“See what?”
“Verity knew who you were at the bar last night before I’d told them your name,” Bryce explained. “Knew you were the man I…knew you were my boyfriend.”
Holden briefly entertained the idea of striking the word boyfriend from Bryce’s vocabulary, but he didn’t have anything better to replace it with.
Yet.
“How did they know that?” he asked.
“The way you look at me,” Bryce whispered.
Holden licked his lips, heart slamming violently against his sternum. “How do I look at you?”
Bryce laughed at him, crawling off Holden’s lap and dragging him out of bed. He stumbled after Bryce until they were both in the bathroom. Bryce flipped the lights on and stood with his back against the counter so Holden faced him and the mirror.
“Look at me,” Bryce said, and Holden did.
Because of course he did.
He studied the dark pools of Bryce’s eyes and the soft swell of his cheeks and the plush lines of his mouth. Holden traced his fingers over the hint of scruff growing out against Bryce’s jaw, the small diamond tattoo in front of his ear.
“Now look at you,” Bryce instructed and Holden flickered his stare to the mirror.
It was quick, his expression changing when he became his focus instead of Bryce, but it was there for a moment…the thing Bryce saw when Holden looked at him. What Verity saw. What everyone must have seen.
“Bryce, I?—”
“I think I love you,” Bryce blurted before Holden could say anything else. “I’m not sure because I thought I loved Bella, but it didn’t feel anything like this. I don’t know if it’s just the sex hormones or?—”
“It’s not,” Holden cut him off, fingers pressed against Bryce’s still moving lips. “It’s not just the hormones.”
“I love you?”
Holden laughed under his breath, tracing his finger across Bryce’s lower lip before moving his fingers to Bryce’s chin.
“Are you not sure?” he asked.
“No.” A violent flush colored Bryce’s cheeks and he tucked his chin toward his chest to escape Holden’s stare. “I’m not.”
Something constricted, tightening every muscle in his body like he was a rubber band ready to snap. Holden tilted Bryce’s face back up and looked at him again. He didn’t even have to try to morph his features into what Bryce had seen before. It was impossible, he realized, to look at Bryce and not let his emotions through.
Holden leaned in slowly and ghosted a kiss across the corner of Bryce’s mouth. Bryce chased after him, hungry and urgent, and the kiss quickly turned into something that was going to lead them, again, right back to bed. Holden had to take Bryce’sface into his hands and pull their mouths apart, and even then Bryce chased after his mouth.
“Oh,” Bryce murmured, lashes fluttering.
“Oh,” Holden agreed, knowing he loved Bryce and knowing it was returned.
CHAPTER 18
Bryce
Bryce realized,after getting dressed and brushing his teeth beside Holden at his small bathroom sink, he’d never actually been in love before. He watched Holden’s reflection in the mirror, the way his hair fell into his eyes when he leaned over to spit out the toothpaste, the way he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. There wasn’t a single thing Holden did that Bryce didn’t want to worship, and that scared him a little.
Was love supposed to be scary?
He wasn’t sure.
Even with his nerves and worry over the confession of their feelings—even unspoken—there was a safety in it, which only proved to Bryce he was right in the first place. He didn’t know if love was supposed to be scary, but it definitely was supposed to feel safe, and Bryce had never felt more protected than he did when he was with Holden.