When You Come Back to Me (Lost Boys, #2)

by Emma Scott

I put on my best Big Brother voice. “I’m going to lay it on you, anyway, Milo. Ready? Here it is: you’re going to be okay.” He rolled over to face me, his dark eyes shining in the moonlight, his black hair askew. “Are you joking? That’s your big secret? You are so full of shit.” “It’s true.” “That’s a stupid secret for one thing, and why would I believe you? You are not okay. You are a mess.” I tapped my chin. “And here I thought I was hiding it so well…”

“Cassandra lived in ancient times and was like me: so extraordinarily good looking that gods were falling out of the sky to try to hook up.” Milo snorted. “Give me a break. You’re not that good looking.” “I beg your pardon. Have you seen me?”

“You’re the reincarnation of a Greek goddess?” “Let’s examine the evidence, shall we?” I ticked off my fingers. “I’m ridiculously hot. They all think I’m crazy. I’m locked up in here and no one believes what I say.” I smiled gently in the silvery dimness. “Including you, when I say you’re going to be okay when I’m gone.”

“I’m going to miss you, Holden,” Milo said, his voice heavy with sleep. “Nah. You’ll forget me by dawn.” He hugged my arm tighter. “Don’t do that.” “Do what?” “Talk like you don’t matter. You do matter. To me.”

I said it lightly enough. I always did. Made jokes. Pushed the pain down and hid it with a smile and a wink, and maybe a gallon or two of booze or a night with a stranger. No one got to see how bad I hurt.

“Tell me something, River Whitmore…” Light flared as he lit his zippo. His eyes bored into mine, seeing through me as if I were made of cellophane. “Aside from me…who else knows you’re gay?”

My IQ is 153.” Miller whistled his disbelief. “Sounds as if it could be helpful, right?” “Helpful?” He scoffed. “That’s like having the answer key to life.” “If only,” I said, relishing how easily I fell into conversation with these guys. “As far as I can tell, it just means the nonstop thoughts in my head are more cunning and can torment me in multiple languages.”

But in the meantime, I was here, and that was more than I could have hoped for. It was everything.

“Cela ne m’apportait plus rien,”

I tossed a small, perfectly geometrically folded piece of paper onto River’s desk. “What the hell is this?” he whispered. “Pop quiz,” I said. “Do you like me? Check yes or no.”

“The problem is that the guy in question is not my type, to put it mildly. An All-American good boy. Warm, gooey, everyone loves him. He’s the human equivalent of a grilled cheese sandwich.”

“Getting adventurous?” “I feel like I’ve come this far, sitting in a stranger’s house, drinking their beer…” “Spilling your guts to another, better looking, stranger?” “You don’t feel like a stranger anymore.”

I wasn’t a praying person by nature, mostly because when I’d needed help, there was only cold silence. But that night, I prayed to whatever God or gods that might be listening to give River and his mom a little more time. Another day, at least. Let whatever needed to happen, happen when the sun was shining and not in the black, indifferent night.

Our song. Nothing was ours. There was no us. But Miller sang that if you never try, you’ll never know, and the words pierced me like arrows.

I’d been kissed a hundred times—wet, mindless mashing of mouths meant to lead to something else. River’s kiss ignited like a flare of light and heat in some cold place in me. His mouth was hard on mine, demanding, but infused with a strange softness that I felt everywhere. I felt him in his kiss, along every cell and sinew in my body that threatened to go limp in his arms. This is my first kiss too…

“I’m coming,” I breathed, one hand planted on the bed, gripping the sheets, the other in his hair, holding myself in that perfect delirium that was Holden. “Come,” he breathed between deep, long sucks. “Come for me, baby…”

“It’s better this way,” I whispered, my eyes falling shut. “Then why does it feel like shit?” “That’s a catch-22. The solution to our dilemma is inherent in the problem itself.” “Which is?” “We both want something we can never have,” I said as sleep dragged me down on vodka fumes. “A normal life.”

I’d written about Christmas Day and my trek to the Shack but in abstract terms. I fractured myself into two characters: one who was real and the other who existed as a figment of the other’s imagination. Two figures, one trudging through snow toward a lake, one through rain along a beach. One battled through the physical sickness of PTSD. The other drank himself into a stupor. It ended with both characters finally seeing each other for the first time in the reflection of a bathroom mirror.

“I understand how it can feel that way, but please don’t give up on yourself. Keep trying until you get to the place where you truly understand that you deserve to be happy. Because you do.”

“É fácil amar você, meu doce menino. Mas você tem que se deixar ser amado.”

It’s easy to love you, my sweet boy. But you have to let it in.

Everything with Holden was a come-on, an insinuation, or a dare. I touched the cuff of his coat—wool and cashmere—that probably cost more than all the clothes in my closet. “Nice.” “You like it? It’s made out of boyfriend material.”

“That’s it,” Holden coaxed, tracing his fingers over my lips. “Come, River. Come hard in me. Now.”

“This is bold. And unlike you.” “Fuck it,” he said, his blue eyes burning like the hottest part of a flame. I raised a brow. “Oh, I see. Someone got laid this weekend and now is ready to fuck or fight the world.” “Fight them,” he said, pressing his groin to mine. “But I don’t want to fuck anyone else.”

My heart tried to climb out of my throat, the elation and relief expanding until I could hardly breathe. Because I love him. Holy shit, I’m in love with him.

“I love you, Holden. That’s real. It’s the most fucking real thing I’ll ever know.”

I came to tell you that even thousands of miles away, I’m still here for you. I can’t make you believe me when I say that I love you, but I do. I think you love me too, and when you come back to me, I’ll be waiting.

“I never told him,” I said in a broken whisper. “He told me he loved me, and I never said it back. Not where he could hear it.” “Go to wherever he is, and you just say it.” “Because it’s that easy.” “No, it’s scary as shit,” Silas said. “But damn, Holden. Think of what could be waiting for you on the other side.”

“If you touch me, I’m going to come.” “I want you to come,” I breathed tightly. “All over me.”

“Come, baby,” he whispered, leaning over me now, our hands locked, fingers intertwined. “Come inside me. Right now…”

Finally, Holden raised his head, hair tousled, eyes shining. “I’m about to say something extremely emotional and honest. Don’t hold it against me.” “You can say anything to me.” He swallowed hard. “Thank you for loving me when I didn’t.”

“Thank you for giving me back to myself,” I said, tears in my own eyes. “And I’m sorry.” “For what?” “When you left, I thought the loneliness would kill me. But I realized today at the Shack that I’d made you lonely, too. I made you lonely while we were still together, when my stupid fears and self-doubt kept us in hiding. I’m so sorry for that, Holden. You deserve to be loved out loud.”