| 24 |

| 𝐂𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐋𝐄 𝐉𝐀𝐗𝐎𝐍 𝐉𝐀𝐂𝐄 |

I take five steps ahead when her gasp stops me.

"My phone's inside!"

A groan comes out of my mouth as I turn around to face the literal Devil.

"Don't tell me we have to go back in there." I give her a near-pleading look.

"It was on the drinks table."

I raise an eyebrow. "It's probably stolen or lost by now."

She bites her lip. "If dad calls and I don't pick up, he's gonna drive here and hunt me down."

This time I let out my groan.

Part of me wants to leave her back in the party and let her deal with going back home on her own. But another part of me would feel guilty and my mom would smack the shit out of me if she knew what I did.

I pinch the top of my nose, between my eyebrows, sighing.

I look up at Holly. Her grey eyes look a little too big tonight. I avoid looking at them.

"Let me go back in there and get it."

She crosses her arms. "You? Sure that's not your excuse to go inside and party yourself?"

"My name's Castle," I reply dryly. "Not Holly. Stay right here and don't move."

She tilts her head at me, her eyes shining with mischief.

I give her a pointed look. "I mean it."

"Sure. Sure." She nods.

Giving her a skeptical look, I make her sit on a plastic chair outside before going back in there to find her phone.

The number of times people accidentally stepped on my foot, elbowed me and bumped into me skyrockets my annoyance. Not to mention the smell of alcohol and sweat along with the loud music that's giving me a headache.

By the time, I'm out of the house again, my body's heated up with my hair ruffled and a stain of red lipstick on my cheekbone.

Holly raises an eyebrow when she sees me. She's twirling a small flower between her fingers that she probably plucked from the flowerpot behind her.

"Did you get into a fight with someone?" She asks me.

My frown of annoyance deepens. "Here." I thrust the phone in my hand in her direction.

She takes it from me, suppressing a giggle.

"What?" I question, furrowing my eyebrows.

She points to her cheekbone. "You got a little something there."

I bring up the back of my hand, rubbing my cheekbone aggressively.

"Now it looks like you're blushing with the lipstick smeared all over your cheek." She laughs.

"Let's just get you home." I give her another annoyed look.

But instead of complying, she leans back against the chair, crossing one long bare leg over the other and stretching out lazily.

"What's the rush?" She tilts her head up at me. "You just got here."

I ignore the playful desire in her eyes with the endless smooth skin she has exposed with her clothes.

"If you don't get up in three seconds, I'm going to leave you right here." I raise an eyebrow in warning.

Of course, she doesn't take my words seriously. She never does for anyone.

"I dare you," She says, her words a slur with the alcohol. She's looking up at me with a challenge in her eyes. "Take ten steps from here without thinking about me."

I stare at her.

"Without thinking about how you left me." She slowly rises out of her chair. "Without thinking about how I'm watching you." She nears me. "Without thinking about how much you want to turn around and come back to me."

She's only a few inches away from me now. The heat from her body seeps into my skin. The smell of alcohol and sweet perfume fills my nose along with a scent that belongs to her. She's always had her own natural scent. Something sweet and arousing. Intoxicating.

Her grey eyes are heavy-lidded and she's peering at me through her long lashes. Her bottom lip is slightly swollen and I'm suddenly wondering if it's because someone kissed her.

What if I kiss her?

The thought of kissing her makes an erratic kind of heat rise up in my body. I immediately dismiss it, taking a step away from her.

But her hand reaches up towards me. My breath gets stuck in my throat and my eyes widen in anticipation of what she's about to do. Her fingers push back a few strands of my hair away from my face. While retracting her hand, her fingers brush lightly over the skin of my cheek, along my jaw and feathering my collarbone. I shiver.

"Are you going to leave me here?" She asks, her voice so soft. I don't know if she's doing this on purpose.

Knowing Holly, there's a ninety percent chance she's doing this on purpose. Even drunk. With that information, I still can't stop the sudden increase in my pulse.

"Are you?" She asks again. My body heats up with the way she's looking at me. I'm pretty sure my face is turning crimson.

I would never understand why Holly would bother giving me her attention. She's popular, confident, flirty and all that stuff that comes along with her being her.

Somewhere deep inside me, a feeling rises; that if Holly Amanda Versace thinks I'm worthy of her attention, then there's something special about me.

And that feeling causes a rise of resentment within me that I would need her attention to think worthy of myself. Holly is always about games and mischief. There's nothing serious with whatever comes to her.

She's a heartbreaker without rue.

Still, I find myself answering. "No."

A slow smile spreads across her lips as if I've given her the exact answer she was looking for.

She steps back and it finally feels like I can breathe.

My body shudders with the sudden coldness wrapping me at the loss of heat from Holly.

She holds out her hand to me. "Shall we?"

I stare at the hand she's holding towards me.

Nope.

Instead of taking her hand, I hold out my arm. She blinks at it before slinging her arm through mine with a grin.

"Always the gentleman, aren't you?" She teases.

I give her no response.

We start walking. I thought it would be a mess to take her home without a vehicle since she said she'd be shit-drunk, but surprisingly, Holly's light on her feet and completely steady. Graceful even as she walks beside me.

I couldn't find a car to come to get her. I don't have enough money to rent one for the night too. With no choice, I have to take her home on foot.

A few seconds into our walk and she opens her mouth.

"Question." She says it, doesn't ask. She never asks.

"What?" I respond after a moment.

"Where's your dad?"

The question catches me completely off-guard. I almost trip on my shoes. Instead, I go absolutely still.

Holly almost stumbles at the sudden halt. She steps back and looks at me. There must've been something on my face because her eyes glue to it.

"Never mind." She shakes her head. "I'm drunk and just blurted it out."

I can't relax my body. Abrupt flashes of images go through my head.

The whip of a belt. Broken shards of glass. Thuds of a baseball bat. Blood. A lot of blood. And screaming.

A hand touches my arm and I snap out of my thoughts.

I look down and see Holly frowning at me.

"You okay?"

I stare at her, confused.

"You're breathing hard." She notes.

I force myself to calm down. My body's stiff as a wall and I'm suddenly aware of every scar, faded bruise and burn mark on my body that's hidden under my clothes.

"Let's go." My voice is even stiffer than how my body feels.

Holly blinks up at me, her big eyes scrutinizing my face.

"Okay." She says after a while and steps away from me, going back to her previous place beside me.

We resume walking.

There's a different kind of silence between us and it's making me madder with how long it's stretching out. There's tension tightening my shoulders and I don't want to be here anymore. I want to be home where mom's there with Will.

Mom.

A small chill of fear cascades down my back.

Suddenly I'm worrying about how she is right now. Did she faint again? Did she take her medicines? Did she eat? Is she on her bed like she's supposed to be right now?

I force myself to slow down and not run off and get done with Holly before rushing back home.

Worry grips me and on top of that, I can feel a headache coming on.

A billion other things run through the back of my head. How much money do we have? Is it enough to survive for this month? How many meals can I afford? Is there enough food for Will and mom? How many more medical bills are stacked on my table? How much—

"There."

I snap out of my thoughts.

Holly's pointing at something. I follow the direction of her finger and see that she's pointing at an ice cream parlour.

"What?" I ask her.

"I want to eat ice cream," She says.

I look at the time on my ratty old watch. "Don't you have to be home—"

"I wanna go there." She cuts me off.

"But you said your dad—"

"I want ice cream."

"But—"

"Now!"

"Stop cutting me off!" I scowl at her.

She slides her arm out from mine and walks towards the ice cream parlour.

"Holly! Come back!" I glare.

She ignores me. Her heels clack on her road as she walks away from me.

"Holly!" I call out after her.

She doesn't listen.

A sigh of annoyance rushes out of my mouth. This little brat.

A beat passes before I give up with a groan and follow her.

She enters the ice cream parlour and holds the door open for me.

There's no one here because it's late at night. The guy behind the counter wears a red striped apron and sits on a chair, reading a book. He looks up at our arrival and stands up, not before glancing at the clock once.

Holly walks straight up to him.

"Good evening, young people." The man greets us, putting on a white hat, and smiling. "Too late for getting ice cream, don't ya think? Bad for the teeth." He taps the side of his jaw, indicating where his teeth are.

"If you're worried about your customer's teeth then you shouldn't be open this late," Holly replies.

The man's smile widens. He looks to be about forty with a slightly bulging stomach.

"The same as usual?" He asks. "Cherry ice cream with choco chips."

Holly nods.

He looks at me. "And what about you?" He asks me.

"I don't want—"

"Chocolate fudge," Holly replies before I can decline.

I shoot her a frown but she's not even looking at me.

"Gotcha." The man nods, moving away to prepare our ice creams. "So where you coming from?"

"A party few streets away," Holly replies.

The man looks up, narrowing his eyes as he scrutinizes Holly.

An instinct kicks in that makes me want to hide Holly from the man's view. I stare at him to make sure what he's staring at.

After a while, he shakes his head, looking away. "You're drunk, aren't you?"

Holly grins. "No one leaves a party without alcohol in his system."

"What about that one?" He points an ice cream cone in my direction.

"The stick hasn't been pulled out of his ass yet," She replies.

I give her a side-ways glare, stuffing my hands in my hoodie's pocket and huffing out a breath.

The man chuckles.

My eyes fall onto the cover of the book that he was reading before Holly and I stepped into the parlour. My Only World—the title read.

The man - whose name I don't know - catches me staring at his book.

He raises an eyebrow. "You know that one?"

For a moment I think about shaking my head to avoid any conversations. But instead, my inner feelings for the book win as I open my mouth.

"Was hard not to once I read the first page," I mumble.

The man nods, scooping ice-creams into the cone. "Tragic, isn't it?"

"More like destructive. Self-destructive." I respond.

He furrows his eyebrows. "How so?"

"Harold gave up his whole life for Alice and even went as far as jumping off a cliff for her. He was ready to do anything for her. That can't be called 'love' like how the book says. Love is something where you feel protected and safe, where you don't need to constantly feel to prove yourself of worthiness. Alice basically manipulated Harold into doing dangerous stuff for her own amusement."

The man stops moving, my words seeping into him. His face scrunches in thought.

"When you put it like that..." He finally speaks, sounding as if he's part amazed, part unhappy. "It does seem as if Harold was acting on impulse."

I shrug. "The book's called My Only World. Not because he saw Alice as his world. But because he seemed as if he's trapped in one."

The man nods at me, impressed. "I like you."

"I have no idea what you people are talking about," Holly speaks up, staring between the two of us.

The man gives her a grin before looking back at me. "You seem to know a lot about this stuff. Deep thinker, aren't you?"

I shrug. "I just see it from a different point of view."

"Have you ever been in love?" He asks.

My back goes straight. Holly looks at my face and snickers, probably because I'm goddamn blushing again.

"No," I respond as plainly as I could.

The man looks between Holly and me. He goes back to preparing the ice-creams not before muttering an uh-huh.

A few minutes later, we get our ice creams. Holly pays for them and we're back on the road.

"You two bonded well," Holly remarks, licking her ice cream.

"We just spoke about a book," I reply, taking a bite of my ice cream.

"Oh no." Holly groans.

"What?" I look at her.

"You bite your ice cream?"

I furrow my eyebrows. "So?"

"Now I get why people call you a freak." She tsks. "They probably saw you biting your ice cream."

I roll my eyes.

"It should be illegal, you know?" She tells me.

"Biting an ice cream?" I raise my eyebrows.

She nods. "You know what else should be illegal?"

"Enlighten me," I mutter, waiting for another nonsense.

"Being so cute."

I halt in my tracks.

Fuck, that was so stupid. Cheesy even. Never would I have thought Holly would say something that cheesy. Yet—

She bursts out laughing. "Are you seriously blushing?"

A glower comes on my face. "No," I mutter, pulling up the top of my hoodie to hide half of my face.

She throws her head back and continues laughing. "God, you seriously are so cute."

My face is flaming now. "Shut up."

She shakes her head. "I wanna see what all cheesy pick-up lines do you blush to."

I start walking, half-attempting to get away from her. I can't leave her but that doesn't mean I can't put inches of distance between us.

Holly follows behind me at her own delightful pace.

I silently eat the ice cream in my hand, and she eats hers.

When we reach her house, she puts a hand on my arm to stop me. A tiny jolt goes through me at her touch.

She's staring at her house. "I can't tell if he's awake or not."

I know she's talking about her dad. The lights are off in her house and it's dead silent.

The wheels are churning in Holly's head as she stares at her house, deciding whether her dad's awake or not.

"He knows I was at a party, but I don't want him to find me drunk." She tells me.

Finally, she shrugs as if saying 'fuck it' and walks towards her house.

I follow her until she's at her door and unlocking it.

"Will you help me up the stairs?" She asks, stepping inside her house.

"Up the stairs?" I question, furrowing my eyebrows.

She nods. "I have to make sure to get up to my room as quietly as possible. Plus I'm drunk and don't wanna accidentally trip or something."

I raise an eyebrow. "The whole way back home you were completely fine and now suddenly you're not sure if you can walk up the stairs?" I question.

"Walk up as quietly as I can." She elaborates for me.

"The deal was only till I drop you home." I remind her.

"Oh come on." She rolls her eyes. "It doesn't hurt to extend it to help a poor drunk girl up till her bed."

I stare at her. Is she serious?

Poor drunk girl? Poor? There are so many things wrong with that word when it comes to associating it with Holly Amanda Versace.

I know for a fact that Holly could run up the stairs wearing heavy metal boots and she still wouldn't make a single noise.

She's staring at me, expectantly, waiting for my answer. My bottom lip finds itself between my teeth and I'm actually contemplating whether to help her or not.

I almost snort. She doesn't need help. She's just pretending because she wants to mess with me.

She's always messing with me. I understood that much by how much delight she takes in making me blush or jumpy with her flirtiness or bold moves.

Yet...

I huff in annoyance. "Let's just get this night over with."

Her face breaks out into a grin. She turns around and beckons me into her house.

A sudden anticipating chill runs down my back. I'm going to enter Holly's room without her dad there to protect me from the Devil.

I mean her dad's there, but he's sleeping, and I probably would not want to wake him up in the middle of the night.

With a small gulp down my throat, I take a step inside Holly's house.

She's walking ahead of me into the darkness of her house.

"Close the door quietly." She whispers.

I do and whatever light the outside world was giving cuts off, plunging us into more darkness.

This time I can only see the outline of Holly's figure.

My mind takes me back to the time when we got locked in the library and how this all started in the first place.

Sudden nervousness makes my pulse beat faster as I stare at the faint curvy outline of Holly's body.

"Let's go upstairs." She whispers.

I shouldn't. Nothing is simple with Holly. I shouldn't. I shouldn't. I shouldn't.

I follow her.

She's so close to me while walking up the stairs. I'm breathing her scent the entire time.

We reach the top and I hear the click of a door opening. Getting distracted by the sound, I don't realize when she stops walking and I bump into her. She stumbles into her room, and I follow after her to help steady her.

"Careful," I whisper.

"You're the one who bumped into me." She mutters.

I take another step without meaning to and bump into her again.

"Ouch! You stepped on my foot."

"Sorry." I try taking a step back but there must have been something on the floor because my foot rolls over it and the next thing I know, I'm going down. Somewhere in between, I kick Holly and a gasp leaves her mouth. My back lands on the floor...and Holly lands on top of me.

My breath wheezes on the impact, both from the floor and Holly. For a moment I think all the air around me disappears. Then I let out a low groan.

My groan is followed by another soft feminine groan.

"What the hell is happening?" Holly grunts, stealing the words right off my mind.

"It's too. Fucking. Dark." I breathe out.

In the process of getting up, Holly doesn't see she's placing her knee. A choked gasp erupts from my mouth when she squishes my dick.

"What happened—oh shit was that your—oh shit—I'm so sorry—"

The next thing I know is that Holly's hand is on my dick. And she's rubbing it.

My body comes into action, and I immediately jolt away from her, rolling to the side and sitting up. My breaths are frantic and my face burns like flames.

"Shit. Shit. Shit. I'm sorry." Her voice reaches out to me. "I was trying to make it better—wait that sounds even worse." She groans. "God this not going as how I planned."

"You planned all this?" I hiss, still feeling her touch rubbing against my dick. A strange feeling washes over me and I come to a horrifying realization. I'm getting hard...

No. No. No. I force my dick to stop enlarging but it's happening anyways.

"Yes, Castle, of course," Holly says. "I planned for you to trip over something and kick out my legs in the process so you could fall with me on top of you and I can knee your dick then try rubbing it to soothe it in the process. After all, I'm the mastermind in planning, right?"

When she says it like that, it doesn't seem as if she really could plan all this. And I don't know why but I have faith in Holly that she would never purposefully try groping me.

"Whatever." I scoff.

"Are you...okay?" She asks me. "Did I knee you too hard?"

"You mean if you squished my dick like a stress ball?" And now I'm getting hard. "Yes."

A moment of silence passes and I'm wondering why she is so quiet all of a sudden. It takes me a few seconds to realize that Holly's trying not to burst out laughing. Short gasps of air escape her lips.

"What?" I snap.

"Squished like a stress ball?" She wheezes. "Oh my—" She finally gives in and lets out a cackle of laughter, unable to contain herself anymore.

"Shut up!" I hiss.

"You had no other way to describe it?" She's still wheezing in laughter, rolling around the floor.

"Shut up," I mutter.

She tries controlling her laughter and finally reins it in after a few seconds.

"Anyways," She's finally able to speak. "This was a disaster. I kinda planned for us to kiss tonight."

I splutter.

"W-what?" I demand.

I can make out the outline of her shoulders shrugging. "I mean, I wasn't gonna force you. I was planning to make you come to terms with your attraction towards me."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" I stare at her.

"What?"

"I'm not attracted to you."

"Uh-huh, sure." She says.

"I'm not." I declare.

"I think we've already somewhat been over that, Castle." She says.

"I'm not."

She shrugs. "Whatever helps you sleep at night."

I look away from her.

Fine, I'll admit it. I am attracted to Holly Amanda Versace but there's no way I'm gonna admit that to her.

"I'm leaving." I finally stand up when a certain part of mine finally calmed down.

I can feel Holly rising too.

I move to walk out her door.

"Castle." Her voice stops me.

My shoulders stiffen. I stop and turn around, waiting for some other thing to come out of her mouth that'll fluster me.

Instead—

"Text me when you get home?" She whispers.

I stare at her. My heart beating a little faster.

"Why?" I ask.

"Just want to know if you gett home safe." She replies.

A moment of silence passes.

"Sure," I reply and turn around again.

I step out of the door and walk towards the stairs but I couldn't make it too far. Because something cool—something metal, presses against my neck.

★・・・・・・★

Who else has over-protective parents? I sure do.

Words: 3,900

Date of publishing: 15th March 2023