Hanlon uses his hands to cup both sides of my face. “Hey, I thought about this a lot last night. We’re not doing anything wrong, Stone. We’re notactuallyrelated.”
“Somehow that statement makes me feel worse, not better.” Whether I like it or not, Hanlon’s been mine since he came into my life sixteen years ago.
“I just mean, if our parents got divorced tomorrow, would you still feel as weird about this?”
Interesting thought.
“I guess not. But we grew up together. I changed your sheets when you wet the bed, for crying out loud.”
He narrows his eyes at me and stops moving. Instinctively, my hands fly to his hips, silently begging him to keep rocking.
“That wasone time. And you’re the asshole who let me drink an entire gallon of apple cider right before bed.”
I can’t help but laugh.
“I’d forgotten about that. You have to admit, this is still weird, though.”
“I’m going withunconventionaloverweird.Is it weird when best friends become lovers?” he asks.
“No, but we were never best friends. Hell, most of the time we were enemies,” I remind him.
“You’ve never been my enemy, Stone. I know you resentedme for the differences in how our parents treated us. I know I was an unfair burden placed on your life. And I understand why you left, but it only hurt so fucking much because you were always the one person I could count on to protect me without smothering me. You could have ignored me, defied our parents, and left me alone. You could have been an utter asshole to me when I was forced into your presence. But instead, you taught me, encouraged me, challenged me, and made me believe I could do anything anyone else could, despite having a body that doesn’t cooperate all the time.” He grinds his ass down on me and smirks. “And just so you know, it’s perfectly capable of all the really important stuff.”
I’m unsure if I want to laugh or cry, but as I look up at Hanlon, the one question I’m dying to know the real answer to spills from my mouth.
“Of all the jobs in the world, why an avalanche forecaster, Han?”
“I thought it’d be obvious after that declaration,” he says without breaking eye contact.
“Spell it out for me,” I beg, needing to hear him say it.
“Okay, but I need to straighten my legs out for a minute,” he says, stalling.
He slides off my lap, but I catch his waist and pull him back down on the bed.
“You can straighten your legs out while lying right here,” I point out, needing him close for this confession.
He curls two fingers into the thin chain at my neck, rubbing back and forth, his knuckles trailing along my collarbone.
“Hanlon, why avalanches?” I ask again.
“Because I wanted the chance to protectyoufor once,” he says simply, not bothering to explain exactly how he planned on doing that.
But the admission does something to me anyway.
I fuckingabandonedhim, totally cutting us offfrom each other, and he still chose to pursue a career adjacent to mine to help keep me safe?
I bite the inside of my cheek to stop the tears from welling in my eyes.
Propping myself up on an elbow, I turn his face toward mine and bring my lips to his, hoping this kiss tells him everything I can’t articulate verbally. He kisses me back freely, making it clear he’s made up his mind about this.
Of course, he has. Hanlon doesn’t allow others to make his choices for him.
Before the moment is gone, I have a confession I need to purge if we’re actually going to do this insane thing. I pull back, breaking the kiss, missing the connection instantly.
“I used to mock you for loving science and weather patterns so much, until I moved out here and could literally watch storms roll across the land, bringing all their power with them. The most incredible thing, though, was the sky. I wanted to count every star, and sometimes, when I looked through the telescope, I’d imagine you were looking at the same one. I’m sorry I left, Hanlon. I hope you know it had to do with my insecurities and wasn’t your fault.”
He blinks at me a couple of times and rubs his thumb across my slick bottom lip.
