Hollywood Holden: Los Angeles Bad Boys Read Online Free PDF Page A

go.

Chapter Six
    Bexley
    H e touches her in a way that screams intimacy. And yeah, all it took was that quick flash of hand-on-back to be reminded of why I could never compete with girls like her.
    I mean, there were like twenty women up in Holden’s grill the moment he got off stage, practically begging him to take them home and fuck them.
    I remember him telling me that he lost his virginity at fourteen, to the next-door neighbor. She was a seventeen-year-old senior who straddled him on her mother's couch.
    I remember feeling so jealous at the time—of all of it.
    Of the girl who was able to take what she wanted.
    Of Holden, who recounted the story with a boyish grin.
    Of the sex in general, because even then I knew that all I wanted was to lose my virginity to him, but I was terrified of what that said about me.
    Holden was the guy who never outgrew blow jobs in the school parking lot, never outgrew getting high before math class. Never outgrew detention for cutting class.
    And the fact that he was the one I wanted? I could never make sense of it.
    So I drew a line in the sand, and decided he was off limits.
    But looking at those women tonight who fawned all over him, I'm reminded of those pangs I felt when we were at school together. How I wished I were braver, more reckless. Less Bex, more sex.
    Cheesy, but freaking true.
    And I can't help but feel a surge of jealousy at the woman who’s standing with him now, after everyone else has left, the woman who’s laughing with Holden as they linger at the limo.
    Probably his new girlfriend. New fuck buddy. New lover.
    New whatever .
    I can't believe I thought I could actually hook up with him tonight. Who am I kidding?
    Moving toward the parking lot, I'm shocked at the tears in my eyes, blinding me.
    Why am I crying over a boy I pushed away?
    Only because deep down, I want him so badly.
    I always have.
    "Bex, wait up," he calls.
    Holden is here. His hand on my shoulder. Pulling me around.
    "Bex," he says again. He's out of breath. He ran after me. "We're in the parking lot."
    I look around, at the cars, the football field in the distance, the ground. Anywhere but Holden's face. Because I can't.
    "Kinda funny, right?" he asks. "To meet back at the very place we said good-bye."
    I can't help it. I lift my chin, raise an eyebrow and smirk. "Said good-bye?" I ask, my heart catching—because one look at him and it's like no time has passed. Like we didn't just spend four years apart. Like I never cut him off.
    He laughs, that effortless Holden laugh. The laugh that causes shivers to cover my skin and my breath to catch. The laugh that reminds me of everything we shared. The laugh that makes my longing for what we almost had palpable.
    His bright eyes squint, remembering me at my worst. "It was more of a yelling, screaming, all-out brawl, wasn't it?" He presses his lips together before adding more softly, "And, to be fair, it was more of a curtain call, wasn't it, Bex?"
    I nod, blinking fast, knowing the tears are going to spill no matter what. And they do; running in rivers down my cheeks.
    In a flood, just like my tears, my words rush out. "I'm sorry for never calling. For never ... for never explaining ... for never giving you—"
    Before I can finish—and who am I kidding, I clearly am not going to be able to finish that sentence—Holden folds his arms around me.
    I breathe him in. His arms wrapped around me feel the same, like a night sky full of stars. Majestic and luminous and so very far from my grasp. It's like … he's right here, I'm literally in his arms, but there has always, always been something between us as thick as the atmosphere.
    My fear. His recklessness. Our spoken and unspoken desires.
    But four years is a long time. Stars don't burn that long, do they?
    "I can't believe you named the theater Belden," I tell him, my face against his shirt, inhaling him. I know in an instant that my deepest fantasy could come to life tonight. I know, with his arms wrapped