“I’ll allow him in the back seat, but if he doesn’t keep his mouth shut, I’ll ditch him on the highway.”
“Fine. I’ll let him know.”
Holden seemed satisfied. “Anyway, I didn’t mean to interrupt.” He patted Adam’s shoulder once more, but he was looking at Olive.
“It’s okay.”
“Really? Well, then.” His smile broadened and he pulled up a chair from a nearby table. Adam closed his eyes, resigned.
“So, what are we talking about?”
Why, I was just in the middle of lying my ass off, thank you for asking.
“Ah . . . nothing much. How do you two . . .” She looked between them, clearing her throat. “Sorry, I forgot how you and Adam know each other.”
A thud—Holden kicking Adam under the table. “You little shit. You didn’t tell her about our decades-deep history?”
“Just trying to forget.”
“You wish.” Holden turned to grin at her. “We grew up together.”
She frowned at Adam. “I thought you grew up in Europe?”
Holden waved his hand. “He grew up all over the place. And so did I, since our parents worked together. Diplomats—the worst kind of people. But
then our families settled in DC.” He leaned forward. “Guess who went to high school, college, and grad school together.”
Olive’s eyes widened, and Holden noticed, at least judging by how he kicked Adam again.
“You really haven’t told her shit. I see you’re still going for brooding and mysterious.” He rolled his eyes fondly and looked at me again. “Did Adam tell you that he almost didn’t graduate high school? He got suspended for punching a guy who insisted that the Large Hadron Collider would destroy the planet.”
“Interesting how you’re not mentioning that you got suspended alongside me for doing the exact same thing.”
Holden ignored him. “My parents were out of the country on some kind of assignment and briefly forgot that I existed, so we spent the week at my place playing Final Fantasy—it was glorious. What about when Adam applied to law school? He must have told you about that.”
“I never technically applied to law school.”
“Lies. All lies. Did he at least tell you that he was my prom date? It was phenomenal.”
Olive looked at Adam, expecting him to deny that, too. But Adam just half smiled, met Holden’s eyes, and said, “It was quite phenomenal.”
“Picture this, Olive. Early two thousands. Preppy, ridiculously expensive all-male DC school. Two gay students in grade twelve. Well, two of us that were out, anyway. Richie Muller and I date for the entirety of senior year—
and then he dumps me three days before prom for some guy he’d been having a thing with for months.”
“He was a prick,” Adam muttered.
“I have three choices. Not go to the dance and mope at home. Go alone and mope at school. Or, have my best friend—who was planning on staying home and moping over gamma-aminobutyric acids—come as my date.
Guess which?”
Olive gasped. “How did you convince him?”
“That’s the thing, I didn’t. When I told him about what Richie did, he offered!”
“Don’t get used to it,” Adam mumbled.
“Can you believe it, Olive?”
That Adam would pretend to be in a relationship with someone to get themout of a miserable situation? “Nope.”
“We held hands. We slow-danced. We made Richie spit out his punch and regret every single one of his wretched choices. Then we went home and played even more Final Fantasy. It was the shit.”
“It was surprisingly fun,” Adam conceded, almost reluctantly.
Olive looked at him, and a realization dawned on her: Holden was Adam’s Anh. His person. It was obvious that Adam and Tom were very close, too, but the relationship Adam had with Holden was something else, and . . .
and Olive had no idea what to do with this piece of information.
Maybe she should tell Malcolm. He’d either have a field day or go completely berserk.
“Well,” Holden said, standing up. “This was fantastic. I’ll go get coffee, but we should hang out soon, the three of us. I can’t remember the last time I had the pleasure of embarrassing Adam in front of a girlfriend. For now, though, he’s all yours.” He followed the word “yours” with a smirk that had Olive blushing.
Adam rolled his eyes when Holden left for the coffee counter. Fascinated, Olive followed him with her gaze for several moments. “Um, that was . . . ?”
“Holden for you.” Adam seemed barely annoyed.
She nodded, still a little dazed. “I can’t believe I’m not your first.”
