Nashville 3 - What We Feel

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Authors: Inglath Cooper
Tags: Romance, music, rockstar
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in life, and I can’t stop myself from smiling. “Sadly, I don’t mind.”
    “He has that effect, doesn’t he?”
    I nod, making a pretense of wiping crumbs off the kitchen counter and putting the treat jar back in place. “Thomas already in bed?”
    “Yeah. I think we wore him out.”
    “Well,” I say, “I’m tired too. Goodnight, Holden.”
    I start past him, Hank Junior at my heels. Holden reaches out and stops me with a hand on my arm. “CeCe?”
    I stop, as if instantly frozen in place. I try to say something but my voice is locked in my throat.
    “Can we talk for a minute?” he asks.
    “About what?” I finally manage. “There isn’t anything-”
    “Actually, there is.”
    “Holden-”
    “Please.”
    I force myself to turn and face him then, saying nothing, waiting for him to go on.
    “I want to say I’m sorry for everything that happened.”
    His eyes are fully sincere and something in me gives a little. “You have nothing to be sorry for,” I say.
    “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
    “I know.” And I really do. “We never should have…we were wrong to-”
    “ I was wrong to,” he finishes for me. “I wasn’t free to let myself have feelings for you.”
    With those words, the urge to cry hits me so hard and so insistently that the tears are spilling from my eyes before I even try to hold them back. “Holden, don’t,” I say. “This is not a place either of us can afford to go.”
    “I still need to say it.”
    “Is that what’s most important then?” I ask on a flurry of anger. “What you need?”
    He blinks once but not fast enough to hide the flash of hurt. “That’s not what I meant,” he says.
    “Maybe not,” I say quickly. “What I need is to forget that we ever felt anything more than friendship for each other. That is the only way I can be on a stage with you every night for six weeks.”
    I turn abruptly then and start out of the kitchen for my room. Holden reaches out and reels me back to him. I stop only after hitting the wall of his chest.
    I look up at him just as outrage surges through me. “Don’t. Touch. Me. Holden.”
    But he doesn’t remove his hand from my arm. With his gaze locked on mine, he gently pulls me forward until I am fully encircled in his embrace. I hold myself as if I have been cast in ice.
    We stand that way for countless seconds. The refrigerator hums. The air conditioning kicks on. A cat meows somewhere outside and Hank Junior pads over to the window to investigate.
    And then, slowly, slowly, Holden eases me in, folding me into the circle of his arms until I just melt against him.
    Everything inside of me goes liquid and warm. I close my eyes and yield to the irresistible need to breathe him in, to let myself remember how I feel magnetized next to him. Completely unable to resist the pull between us.
    I want to protest. My brain is telling me to protest. But my body isn’t listening.
    Instead, I let my arms wrap him up and I press my face to his chest. His warm, hard chest. Time falls away. I don’t let myself think of anything except what is here, what is now.
    He puts his cheek against my hair, and I feel him sigh, a release of breath, as if he, too, has been holding it since the last time we were in each other’s arms like this.
    We stay this way for a very long while. I can feel the pain and hurt of these past eighteen months absorb into the air around us and fade to acceptance.
    “What was it like?” I ask, my voice little more than a whisper.
    “What?” he answers, the question rough at the edges.
    “Seeing her go through all of that.”
    “Terrifying.” He’s quiet for several moments and then, “I never imagined so many people having their lives destroyed by that awful disease. Going with her to the treatments, seeing others who were even sicker than she was… some days, I didn’t think I could go back.”
    “It must have been hard,” I say softly.
    “Seeing the hope and courage of those people, and how fragile

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