When You Come Back to Me (Lost Boys 2)

“Mr. Whitmore,” Reynolds called from the whiteboard. “Since you’re so chatty, perhaps you can share with the class. Can you please give me all values of x at which f is continuous but not differentiable?”

Holden leaned back in his chair, an infuriating smile on his lips. I tore my angry glare off him and studied the small graph with its curved and V-shaped tangent lines and worked out a few factors in my notebook. Solid answers that would never change.

“Negative two and zero,” I said.

Mr. Reynolds beamed. “Excellent.”

Many students in the class beamed at me too. The girls appreciatively, the guys worshipful.

“Hail to the King,” Holden muttered. “I’m surprised the class doesn’t break out into applause.”

“They do,” I said. “When I’m on the field.”

Holden arched a brow. “Touché, Whitmore.”

“And Mr. Parish,” Mr. Reynolds said loudly. “What rule do you think helped River arrive at that answer?”

Holden didn’t reply and I didn’t look away. We couldn’t take our eyes off of each other if our lives depended on it, and for a few precious moments, I didn’t care what anyone thought. The self-consciousness fled, and we just observed each other, smiles touching our lips and something foreign unfolding in my heart.

“Mr. Parish?”

Holden’s eyes never left mine. “A continuous function fails to be differentiable at a point in its domain.”

“Very good! We’re off to a great start this year. You two are a dynamic duo.”

I glanced quickly down at my notebook, the self-consciousness swooping back in, constricting my heart and slamming doors that wanted to open.

“Hear that?” Holden mused. “We’re a duo.”

“No,” I said, low and cold. “We’re not.”

Like the calculus formula. We can’t be made into something different.

I said nothing more for the duration of class, half of me feeling like shit for ignoring Holden and the other half denying that I gave a fuck. He trashed my best friend’s house. He was a pompous asshole who thought he knew me. I didn’t owe him anything.

I repeated the thoughts to drown out other unwanted feelings. Like my body’s hyperawareness of Holden’s proximity and the constant urge to look at him. To soak him up. As if he were a classic painting with a thousand details waiting to be discovered under all those layers…

Stop.

When the bell rang, I gathered my stuff and tried to hurry out, wondering how I was going to get through the semester with Holden sitting beside me. There was a bottleneck at the door as Reynolds handed out study guides. Holden lounged in his seat, making no damn effort to conceal who he was watching.

Frustration bit at me. The same flavor of frustration I’d had at the party, where I wanted to grip him by the lapels of his fancy coat and—

Tear it off?

Goddammit, I shouldn’t be having these thoughts or reactions. I didn’t have them until Holden.

Didn’t have them or didn’t hear them?

Not going there.

A couple of students asked me about the Central Capitals chances this year for another championship and if I’d seen the latest season of Ozark. I muttered a few polite answers and wished the damn line would speed up. Holden had risen from his seat and was only a few paces behind me.

“I heard about your mom, River,” Angela Reyes, a shy, quiet girl said in a low voice. “I’m so sorry.”

The punch to the gut was swift and hard. I’d forgotten about my mother and I blamed Holden for that too. He’d infiltrated me, uninvited, and sucked out everything but him.

“Yeah, thanks.”