Page 63 of The Rebel (Looking to Score 1)
“You can do that wheelbarrow.” She nods to the paper.
I obey, scribbling the color onto the page while my mom watches. This is so weird.
“How have things been going since you got home?” I ask.
Mom smiles as she colors each daffodil on the hill a bright, sunny yellow. “Just fine. Better than fine. How about you? Still on that job with Eden?”
I know better than to believe Mom is past her addiction, but I’ll take whatever good news I can get. Even if she’s just trying to change the subject.
I hesitate, unsure of how much to tell her. “Uh, yeah.”
Mom stops coloring to appraise me. “Uh-oh. I know that look. You’ve gone and fallen for her, haven’t you?”
I swallow and finish coloring the wheelbarrow. “We’ve started spending some time together outside of work.”
Mom makes a sound in her throat, then grabs a pink pencil and gives the piglet some color.
“Say it,” I say sharply. “Whatever’s on your mind, just say it.”
She lifts one shoulder and gives me a sympathetic look. “I worry about you, is all. Girls like Eden, they’re . . . different, Holt. Different from you and me.”
As I process her words, I realize that somewhere deep inside, I used to agree with her. I used to believe the lie that I told myself that Eden and I were just too different, that we could never work. But now I know better. And while there may be some things holding us back, it’s not our economics, or the number of zeroes in her bank account versus mine.
“That’s just it, Mom. Eden doesn’t care that I don’t have money. She doesn’t bat an eyelash at my lumpy mattress, or the chip in the mug when I serve her coffee.”
Mom’s silent for a moment, and she pauses in her coloring to look at me.
Rising to my feet, I continue. “I’m falling for Eden, and I think she feels the same about me. If you can’t accept that two people can care about each other without money having a damned thing to do with it, then I won’t sit here and be lectured about it.”
“I’m sorry.” Mom’s voice cracks. “All I ever wanted was to keep you from getting hurt like I did all those years ago. I’ve seen how those kind of people treat people like us.”
“There’s no such thing as those people, Mom.” My tone softens. “We’re all the same. We all have fears and insecurities and things about ourselves that we want to change. And we all want a shot at love.”
Mom smiles sadly at me. “Then you go take your shot, baby.”
25
* * *
EDEN
“Would you believe me if I told you this is my first time at this beach?”
It’s a rare warm day in late October—just over seventy degrees, according to my weather app—and Holt and I are walking hand in hand down the Harbor Walk, strolling from the parking lot toward whatever he has planned. He refused to tell me what’s on the agenda today, and my only clues are the suspicious canvas tote slung over his shoulder, and the fact that we’re walking toward the beach.
“No way,” he says, arching a brow at me.
I look at him and nod. “My family used to go to the Cape several times a year. And we took plenty of tropical vacations during the winter. But this beach?” I wave my free hand toward the shoreline, dotted with clusters of happy Bostonians enjoying the weather. “I’ve only ever driven past it.”
I’m not sure if it’s the sun or embarrassment that makes my cheeks go warm, but Holt doesn’t act surprised. Instead, he keeps asking questions.
“The Cape, huh? I’ve never been out there. How does it compare?”
“It’s gorgeous,” I say with a smile, my memory flooding with happy vacation moments from before my parents’ divorce, back when family trips to the Cape were as frequent as bank holidays. “My mom has always been a sun-and-sand type. She usually said the beaches here in Boston were . . .”
I cut myself off, biting down on my lower lip, but Holt nods, fully understanding where I was headed.
“I get it. They have a certain reputation,” he says, kicking a discarded cigarette butt in the sand to emphasize his point.
Seconds later, we reach the main entrance to the beach, but Holt doesn’t halt his stride, leading us past it. When I raise a brow, he just squeezes my hand.
“I know where I’m going. Trust me.”
The airy, tingling sensation in my chest spreads through my body. I do trust him. Maybe more than I should after just a few weeks of having him back in my life.
But everything about him, about us together, sends me positive signals. Even the way he holds my hand, his fingers laced tightly with mine, but with such a gentle touch, like I’m a bird he doesn’t want to fly away. Beneath his rough-and-tumble exterior, Holt Rossi is a gentle giant, and I would follow him just about anywhere.
