Page 70 of Studs Up
“Wow, tone down that enthusiasm,” he said dryly.
“You know, I can hang up.”
“Fine,” he relented with a smidge of panic. I sat up and picked up my phone. My sleepy and groggy brain snapped awake.
“Holden, are you having a panic attack?”
He was quiet for a moment.
“A little,” he said. Shit, shit, shit. My heart shot to a gallop, and I did the most painful thing I had ever done. I reached for him, my hand outstretched, and there was nothing there to comfort. The galloping pace stopped as I realized I wasn’t there for him. This was all I had, a conversation at three seventeen in the morning.
Shutting my eyes, I swallowed carefully, measured my tone, and did what I could do.
“Tell me about your plants,” I said softly. “Do you have a favorite one?”
“Do you seriously want to know?” No, actually, I didn’t, but I needed him to focus on something else. The yearning to reach through the phone and hold him made my chest tighten.
“Yes.”
“Um yeah, I have a bonsai weeping willow.” I had no fucking clue what that was.
“Send me a picture.”
“Okay.” A moment later, my phone pinged with a picture of a miniature tree. Long hanging branches fell around the little trunk. It was whimsical and elegant, in a porcelain pot with painted blue flowers, sitting on an antique side table. The whole image was not what I expected. It was something he spent a lot of time with, and it showed.
“Her name is Tilly,” he said.
“You name your plants?”
“Yeah.” He said it like it was the normal thing to do, and I was the psycho for suggesting otherwise.
I slumped back on the bed as he went on and named all his plants for me. He told me what they were and which ones were a pain in the ass, and which ones were easy. None of it made any sense to me, and it didn’t matter. I could hear the calm in his tone. I would sacrifice every minute of sleep to listen to him and keep the panic at bay.
“And those are all the indoor ones,” he said as though concluding a presentation on indoor plants.
“You have outdoor plants?” I asked.
“Yeah, garden, remember?”
“Do you name them too?”
“Some of them. The perennials. I have a peony named Sally, and she’s to die for. I’ve always wanted to grow jasmine, but it always fails in my garden. Which is really fucking annoying because my neighbor Mary, she’s got a gorgeous one. But every cutting I’ve gotten has died.”
“Is it hard to grow jasmine in Portland or just for you?”
“Fuck you,” he said with a laugh. I loved his laugh. When it was him and me, it was sweet and genuine. I had noticed a difference between the Holden he showed the world and the Holden he was letting me have.
“Well?” I prompted, and I realized I was smiling. I liked this. A lot. I liked that I could still soothe him even if I couldn’t be there, and I liked that this secret Holden was mine.
“Both, I think.”
“Yeah, well, if Mary can do it, it’s probably you.”
“God, you are such an ass.”
I wanted to comment about his ass. The memory of him was still intense and vivid, and in the days following, all I could think about was getting back to him and burying myself deep inside.
He easily exceeded the allotted time, but I didn’t interject to stop him. The more he talked, the calmer I became, and the more I wished I was there instead of a hundred and seventy-five miles away.
