But he didn’t feel it now. Not exactly. Because even though Hannah didn’t ask about Ellie, she sort of leaned in as if to say…
As if to say that he should keep going?
So, after a moment’s hesitation, Nate went on. “The first time I asked her out—it wasn’t long after I left Ravenswood. I was sixteen, maybe seventeen, and I still thought I was hot shit. But I asked her out, and she turned me down because she didn’t do smokers.” Usually, the memory made him grin. Right now, though… well, he was already grinning. Wider than he had in a while, actually. And it felt good.
Hannah was smiling back, too. “Is that why you quit?”
“Yeah,” he laughed. “That’s why.”
“And then you asked her out again?”
“Yep.” He ran a hand through his hair, suddenly embarrassed.
She let out this little puff of air that might’ve been a highly buttoned-up laugh, and said, “Good gracious me. That’s almost romantic. I’m shocked.”
Nate could feel his cheeks burning even as he rolled his eyes. “I wouldn’t call it romantic.”
“You gave up an addiction to get the girl. They write books about men like you.” She spoke sagely as a grandmother, her eyes dancing. She didn’t seem sad anymore. Which was why he didn’t mind, this time, when she edged toward the door and said, “Well. As illuminating as this conversation has been, I should really get going.”
“Oh, right.” He unlocked the door and held it open for her, and she nodded regally as she passed—but then, just before she stepped over the threshold, she paused.
And then she reach out and touched him. Actually touched him. She put her hand on his forearm, and looked up into his eyes, and said, “I’m quite fond of your mother, you know. I’m… I’m glad that I can do something to help.”
He swallowed and nodded slowly.
She gave him a smile so impish, he almost forgot the dread lying heavy in his gut. “Also, I will be unpacking all these bloody boxes you’ve got lying around. I absolutely cannot cope with clutter.”
With that, she sailed out of the house and down the garden path. He stood in the doorway for far too long—not watching her leave, but staring down at his own arm. At the place where she’d touched him.
The earth hadn’t moved, when her skin had brushed his. The stars hadn’t aligned, and his heart hadn’t pounded its way right out of his chest.
It only felt that way.
6
Zach: Told you I was right about Hannah.
Nate: Whatever. You do realise, now that she watches the kids, she’s off-limits?
Zach: Those are your kids, man. Not mine.
A few days later, Hannah sat on her neat little bed in her neat little room and took a deep, lemon-scented breath. She may have gone overboard, after moving in, when she’d mopped the floors. And scrubbed the skirting boards. And wiped the drawers inside and out. Cleaning helped her feel settled. But the window was open, letting the night air in and the potentially dangerous chemical fumes out, so, God willing, she would not accidentally kill herself via Domestos tonight.
She might just die of satisfaction, though. Hannah smiled to herself as she cast a pleased look over her books and laptop arranged neatly on the desk, and her clothes hanging—organised by colour and season, of course—in the wardrobe. Then she opened her planner to the current week and pulled out a few fine liners from her 20-colour pack. Specifically: teal for medication and self-care, forest green for work, and raspberry for social commitments.
Hannah preferred to organise her weeks in advance—typically every Sunday—but she’d been thrown off her routine, what with recent events. Recent events being a euphemism for her rampant recklessness, as demonstrated by marshmallow-based attacks on authority figures and her alarmingly quick decision to move into the house of a man with tattooed hands.
She still wasn’t sure how she felt about those tattoos. She didn’t mind them, not at all. She just couldn’t understand what it was about the ink on Nate’s hands, especially, that made her stomach dip like a swallow swooping through blue skies. They triggered this odd fizzing in the centre of her chest that felt like something long-dormant awakening.
And now she was thinking far too hard about feelings and tattoos and Nate when she should be carefully planning the days ahead.
“Come on, bitch,” she muttered, uncapping the forest green pen. “Get it together.”
Hannah’s professional responsibilities were remarkably light. She was starting to feel bad about the amount Nate was paying her, not to mention the free food and board. She’d only really be with the kids in the evenings and on Saturdays. Plus, she’d tidy the house, organise the weekly food shop, things like that.
Frankly, she would’ve done that for free if it meant she got to check out Nate’s arse every so often.
The quiet hummed with crisp possibility as she finally filled in her planner. Since she was alone, she allowed herself the luxury of smiling at nothing like an utter loon. She couldn’t help it. This felt like the night before the first day back at school. This felt like a brand new opportunity to conquer the world. This felt like getting back to herself, like returning to the life she’d thrown away when she’d let her temper get the better of her years ago.
Starting tomorrow, Hannah Kabbah would be working in childcare again.
And she’d be damned good at it, too. By the time she was done with the Davis family, every yummy mummy who’d ever sneered at her would want to know what her secret was.
Hannah would take the most inordinate pleasure in telling them to go fuck themselves.
She woke up before her alarm, which shouldn’t have been possible.
Hannah’s anti-depressants doubled as knock-out pills. She loved her tiny lilac tablets, not only because they kept her from petrifying into a frigid grey ball, but also because they ensured she got a solid eight hours’ sleep every night.
Or nine. Or ten. Or eleven.
She had to be really careful about setting that alarm.
But when Hannah woke up to birds tweeting outside her window, it was still drowsy-dark outside. Countryside, summer morning dark, when the sun’s rising somewhere in the distance and the farmers are up and about, but the Hannahs should be safely wrapped up in bed.
Hannah was not safely wrapped up in bed. The minute her eyes slid open, she got up. Lying in bed was an activity she reserved for sleep or depressive episodes. Otherwise, physical inertia led to the kind of mental overactivity that had once caused her to reimagine the entire cast of Legally Blonde as Twilight vampires, and then play the new version of the film in her head.
She’d given it three stars, which had been generous.
So she was up. Up, annoyed, and confused as to what had woken her at—she checked her phone—four-fucking-thirty in the morning. A few minutes of intense listening answered the question well enough: someone was moving around downstairs. Quietly, so quietly that she strained to hear them.
Maybe she had special senses, like in those comics Ruth loved to read, and her mutant brain had psychically alerted her to a very respectful burglar. Or, more likely, to an errant child pouring their own cereal and making a mess of the kitchen.
Hannah threw on an enormous, wooly cardigan—to match her enormous, wooly sleep socks—and went downstairs.
Nate’s insomnia had absolutely nothing to do with Hannah Kabbah.
He knew this because he’d been suffering with insomnia on and off his whole life, and for the past few weeks, it had been quite firmly on. So his inability to sleep tonight—the way he’d lain in bed staring at the ceiling for hours before thirst and boredom and irritation beat out bone-deep exhaustion—was nothing new. Nothing to do with her.
Which, Nate supposed, begged the question: why the hell couldn’t he get her out of his head?
He was sitting in the living room, surrounded by leftover boxes, taking sips from a glass of ice-cold water because it was way too fucking stuffy in this house. Weren’t older buil
ds meant to be poorly insulated? Why did it feel dry as the bloody Sahara in here? These were the trivialities he chose to focus on, because they helped him ignore other thoughts.
Thoughts like, Hannah sleeps just down the hall from you now. And, Hannah’s sleeping in your house. Isn’t that weird? Doesn’t that feel weird? You should think about why it feels weird.
Those questions, Nate knew, were a trap. The minute he examined the deeper workings of his own brain, he’d run head-first into all the disturbing shit he kept locked up in there. Like his secret love of N-Sync and his obvious attraction to the woman he’d just hired as his nanny.
Oh. Fuck.
There was a chance that Nate could’ve put that thought back where he’d found it—maybe hidden it beneath a few rocks, some tree branches and a bit of moss, for good measure—if Hannah herself hadn’t appeared in front of him at that moment.
Huh. It had been a long time since he’d gotten tired enough to actually hallucinate.
“Are you okay?” she was asking, and a little arrow formed between her eyebrows as she frowned. That was cute. It was such a central arrow, so neat, like someone had drawn it. Apparently, even Hannah’s face obeyed her need for order. Or at least, it did in his pre-dawn hallucinations.
He stared at her, drinking in the creation of his over-worked brain. She was dressed for bed, of course. His hallucinations were nothing if not sensible. Her hair was up, and she had some kind of silky scarf on her head like a girl from the 1950s. She was all wrapped up in an enormous cardigan, which was very respectful of his brain. He was proud of himself for not imagining her naked or something. That would have been awful. Terrible. Horrible. Wonderfully evil. Mostly evil.
God, he needed a shag. That was it. That was the only reason why he felt so fucking horny all of a sudden. He wasn’t really getting hard over a fantasy version of Hannah’s bare knees, peaking out from beneath the hem of her huge cardigan. That would just be odd.
“Nate?” Dream Hannah said. “Could you speak or something? Just so I can be sure you’re not having a stroke.”
He grunted.
“Oh, lovely. Thanks.”
She was even funny in his head.
And then she, Dream Hannah, a figment of his imagination who was absolutely not real, reached out and flicked him on the forehead.
“Ow,” he yelped. Wait. “Fuck. Hannah?”
“Yes,” she said dryly. “That’s me. Hannah. I moved in today, if you recall. I’m your—”
“Sorry,” Nate said quickly. “I was tired.” Because he really couldn’t allow her to finish that sentence. If she said something like I’m your nanny/employee/brand-new and vulnerable household dependent, the urge to throw himself off a cliff would grow even stronger than it already was. Had he really just been thinking about Hannah—Hannah, of all people—like that? Seriously?
Sleep deprivation was a dangerous thing.
She cocked her head, a slight smile on her lips. “Jesus, you must be knackered. Were you just, like, asleep? With your eyes open?”
Oh, perfect. That sounded way better than I thought I was hallucinating so I took the opportunity to stare at you like a pervert. “Yep,” he said cheerfully. “I was asleep. Well, dozing, you know.”
“Why aren’t you in bed?” She sat down beside him, curling up like a cat, leaving a good metre between his right knee and her tucked-up feet. Why did that huge space feel more like a particularly tension-filled inch?
“I won’t sleep tonight,” he said. “No point lying there in the dark.”
“Ah. You thought you’d come down and sit in the dark, instead?”
He shot her a wry look. “Works sometimes. Why are you up, anyway?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. First night in a new house, I suppose.”
“Ah. And, um… why are you wearing that?” He nodded at her cardigan.
She arched a brow. Somehow, that single, tiny movement was powerful enough to make him feel like a misbehaving toddler. It was as if she’d peered into his mind, seen every filthy thought he’d accidentally had tonight, and found them all mildly amusing.
Cheeks burning, Nate clarified. “I meant, aren’t you hot? Is that wool?”
Hannah looked down at herself for a moment, as if hesitating. Then she said, “I’m fine.”
He opened his mouth to ask, well what the bloody hell have you got on under there, to be fine in this heat?
Which is when it occurred to him, like a punch to the face, that she might actually be naked.
Time for a change of subject.
She seemed to agree, because she said suddenly, “I thought you were one of the kids, to be honest. When I heard you moving around, I mean.”
“The kids sleep like it’s their job. They’ll go twelve hours straight if you let them. Have since they were born.”
She cocked her head. “That’s impressive.”
“Ellie had grand ideas about the effects of routine.”
“She sounds like a sensible woman. What are your thoughts on routine?”
“Excellent for children,” he hedged.
Of course, Hannah’s all-seeing eyes wouldn’t let him get away with that. “And for you…?”
Nate winced. “Not so much.”
“You haven’t been sleeping for a while, have you?”
Busted. His lips twisted into a rueful smile as he sank deeper into the cushions. He ran a hand through his hair and asked, “Do I look that bad?”
And she looked. She really, really looked. At him.
Sometimes it felt like Hannah saw straight through him. Her gaze would skate over Nate like he was a smudge or a typo, like she was allergic to actually seeing him, and the sensation was… strange. But it was even stranger now, to have her studying him in that way of hers—like he was something under a microscope, something she could conquer if only she could understand it. Something she would conquer, if she wanted to.
Her gaze focused on his face first, and really, she could’ve stopped there. He looked like shit, and he knew it. But apparently, the signs of exhaustion in his features weren’t enough. She moved on to the rest of him, and Nate remembered abruptly that he wasn’t wearing a shirt. Or, you know, trousers.
Would it be really fucking obvious if he crossed his legs right now? Would it make her more or less uncomfortable if he held a pillow over his underwear like a modest maiden? He wasn’t sure. But his mental gymnastics were interrupted by the realisation that Hannah appeared to have gotten… stuck. She was in no danger of ever seeing his barely-clothed groin because her gaze had snagged on something around his chest area.
Nate looked down at himself, trying to figure out what had made Hannah so very expressionless. Her face was so impassive, even for her, that he suspected she was actually screaming inside her own head. But when he examined himself, all he saw was his own supremely average chest. Oh, and…
“It’s my wedding ring,” he said, running a finger over the cord around his neck—the one that held a plain gold band, hanging just above his heart.
She blinked a few times as if she were mentally rebooting. “What? Oh. Right. Yes. The, er…”
She was being weird. The fact nudged at Nate, but it wasn’t forceful enough to break through the mental fog of his exhaustion. His sluggish mind didn’t have enough energy to analyse things further, so he didn’t bother trying.
“That’s sweet,” she said finally. “That you wear it, I mean. Are you…” She paused. “I mean, do you miss her a lot?”
“Are you asking if I stay up every night thinking about her, and that’s why I’m always tired?” he asked dryly.
She let out a little puff of air that might be a laugh. Like she was amused, but didn’t know if she should be or not. So he forced his weary face into a smile, just to let her know it was okay.
“I’ve always suffered from insomnia,” he said. “Gets worse when I’m stressed. I don’t… I mean, I miss Ellie. I wish she was here. But I’m okay. I’m not still grieving, or anyth
ing.”
Hannah nodded, but she had that look on her face—the one that seemed to encourage more. The one that said, I’m here and I’m listening, if you’re into that, but we could also go our separate ways and pretend this never happened. Whatever you want.
So he added, “She died four years ago. Car accident. It was… well, it was the worst thing that ever happened to me, but, you know. I had the kids. Josh was so little. I had to be okay. And I think I’m lucky, because for me, faking it helped make it real.”
“I see,” she murmured. “That is lucky. And kind of badass.”
The smile he’d forced turned real. Funny, really, how she managed that, when her own smiles were so hard to draw out. “I bet you’re one of those people who has strangers telling you their deepest darkest secrets.”
“I am,” she admitted. “Apparently it’s something about my face.”
“I think I’d agree with that. Sometimes you look kind of… friendly?”
The alarm in her expression was so intense, he almost laughed out loud. “Friendly?” she choked out. “I am not friendly.”
“Only sometimes,” he said again. “I think when you’re feeling sympathetic, you forget to do the thing.”
“The thing?”
“You know.” He scowled stiffly in his best Hannah impression. “The thing.”
She closed her eyes and put a hand over her face. “Please tell me I don’t look like that. And if I do look like that, lie to me. I beg of you.”
“You don’t look like that,” he said obediently. “You’re prettier. And there’s more lipstick involved.”
She was still covering her face, but he saw the corner of her mouth twitch. Which was great, actually, since it meant she wasn’t freaked out that he’d accidentally called her pretty. It also reminded him that she wasn’t wearing lipstick right now. He was so used to those bold shades, she should’ve looked naked without it.
And she did. But not in a bad way, like she was vulnerable or lacking. No, this was more the get your arse in my bed kind of naked. The kind of naked he really shouldn’t be thinking about, because what the fuck, Nate? The state of his head right now was reminding him of his little brother. And Zach’s head, he assumed, was a hellscape of misremembered porn, constant arousal, and generally inappropriate behaviour.
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