“Of course, Bug, we’ll pencil it in,” I lied. No way in fuck were we going on any kind of outing with Hannah’s boyfriend.
“And Hannah has to come,” Clara added. “Cole said he knows the best place to get French hot chocolates.”
Cole seemed to have won my daughter over with science and chocolate, and fuck if it didn’t impress me. I wanted to hate the guy simply because he had been running his hands through Hannah’s hair.
What did it feel like, to have the ability to touch her? Did the strands feel like silk on his fingers? Could he smell the vanilla she used in her shampoo that stuck to my very pores?
“I don’t know…” Hannah’s eyes darted to me.
“Of course, Hannah will come,” I stated firmly. It was stupid of me. Hannah did not need to come to things like that, yet I wanted her deeply involved in every one of Clara’s adventures. In every one of Clara’s memories.
“Oh!” Clara yelled. She tended to yell when she was excited. “I just thought of the book I wanted to show Cole.” When she made as if to jump down from the counter, Hannah and I bothmoved. Hannah was closer, so Clara climbed naturally into her arms.
“You know the one I’m talking about?” Clara asked Hannah. “It has the whole section on ancient Egypt.”
“I do, and you can’t carry that alone. Especially not if you want other books too, which I’m sure you do. I’ll help you.”
“I’ll finish the tea.” Cole gestured to the mugs, looking meaningfully at me.
Hannah again looked vaguely panicked. “I mean you can come?—”
“I’ll finish the tea, Han,” Cole replied sternly.
Hannah visibly swallowed then nodded, surrendering as she carried my daughter in the direction of her room.
My eyes touched their backs, watching until they disappeared into Clara’s room. I tried to imprint every curve of Hannah’s body onto my brain, memorizing the way Clara’s hand was fastened in hers, the sounds of their animated conversations filtering through my house.
Soon, that’s all I’d have of her. Memories. Memories of the sounds, smells, and warmth she brought to our home.
Taking in a long inhale, I stared at the man in my kitchen, eating the brownies my daughter and Hannah made, muttering about sugar being demonized for no unnecessary reason. I thought about the way she smiled at him. With a light in her eyes that had only existed with Clara.
He touched her with a casual affection that infuriated me. That I coveted greedily.
“You’re gay, right?” I essentially barked at him.
He looked at me with a raised brow, still holding half the brownie, chewing slowly while staring at me before finally swallowing.
“I’m pretty sure it’s illegal for you to ask me that,” he replied evenly, looking me up and down. “Unless that’s a lumberjackway of hitting on me.” His eyes traveled down the hallway, toward Clara’s room, as if he were deciding they were out of earshot.
“I’m actually into this.” He spun his hand in front of my body. “But I know you don’t swing that way. You swing in the direction of dark hair and hazel eyes. Big … heart.” He waggled his eyes playfully. Then all semblance of playfulness left his face.
“That heart, by the way, somehow remained large, soft, and giving despite being covered in scars by people who like to ruin beautiful things because they’re ugly on the inside,” he continued with an edge. “I don’t take you as one of those people, though. Purely because I’ve seen the way you look at her.”
He stepped forward, advancing on me in my own fucking house. But all I could think of was how he said Hannah’s heart was covered in scars. That someone had hurt Hannah. I wanted to track them down and make them pay. I wanted to be the fucking person who healed those scars.
But right then, I was facing off with a man who quite obviously loved Hannah and was more than willing to go to battle for her.
“I know there’s a tragic backstory here.” He waved his hand down my body. “And that makes you interesting and all the more smoldering, but that does not give you carte blanche to hurt my friend. Nor does the fact that your frontal lobe doesn’t seem to have left the playground and still thinks we bully the girls we like.” When he paused, I heard my heart thundering in my ears.
How in the fuck could he know about the feelings I had toward Hannah? He’d been in my house for five fucking minutes. Was it that obvious? Was it in the way I looked at her?
“I never did that because I never liked girls in that way, but I also didn’t hurt the people I liked.” His voice was sharp, settling in front of me a little closer than was polite. “I’ll ask you nicely—because I have manners, your biceps are bigger than mine, and Idon’t think I’d beat you in any kind of physical altercation.Stop hurting Hannah. She does not deserve it.”
I stared at him. This man who I’d just met. Who was standing in my kitchen, , dressing me down. I was over a decade older than him. And this was my goddamn house.
Yet I felt properly chastised. I felt shame. Coated in it. There was no fight in me. Not when this man spoke the truth that he, apparently, saw in just a handful of seconds. He saw the truth in a fucking look.
And he quite obviously knew I’d been treating Hannah badly. Because Hannah had told him. Hannah was not someone who easily complained to a friend. I knew that about her. She didn’t ask for help; she was an interior person. I must’ve been hurting her pretty fucking badly for her to have talked to her friend about it.
