Page 29 of Reece & Holden (Gomillion High Reunion #6)

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Holden

I glance over at Reece while he’s driving. I can barely take my eyes from him. He’s so much more than I could ever have imagined in my wildest dreams, and I did have dreams about him—many of them.

“Well?” he asks when I look over at him for the hundredth time.

“Just happy,” I say, and he laughs joyfully.

We’ve just left my parents’ and we’re driving to his mom’s.

He says he has to pick up a couple of things and then he has a surprise for me.

Of course my parents loved him, I knew they would, but then, he was charming.

He listened intently while my dad bent his ear about flowers for what felt like an hour.

My parents have a blind spot when it comes to recognizing if they’re boring anyone or not, it’s probably their age, but Reece was gracious and asked a lot of questions, winning the approval of my dad for sure.

He won my mom over straight away, not that he needed to, by complimenting her cooking.

He asked about her recipes and was just utterly adorable.

He recounted a tale of when he’d met them before, at my tenth birthday party, which I remember was the day I first knew I was attracted to boys—and to Reece.

Of course they remembered, and he made my parents laugh.

He hugged them when we left and said he’d take care of me, so you could say dinner was a great success and I couldn’t be happier.

So I’m allowed to look over his handsome face with a huge grin on my face.

“My parents loved you,” I say and he smiles.

“They’re great people, after all, they raised you.” He pulls up outside his mom’s house, and I reach over and pinch the flesh on his forearm.

“Ow!” he exclaims, though I know I didn’t do it hard enough to actually hurt him.

“Why did you do that?”

“Just checking you’re real.”

“Oh, I’m real, baby. You’re going to feel just how real I am later.”

“Yes please. I like the sound of that.” He leans across to kiss me and I move in to meet him halfway. Our lips barely connect before his eyes fly wide open and he draws back.

“What the fuck!”

“What is it?”

“That.” he says, pointing. I follow his finger and his eyes, and see a green ’64 Buick parked up. “That’s my dad’s car. What’s he doing here?” He’s out of the car and is striding toward the house in a flash. I scramble to follow him.

He stops suddenly when he gets to the kitchen, and I run into the solid wall of his back.

I peer around him. Theresa and a guy in a plaid shirt are sitting at the kitchen table, and I’ve never met Reece’s dad, but I guess this is him.

I can feel the tension coming off him in waves.

His body is rigid, his hands are fisted by his side, and his jaw is set.

“Hi, honey. Hi, Holden,” Theresa calls out.

“Hello, son.” The guy confirms my thoughts.

“What are you doing here?” Reece grinds out.

The guy sits back in his chair insolently. “Well, I heard you were in town and you haven’t come to see me, so I thought I’d come see you instead,” he drawls.

“I have nothing to say to you,” Reece almost growls.

His dad just smiles. He’s goading Reece and I'm glad that he doesn’t rise to the bait. Instead he sighs and unclenches his hands.

“Shall I make you a coffee? You too, Holden?” Theresa rises, her tone still bright. I glance at Reece and he gives the slightest of nods.

“Yes p-please, Theresa. That w-would be lovely.”

“Good, then please sit, there are fresh cookies in the tin.” I wait for Reece, taking my cues from him.

I only know what he’s told me about his dad, so I’m wary.

He slowly takes a chair and I join him at the table, sitting opposite his dad, but he doesn’t say anything.

I’m not sure if I should introduce myself, but given what I’ve been told about him, I don't know that I should, so I keep quiet. I can sense the displeasure coming off Reece and I don't like it. I want to reach out and comfort him, but I’m not sure it’d be a good idea, so I squash my hands between my knees to resist the temptation to touch him.

“How’s things?” Mr. Fisher asks, and Reece snorts derisively.

“What do you care? You haven’t once asked that in twenty years, so why bother now?

Not once have you asked how I am, or been interested in what I’ve been doing.

Even when I told you about Mac, you didn’t seem to be bothered.

I don’t know why I was surprised. You don’t care about one son, why would you care about two? ” His voice is sharp and bitter.

“It was a shock was all,” his dad says, and Reece snorts again.

“And what about now? You’ve had several months to get over the news. Have you asked about him? Did you even know Marina was here?”

I see Mr. Fisher’s eyes narrow slightly and his nose twitch. He knew. Reece saw it too.

“I thought so,” he says and falls silent.

“There you go, love.” Theresa places a mug in front of me and then passes one to Reece before she stands behind me and rests her hands on my shoulders.

“I don’t think you know Holden, do you?” she says, and Mr. Fisher’s eyes flick toward me again.

“No,” is all the answer he gives.

“He’s my boyfriend,” Reece says.

I see a change come over Mr. Fisher’s face as he contorts it into pure disgust. Theresa keeps her hands firmly on my shoulders as he turns to Reece.

“Really?” He barks a laugh. ”You’re one of them?”

The way he says “them” is filled with pure spite, and I’m taken back twenty years to when Reece spoke the same words to me.

Instinctively, fear grips my belly, and I want to run away and hide.

I would if it weren’t for Theresa’s hands still holding me down.

At first my fear rises, but she squeezes gently and I realize that she’s doing it to comfort me.

She stays until I can breathe normally again, then she goes over to the sink.

When Reece doesn’t say anything, his dad speaks again.

“I thought I’d raised you better than that,” he sneers.

“You didn’t raise me at all, though, did you?

” Reece’s voice is perfectly calm. “All you taught me was how to hate. I learned those lessons so well I ended up hating myself. It took a long time for me to remember the lessons of the person who did raise me, so I could accept who I was and that I could love whomever I wanted.”

“I can’t believe I have a nancy boy as a son.”

“Two sons.” Reece smiles for the first time since he walked into the room. “Mac is gay too, Dad.”

Mr. Fisher’s face goes red and angry and he looks like he’s about to burst a blood vessel. He casts his gaze around the room and turns his attention back to me.

“This is all your fault. People like you, corrupting decent folk.”

I recoil from the force of his bile. “You’re an abomination, you all are.”

Reece slams his hand on the table, making us all jump. He rises out of his seat and gets into his dad’s face.

“Shut up. Don’t you dare talk to him like that. He’s worth a hundred of you. You aren’t even fit to look at him,” he shouts. “Now get out. I don’t want to see you ever again unless it’s to apologize.”

My heart swells in my chest and nearly bursts from pride and gratitude. His dad stands and turns toward Reece, who draws himself to his full height. His father has more bulk but Reece is taller and looks mean. They stare at each other for several seconds, while I hold my breath.

“Niall, I think you’d better go,” Theresa says, and with a final sneer he walks out the room. Theresa follows, shutting the door behind her, and I hear muffled voices in the hall. Reece turns to me and I see the pain in his eyes. I launch myself at him and wrap my arms around him. He hugs me back.

“I’m so sorry you had to see that, baby.” His voice is muffled in my hair.

”You stood up for me,” I say, hugging him tighter.

“Always, baby,” he whispers.

Reece is silent for the whole of the journey to . . . well, wherever we’re going. Because he hasn’t told me; he just says it’s a surprise.

He looks wrapped up in his own thoughts, so I don’t try to make him talk, and instead I just look out of the window. At first it looks like we’re heading toward Yellow Branch Falls, but he doesn’t take the turning and carries on to one a few miles up the road.

After his father left, Theresa had come back into the kitchen.

“I'm sorry. I didn’t think he’d react like that,” she’d said.

“I did,” Reece had huffed. He’d finished his coffee and disappeared for a few minutes, and when he came back he asked if I was ready to leave. He hasn’t spoken since.

He pulls up in a clearing at the end of a track and climbs out of the car. I follow him.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

“Can we just walk for a while? I need a bit of time to decompress.” He takes my hand and we walk along the path between the trees and wander deep into the woods.

Again he doesn’t speak until eventually we come to another clearing, a cliff that looks down over the valley just a few hundred yards up from the falls. I can see them in the distance.

He stops and looks down, his brow creased, deep in thought. I can’t take it any longer, so I stand beside him and put my hand on his back, rubbing it up and down. He gives a deep sigh and rests his head on my shoulder.

“What’s the matter?” I ask.

He turns to me, his face almost stricken.

“I could’ve turned out like that.”

“But you didn’t, darling, did you? You managed to break away from him. And now you couldn’t be further from your father if you tried.”

He releases another deep sigh. “You’re right, baby. I’m sorry. That must have been hard for you too.”

“It did bring back a few memories I’d rather not remember, but then you stood up for me and that meant everything.”

He looks out over the valley a little bit longer until something like his old smile is back on his face.

“Are you ready for your surprise yet?”

“Absolutely.”

We walk back down toward the car hand in hand, but this time not silent.

“This place is nice. I’ve never been here before,” I say.