to see why I’d grown quiet. “You oka—”

My eyes rose to meet his, but not before he’d caught me ogling him.

I shook my head and laughed nervously. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to stare. I just hadn’t expected you to be in your underwear either, I guess. It caught me off guard.”

Holden ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, I’m sorry if I checked you out, too.”

I should’ve just left the bathroom and covered up with a robe, but something about being near this man made me say and do things that were completely out of character. “Would you mind if I…looked a little more?”

Holden’s brows shot up to his hairline. “You want to check me out?”

My face heated. I shook my head and looked down. “Oh my gosh. I’m so embarrassed. I think the lack of sleep and stress from being locked in here made me a little bonkers. It’s just that maybe we both have some pent-up curiosity about what we look like as adults. I mean, I’ve only stolen glimpses of you without a shirt on since we were teenagers in my backyard pool. And you certainly haven’t seen me in a skimpy bottom and no bra since then. I guess I was thinking if we took a good, long look, once and for all, we might get it out of our systems.”

Holden stared at me. I could see the wheels in his head spinning. Eventually, his eyes dropped to my chest. “You have no bra on…”

I shook my head. “No bra.”

He swallowed. “Let’s do it.”

“Really?”

He nodded. “Fuck yeah. I’m going to hell anyway. Might as well enjoy the ride down. But you have to stay in the bathroom, and I’ll stay on this side of the doorway.”

“Okay.” I bit my bottom lip. “You look first.”

“Why don’t we look at the same time?”

I nodded. “Good idea. How long should we do it for?”

Holden shrugged. “A minute?”

“Do you have your phone?”

“No. I thought someone broke in and you were being attacked. My phone was the last thing on my mind.”

“Mine should be on the coffee table. Do you want to grab it so we can use the timer?”

Holden walked away and came back ten seconds later. “What’s your code?”

“Zero, seven, one, three.”

He started to type and then froze before looking up at the ceiling. “That’s the day you’re getting married, isn’t it?”

I nodded.

Holden cursed as he went back to typing. “I’m so fucking going to hell.”

He called up the clock app and then turned the phone to show me. The countdown was set for one minute. His finger hovered over the green button. “You ready?”

I nodded.

Holden pressed the button, and we began to openly ogle each other. Without having to steal glances, I noticed things I hadn’t before—like how muscular his thighs were and the sexy line of hair that ran from the waistband of his underwear up to his belly button. God, I wanted to trace that with my tongue in the worst way. After about thirty seconds, Holden caught my eye. His voice was low and strained when he spoke. “Turn around.”

I swallowed and nodded. Thankfully, I had on a lacy thong and not some ugly old panties. When my back was fully facing him, Holden groaned.

“Jesus Christ. Your ass is fucking perfect.”

He stayed quiet until the timer went off. Since I’d kept my back to him for the last thirty seconds, I hadn’t really gotten to look at him for the full minute. I was about to suggest I should get a little more time, when I turned around and my eyes snagged on Holden’s boxers. Holy freaking bulge!

Holden was hard, or at least growing hard. Or maybe a tallboy beer can was trying to escape from his underwear…

Seeing my eyes grow wide, Holden looked down and used both hands to cover his crotch. “Shit. Sorry. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea. I’ll be back in two minutes.”

He disappeared from my apartment for at least fifteen minutes after that. I’d started to think he wasn’t coming back when there was a soft knock at my door. I opened to find Holden fully dressed—sweatshirt, socks, sweatpants, even a hat and gloves. It was exactly the moment we both needed, because I had on a matching outfit, only I’d paired my hat and gloves with a scarf, too. We both started to crack up.

“Oh my God, Holden,” I snorted. “Have we lost it?”

He bent over in laughter. “I think so.”

After we wiped tears from our eyes, Holden held up a roll of duct tape. “I’m just going to put some duct tape on the lock so you won’t accidentally get locked in again. Tomorrow I’ll get a new doorknob set.”

I stepped aside for him to come in. “Thank you.”

After he finished taping the door, he looked around the living room. Piles of papers were spread all over the place. “Bomb go off in here?”

I sighed. “I have a presentation to make tomorrow—today—to the grant committee. I still need to finish matching the initial lab results to the participants and then compile information about the test subjects.”

“You need help?”

“What I should’ve done is taken the help my two assistants offered, but I was too afraid to not have my first presentation be perfect. But it’s okay. You should go back to sleep. I’m sorry I woke you.”

Holden smiled. “Trust me, sweetheart. After our little show and tell, I’m not falling back asleep anytime soon.”

I knew the feeling. Earlier I’d gone into the bathroom to pee and splash some cold water on my face because I was starting to fall asleep while I was working. But there was no way I could go to bed now. Plus, I could really use the help.

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. Tell me what to do.”

For the next hour, Holden and I matched lab results to patient-intake sheets. Since it was a blind study, everyone was identified by number rather than name. It was pretty ridiculous in this day and age that the lab hadn’t given me some sort of a spreadsheet that I could sort easily, but they hadn’t. So after we paired results to patients, Holden read off the numbers I needed while I typed them into a database.

“How does this study work? I know it’s something to do with dopamine levels and Alzheimer’s.”

“Well, the dopaminergic neuron system has been studied before as it relates to the progression of Alzheimer’s. But the results have been pretty inconsistent. It’s my theory that more than just dopamine has to be examined. My initial research shows that low levels of three combined hormones: dopamine, oxytocin, and norepinephrine together cause neurodegenerative disease. So my study raises the levels of all three hormones in early Alzheimer’s patients so we can study the rate of progression of the disease.”

“You said sex increases the levels, right? So do you hand out Viagra and put on some Marvin Gaye?”

I laughed. “Close. We split the test subjects into two groups. One gets a handful of placebos for control purposes, and one gets the actual drugs that raise the levels of the hormones.”

Holden got quiet after that. I hoped that my laughing at his Viagra-and-music comment didn’t make him feel bad.

“Is everything okay?” I prodded.

“Yeah, sure.” He neatened a stack of papers that were already neat. “I was just wondering, have you only ever dated smart guys?”

“Well, I’ve only ever dated two men, and both happened to be smart. So yeah, I guess so.”

“Two men?” Holden’s brows pinched together. “You mean you only had two serious relationships? But you must’ve dated other guys, right?”

I shook my head. “No, I’ve only dated two men in total.”

“Wow.” Holden blinked a few times. “So then you’ve only…you know…with two men?”

“Actually, I only slept with one of them. I went out with the other one for a few months, but I was young, and our relationship never progressed there.”

Holden’s eyes widened. “So you’re going to marry the only guy you’ve ever fucked?”

When I started to blush, he held his hands up. “I’m sorry. That was crass. I shouldn’t have put it that way.”

“It’s fine.” I pointed to my rosy cheeks. “Maybe if I’d had more sexual escapades, I wouldn’t turn red every time anyone mentioned the word. I swear if you want me to look like an apple, just say sex or make me tell a lie.”

“Don’t you ever wonder what it would be like? I mean, how do you know if you should pay for the goods if you haven’t shopped around?”

“I’ve actually been wondering that a lot lately.” Our eyes met. “In fact, it feels like I can’t stop wondering about it.”

Holden opened his mouth to say something, but then seemed to think better of it and nodded.

I brushed a lock of hair behind my ear. “Can I ask you a personal question?”

“I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

“How often do you…take care of yourself?”

Holden’s eyes dipped to my lips before returning to meet mine. “Are you asking me how often I masturbate?”

I nodded.

He shrugged. “It depends. If I’m sexually active, not as often. But if I’m going through a dry spell, maybe every other day or so? I guess it also depends on how frustrated I’m feeling and how active my imagination is.” He held my eyes, and his face grew serious. “There have been days when I can’t stop imagining what it would be like with a particular person. Those days, I might take three showers.”

I swallowed. “Have you ever been in love, Holden?”

He thought about his answer in silence for a moment. “I think so. Once.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing.” Holden looked down. “She’s with someone else.”

I nodded again.

“Is it my turn to ask you something now?” he asked.

“Sure.”

“If you were in love with someone, and they were with someone else, would you tell them how you felt anyway?”

“I guess that depends. If I thought the person might love me back…” I nodded. “Yeah, maybe I’d tell them. I think you can get over making a fool of yourself, but regret lasts a lifetime.”

When I looked up, Holden was staring at me so intensely that it felt like everything else in the room faded away. The two of us were in a narrow hallway where the magnetic pull toward him was extra strong. I had the strongest urge to lean in and take the flesh of his bottom lip between my teeth and tug. Hard.

Catching myself as I actually started to lean forward, I blinked some sense back into my head and sat up straight. “I, um, I really should get my presentation finished. Thank you for the help. I can take it from here.”

Holden forced a smile, but I saw sadness lurking in his eyes. “Sure. No problem. I’ll head out. Goodnight, Lala.”

***

The next morning, I packed everything I needed for my presentation into three boxes. Hundreds of individual pages had been summarized neatly into a dozen slides, but I liked to bring the source materials in case anyone had questions. When I put the top on the last box, I noticed something sticking out from under the couch, so I pulled it free.

Holden’s wallet.

Last night he’d been sitting on the floor with his back against the couch. I definitely needed to return it before I left, but I couldn’t help but be nosy and peek inside. Not surprisingly, I found two condoms and a few girls’ phone numbers scribbled on napkins, in addition to some credit cards, his license, and a couple of twenties. Just as I was about to close it, a leather crease inside puckered open, and I realized there was a hidden pocket behind one side. Since I’d already been a shitty friend and violated his privacy, I stuck my finger into the slot. The picture I pulled out made my heart hurt.

It was me, Ryan, and Holden on my high school graduation day. I remembered it like yesterday. Ryan had been diagnosed a few weeks before, but no one told me until the week after graduation. They hadn’t wanted to ruin my big day since I was class valedictorian.

Pulling the picture closer to examine it, I studied my brother’s face, looking for any signs he was sick. But there weren’t any visible ones yet. My eyes shifted to Holden. He looked just the way I remembered him back then, which wasn’t all that different from now—shaggy hair, crooked smile that made you think he was up to no good, and eyes that made you feel like you were the only woman in the world.

It was odd that Holden had kept that picture. He had to have a million of him and Ryan alone, or better yet, him and all of the guys. I was going to be late to my presentation if I didn’t hurry up, so I’d have to mull over that more later. Right now, I needed to drop the wallet off next door and get to work.

Holden answered wearing low-hanging sweats and no shirt.

My eyes immediately found the thin trail of hair that ran up his stomach between his sculpted V muscles. Apparently, that one-minute staring session last night hadn’t been nearly enough.

Holden raised a brow with a smirk. “See something you like?”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh my gosh. You’re attractive. I looked. Big whoop. I don’t have time for this.” I grabbed his wallet off the top of the boxes I’d set down on the floor and practically flung it at him. “Here’s your wallet. I found it where you were sitting last night. I thought you might need it.” I bent and picked up the three boxes and started toward the elevator. “Have a good day,” I yelled without turning back. “Gotta run, or I’m going to be late.”

“Whoa. Hang on.” Holden stepped out of his apartment. “How are you getting to work with all that crap? You usually take the train.”

“There’s no parking near my office. It’s actually less walking if I take the train.”

“Hang on. I’ll drive you. I have the van parked right around the corner.”

I was about to argue, but Holden disappeared inside and came back out with keys. He was still pulling a T-shirt over his head when the elevator doors slid open. Once we were inside, he took the boxes from my hands.

“I’m perfectly capable of carrying them,” I said.

“I know you are.” He shrugged. “But your brother would kick my ass if he saw you like that and me with empty hands. Besides, you might not believe this because you think I’m a manwhore, but I’m a gentleman at heart.”

I smiled. “Okay. Thank you.”

We made it three quarters of the way to my office with small talk, but then we stopped at a light and Holden looked over. “Thanks for returning my wallet.”

“Of course.”

“Did you snoop and look inside it?”

“No,” I answered curtly. A little too curt and a lot too quick. Unfortunately, I was a shit liar and felt my face starting to heat under Holden’s stare.

Come on, light… Come on, light…change already.

But it didn’t happen fast enough. A slow, cocky grin spread across Holden’s face and he pointed to mine. “Liar!”

“Oh my God!” I covered my face with both hands. “Fine, I did. I snooped, okay? I just couldn’t help myself, even though I knew it was wrong.”

He shook his head as the light turned green. “Sweet little Lala Ellison, AKA the good one, turns out to be a criminal.”

My face was bright red when I took my hands away. “I’m really so sorry, Holden. Can you forgive me?”

He glanced over with a mischievous smile. “Of course I can.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you. I thought you were going to give me a harder time about it.”

Holden put on his blinker as we approached my office. He held up his pointer. “Not so fast. I wasn’t finished with my sentence. What I was going to say was, of course I can forgive you, once I get to invade your privacy.”

“Invade my privacy? What does that entail?”

Holden pulled into a spot in front of my office and shifted the van into park. He held out his right hand. “Let me see your purse. Tit for tat. I get to see what you keep in there. Then we’ll be even, and I’ll forgive you.”

“What? No!” No way was I letting him look inside my bag, especially since I hadn’t unpacked it from my trip home yet.

But Holden reached over and snatched my purse from my lap. He immediately switched it to his left hand and held it up in the air and out of my reach. I lunged for it, but the damn seatbelt snapped me back into my seat.

“Holden, give it back!”

“Oh? Did you have something private in here? Like the things in my wallet?”

In my panic, it took me longer than normal to release the seatbelt. But when I did, I jumped from my seat and grabbed for the purse. Holden was laughing and smiling. I yanked it from his hands, but the strap was still caught around his arm, which caused an unexpected pull back, and my purse flipped upside down, spilling its contents all over…

Including my vibrator.

My.

Vibrator!

I froze.

Holden’s eyes flared wide.

And of course, Holden being Holden, he proceeded to reach down and grab it.

“What do we have here, lovely Lala?” He waved it around between us. “Were you using this magic wand while watching porn after I left last night?”

I was pretty sure my face was glowing with fire. Snatching it from his hands, I shoved it back into my purse and opened the van door. “I wasn’t watching porn last night! Were you watching porn while you jerked off last night? Are you projecting your guilty conscience on me now?”

“No, ma’am. I haven’t watched porn lately.” Holden’s eyes dropped to my lips. “I’m too busy thinking about the one woman I could never have while I jerk off.”

There was only one way to respond to that comment. Jumping out, I grabbed my boxes, then the door handle, and…slam!