PREVIEW Holly Chapter (52ish) + FA Update

So a lot of people have been asking about Holly and since its still a few chapters off until you hear from her I decided to post a preview, sort of a teaser of her upcoming chapter, it will be after the wedding, although this particular segment happens before the wedding. It will be a memory.

To avoid spoiling those that do not want to read it, I've posted it after the jump, click Read More to read.

I will try to get Forever After up today as planned but I am on babysitting duty again so it might be a push. Keep an eye out, if not it will be up tomorrow at the latest. I'm hoping this preview makes up for it if I cant manage an update tonight :)
~Nikki


Holly Cullen

“Are you nervous?” Christian asked. I was packing my things in a suit case but paused and decided to sit on the bed.

“Kind of. I haven’t been home in so long,” I told him truthfully.

“Are you worried you’ll run into him?” he asked. The question shocked me; we didn’t speak about Jason, not anymore. It was true that I had run away from home to get away from him but when I found a life here in England I didn’t want to go back. At least not yet but with Will and Sophia’s wedding coming up, then Sarah and Nahuel’s I knew it was time to come home, I missed my family more than anything. My parents and sister often came to visit me, even Esther, Lidiya and Anelie visited but I missed the others, little Phoebe and Ashton who I hadn’t seen in person for three years. Will always had them on Skype talking to me or sending me pictures, I got a new picture nearly every day but I missed everything else about being an aunt, I had no doubt that Will and Sophia weren’t stopping with just two children. Will said they were going to try for another one and the thought of not being in their lives made my heart ache in a way I never thought it would.

My initial reason for leaving was no longer valid. Jason and I were talking and we were friends again, or building towards it at least and I had Christian now… Christian, I didn’t call him my boyfriend but he was certainly more than a friend. I suppose we never put a label to it because we didn’t want to jinx it. It took me a year to warm up to him, he spent that year getting to know me and I spent it getting over Jason.

It was New Year’s 2037 and Christian was keeping interactions friendly. I had been in England over ten months now but he had never tried anything, he knew I was deeply wounded from what happened with Jason and he kept his distance but by then it felt like I had moved on, that I was ready for something else. Jason’s name no longer brought a pain to my heart and tears to my eyes; it was just a name, whereas Christian’s name brought butterflies to my stomach and a smile on my face when I saw him. I kissed him at midnight and it erupted a fire in my stomach, the kindling I felt when I first kissed him in the club all those years ago was nothing compared to this. Christian knew what he was doing now, he kissed me back, wrapping his arms around me securely so I couldn’t move and his moon pool strength held me as close as possible to him. It was certainly more heated than your average new year’s kiss but we had been in the middle of a club, no one around us was paying attention and although it was heated, it only lasted a few seconds. I pulled away, gasping and slightly in awe of him, he grinned down at me, a smile that I hadn’t seen since the first time I ever took him to a club.

Since that night we were closer, never putting a label to us but his entire family knew we were dating, it was like everything shifted and changed around us, anyone who saw us interacting knew.

It’s different this time. I know you haven’t specifically said its friends with benefits but I know you think of it that way sometimes. It’s not Holly. What you and Christian have is nothing like you and Jason. Lidiya told me one night in the year after. My sisters had noticed, they knew everything and I was glad our telepathy worked over such a long distance. It felt less daunting being away from home in the earlier months after Alice had left me to go home. In that year I worried that Christian thought we were just friends with benefits, the same way I was with Jason but Lidiya was right, this was different. There was no elephant in the room; there was no word we were scared to say. There was no possibility of him leaving me for someone else because of some wolf hereditary tradition.

I found myself falling for Christian faster than I had even fallen for Phoenix and certainly faster than Jason. I suppose it depends the way you look at it, in reality it took me two years but it felt like after that kiss on new year’s I had plummeted off a mountain and I wasn’t going to stop falling until Christian caught me at the bottom.