Anything but Broken

by Joelle Knox

  It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve slipped my hand into a guy’s boxers—except that’s not what I do now. I can’t be satisfied with some quick, awkward handjob, not this time. I hook my fingers under the waistband of the fabric instead and scoot back until I’m perched on his knees and can see everything.

  Sean should look ridiculous like this, sprawled with his pants open, his boxers hiding nothing. But he’s confident and dangerous, watching me give in to temptation because who could resist him like this?

  No one with a pulse. Not me. My heart pounding, I ease the fabric away from his erection and tell myself not to stare at him like the virgin I am. But I can’t help it. The internet doesn’t really prepare you for the reality of wrapping your fingers around a hot guy’s dick and hearing him groan.

  More than a little drunk on my own power, I slide my hand up, watching his face as I reach the head and run my thumb tentatively across the crown.

  His brow furrows—not in a frown, but in an expression of pure, agonized pleasure. “Harder.”

  I comply, but not before hitting him with the wickedest smile I can manage. “Just my hand?”

  “Anything you want to put on me, Hannah. Anywhere.”

  The possibilities are dizzying, and my body is pulsing now, too. It isn’t conscious thought that draws me back to him so that he’s grinding against the thin cotton of my pajama shorts. I think it must be instinct, gravity. Insanity. “Is this okay?”

  His laugh melts into a rough groan, and he jerks me closer. “Okay? It’s fucking perfect.”

  It’s something, all right. The water slowed this down, robbing it of all its sharp, harsh edges. But when Sean grips my hips and rolls up against me, the only thing separating us is a thin layer of damp fabric that adds a delicious friction to our movements.

  We’re fucking. Not technically, maybe, but my body doesn’t care. Something inside me knows this rhythm. I grip the back of the couch and seek his mouth blindly with my own as we rock together.

  His hands are all over me—on my breasts, my back, tangling in my hair—and he hisses a curse against my lips. “Shit, I can feel how wet you are.”

  I whimper, past embarrassment. “I think I’m going to come again.”

  He licks the corner of my mouth and tenses beneath me. “God, I fucking hope so.”

  “I can feel you, too.” I tilt my head back and close my eyes, focusing on the way he’s hot and hard and pressing against me. I’m in control this time, so it’s easy to find that angle that sets off the fireworks behind my eyelids.

  Three more quick, rough circles with my hips and I’m gone, writhing in his grip as relief pounds through me, bringing release with it.

  Sean’s breath catches, but he doesn’t stop moving. The fingers in my hair tighten, and his voice surrounds me, low and gravelly. “Look at me.”

  I’m still shaking, still coming, but my gaze swings obediently to his. And then he’s shaking, too, thrusting against me harder than ever as he gives in for the first time and comes with me.

  It’s messy and rough and I don’t care. I don’t care that I can feel him, sticky against my belly, or that he’s gripping my hip so hard I might have bruises to match the ones I left on his neck. His other hand is tangled in my disheveled hair, forcing me to hold his gaze as we both pant for breath.

  This is the scary part. I wonder if he can see through me right now, past my good-girl armor and the bad-girl persona I’ve been flirting with, straight to my fractured, lonely heart. It’s malnourished and twisted and half the time I don’t know if it’s there at all, because what kind of girl falls in love while her family’s dying around her?

  A broken one, maybe.

  Sean smooths my hair back from my damp temples as he kisses me again, soft and shockingly careful. “Good morning.”

  My lips curve in spite of myself, and I bury my face against his neck as my trembling slowly subsides. “That was worth getting out of bed for.”

  “Better than donuts?”

  Better than anything. But he’s lightening the mood, and the last thing I want to be is some clingy basket case. So I lift my head and give in to the urge to tease him, which is easier than it should be. Sean makes smiling seem normal. “Well, let’s not go getting crazy…”

  “I see how it is.” His smile fades a little. “How long do we have?”

  He might mean this afternoon, or he might mean until I go back to Atlanta. I haven’t told him yet that I’m pretty sure I don’t want to. I don’t want to see panic shadow his eyes when he realizes his temporary, inadvisable fling is about to become an inescapable fixture in our too-small town.

  How long do we have? Until reality catches up with us, one way or another. So the answer is the same either way. “Not long enough.”

  13

  »» sean ««

  My mother knows how to time her battles—being married to my dad and raising four kids taught her that much, I guess. I expect her to launch into an inquisition as soon as I’m up on the stepladder on the sun porch, trapped beneath the weight of the dislodged ceiling fan.

  But she’s silent as I check the wiring, even heads back into the kitchen for a few minutes before returning with a glass of lemonade. “The casserole’s almost ready.”

  My stomach rumbles as I fit the base of the ceiling fan back into place. “Everything looks good. Did the bulbs that blew all come from the same box?”

  “They did.”

  “Could be a bad batch.”

  “I’ll pick up some more tomorrow.” She hesitates, then smiles, and I know she’s about to fire the first shot. “You’ve been spending a lot of time with Hannah Casey.”

  I’m ready for it, and I still feel like a kid who broke a window with a carelessly thrown baseball. “You told me I could bring her to Sadie’s.”

  “And I meant it. I want you to be careful, that’s all.”

  Jesus Christ. First Gibb, now her. At least she’s my mother, so it makes sense for her to be worried. “It’s fine, Mom. Hannah is not—”

  “Cait,” she finishes, then adds pointedly, “I know that. That’s not remotely the issue.”

  She doesn’t elaborate, and I tell myself not to ask. Actually steel myself against it, but the words come anyway as I finish setting the last screw into place and begin to tighten them. “So what is the issue? As far as you’re concerned, I mean.”

  The look she flashes me is sheer disbelief with a touch of amusement. “Sometimes you’re just like your father,” she proclaims as she settles onto one of the wicker chairs in the corner. “He did that, too. Wanted people to tell him what he already knew so it wouldn’t look like indecision.”

  Right now, Hannah’s the only thing I don’t doubt. I’m a little harder on myself. “She’s having a tough time. Tough times make people do things they wouldn’t normally do.” Things like let college slide. Things like hide out at a friend’s house.

  Things like me.

  I finish securing the fan, hop off the ladder, and retrieve my lemonade from my mom’s outstretched hand. She doesn’t say anything—at least not out loud—but I recognize that look. Go on, it says. There’s more.

  I buy a few seconds by gulping down the lemonade and setting the glass carefully on the stepladder. “Once Hannah gets her stuff figured out, she’s probably gonna move on. I can deal with that.”

  “Can you?” my mother asks quietly.

  I think about Hannah—her hair wrapped around my fingers, or the way her nose wrinkles when she’s not quite sure she wants to laugh at something. About how she’s still open, even though her shitty life could have shut her down, made her bitter.

  I set the Phillips head screwdriver beside the glass and shove my hands into my pockets. “I can deal with it,” I repeat with a shrug. “I won’t have a choice.”

  Gibb saves me from further interrogation by stepping through the porch door. “I patched the garbage disposal back together, but it’ll need to be replaced soon.”

  “I thought as m
uch.” Mom beams up at Gibb. “Thank you for taking a look at it.”

  Gibb waves a hand and sinks into the chair next to her. “I’ll come back over this weekend and fix it, if you want. I can get the parts cheap.”

  “Only if you let me pay you for your time.”

  “Only if you’re paying me in pecan pie.”

  She raises one skeptical eyebrow. “And maybe some meatloaf?”

  Gibb gives her that grin, the one that was charming mothers and teachers into stuffing food in his backpack by the time he was ten. “Or some of your oatmeal-raisin cookies?”

  “Deal,” she says, like they’ve just concluded a business merger. But instead of shaking his hand, she ruffles his hair.

  He puts up with it. Hell, I think he enjoys it. Gibb’s parents have never been attentive, even when they’re both around. His dad’s shit is the stuff of legend—or cautionary tale—and he won’t talk about his mother, not even with me. Asking’s the quickest way to shut him down.

  The oven’s shrill beep carries easily through the open back door, and my mother glances back and forth between me and Gibb. “Y’all are both staying for dinner, right?”

  “Sounds good,” I answer. Better than a drive-thru or a microwave dinner in front of the TV.

  But Gibb shakes his head as he rises. “I wish I could, but I’ve got a thing tonight.”

  That piques her interest. “A date?”

  “Maybe. Though if there’s pie, maybe I should come back later…”

  “Only if you bring your date.”

  “Busted.” He leans down to kiss my mother’s cheek before slapping me on the shoulder. “Let me know if you want me to open up the shop for you tomorrow.”

  His implication is clear—that I might be too busy in Hannah’s bed to do it myself—and my ears get hot. Mom pretends not to hear him as she shuffles off into the house. As soon as the door closes behind her, I punch him in the arm.

  “What?” he retorts, rubbing the spot. “If you’re ashamed to let your mama find out what you’re getting up to, that’s not my fault.”

  “All right. Let’s go have a talk with her about you and Molly Johnson at the lake.” A horrible thought seizes me. “Oh shit, you’re not dating her, are you?”

  “Who, your mom?”

  “Very funny, asshole.”

  “Relax, man. I’m not dating anyone.” He hauls out his phone, checks the screen, and shakes his head. “I have an appointment, but I’ll be around later if you need me.”

  An appointment. Wherever he’s been sneaking off to lately—and it’s been happening more and more often—he’s never called it that before. “Is everything all right?”

  “Yeah.” He shrugs. “I’ve been talking to some people, seeing what I can do about the land the trailer’s on. It would be nice to own it outright, you know? I could start building.”

  “What about your dad?”

  “His girlfriends always kick him out eventually. Next time he comes around, I want to be ready.”

  “It’s a good idea.” I don’t know who the hell he could be meeting at half past six in the evening, but that’s Gibb. Whatever he’s got going on, he makes it work.

  “Here’s to hoping.” He starts down the porch steps, only to pause on the last one. “I wasn’t kidding, you know. Text me if you want me to open up tomorrow.”

  It’s as close to approval as I’m going to get from him, and I’ll take it. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

  He disappears around the corner of the house, and I pick up my glass. I expect the questions, the prodding, the warnings. Maybe they should be giving me more of them, because even after the hard truths I had to admit to my mother, I’m not going to stop.

  This thing with Hannah may not last forever, but it’ll be damn good while it does.

  »» hannah ««

  It hasn’t taken Evie and me long to fall into an easy routine, and tonight’s no different. We share pizza in front of the TV before she heads out to her workshop and I stretch out on the living room floor.

  The blocks of my quilt are coming together with a speed that reflects my unsettled emotions. I’m not good at sitting by myself without something to distract me from the endless buzz of my circling thoughts. That’s why I started quilting—focusing on the tiny pieces and how their colors fit together occupies my hands and mind, especially with the background hum of the Discovery Channel to fill any spare gaps.

  Only I don’t even make it to the first commercial break before someone knocks on the door. Evie won’t be able to hear it from her shop, so I pause the TV and head for the door, half-expecting to find Sawyer, waiting to see Evie.

  Instead, Marcia’s standing there.

  “Hannah,” she says pleasantly, but there’s a tightness around her eyes and mouth. A tension.

  Guilt surges through me, bursting free from every dark corner, and there’s so damn much of it, I don’t know how I take a breath. “Mrs. Prescott. Come in.”

  “Thank you.” She clutches her handbag under her arm as she steps into the living room, her gaze drawn to the scraps of fabric strewn over the coffee table and floor.

  I want to defend myself, but there’s no point. There’s no world where Marcia Prescott wouldn’t turn up her elegant nose at my kitschy, unsophisticated hobby. Not even a perfect world, and that’s definitely not where we are.

  So I lead her to the kitchen instead, and shuffle the pizza box out of the way. “Can I get you something to drink? Sweet tea?” Manners won’t save me from this, but maybe they can delay the inevitable.

  “No, I can’t stay.” She hesitates, then sighs and grips the strap of her purse. “Betsy’s doctors say it’s time, Hannah. If we wait much longer, organ donation won’t be a possibility, and that—that’s—” Her voice fails her.

  My mother’s brain is already gone, and I’m making quilts and kissing Sean Whitlow while the rest of her dies a little bit at a time. If some monstrous part of me was hungry for revenge, surely this qualifies. But there’s no satisfaction in it, just the sick knot in my gut that comes from knowing that I’m fucking up.

  I know that feeling. It’s been my best friend forever.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, and my voice comes out numb and flat, because that’s how I learned to hide my pain. I guess I sound bored or insincere, because she shifts her weight from one foot to the other and looks up at the ceiling, like she barely stopped herself from rolling her eyes.

  “I know you’re young,” Marcia says slowly, “and there are a thousand other things you’d rather be doing. I also know that you and your mother haven’t always gotten along. But there is a time for self-indulgence, Hannah Elizabeth, and this is not it.”

  I flinch. In that moment, she sounds so much like my mother that I want to fold in on myself. Instead, whatever invisible force has been holding back my pain and resentment shatters. “She didn’t want me to make this decision. She didn’t trust me with it, or anything else.”

  “That’s too bad, because here we are.”

  “Why didn’t you decide? You’re the one who knew her.” My voice threatens to crack, and I swallow it down, along with a lifetime of tears. “You’re the one she liked.”

  “Because I’m not family,” Marcia answers softly. “My name’s on a piece of paper down at the courthouse, but you’re her blood. You’re what she fought for, every day.”

  She could have slapped me and stunned me less. My mother fought for a lot of things—for the lie that my father was normal, for her reputation and the family’s image. But when it came to me, her biggest fight was always to get rid of me. “Is that why she left me in South Carolina? Because I was her blood?”

  “She was trying to protect you.”

  “From what?”

  “From her life!” Marcia bursts out. “From everything she tried to stop and couldn’t. Growing up in that house had already made your sister—” Her teeth snap together as she closes her mouth abruptly.

  I’m so angry and defensive that my hand
s are shaking. I cross my arms protectively across my body to hide it and glare at Marcia. “Made her what? Not crazy. My mother told Cait there was nothing wrong with her, over and over again. Every time Cait begged for help.”

  But Marcia only shakes her head. “I’m not saying Betsy was right. I’m saying she tried, and the least you can do now is try, too.”

  She’s right about that. It’s the least I can do, the very least, so I choke back all the immature rebellion clawing at my heart and nod. “If you say this is what she’d want.”

  “It is.”

  Marcia would know better than I would, but I’ve waited too long for there to be any comfort in that. My mother’s not the only person I’m punishing, and I’ll be living with this guilt and regret for a long time. “I’ll talk to the doctors tomorrow.”

  “Good.” She stares at me for several moments, then closes her eyes. “I’m sorry, Hannah.”

  I can’t tolerate pity on top of everything else, so I look away. “Someone needed to tell me it was time. I should have known.”

  For a second, it looks like she wants to argue with me. But she only nods—shortly, quickly, like it hurts. “Tomorrow morning?”

  I’ll agree to anything that will make her leave. “I’ll meet you at the hospital.”

  She leaves without bothering with things like pleasantries, and she sure as hell doesn’t hug me. The screen door slams behind her with a bang, and I fight another flinch.

  Slamming doors, a Casey family tradition. Hell, it was my parents’ primary mode of communication some weeks. By the time I was twelve, I’d learned the nuance of them, the way they sounded when the slam was the point—the statement—or when it was incidental. I knew how to recognize the hollow thud that meant my mother had thrown her weight against the door in her rush to shut my father out, and the way his office door crashed when he was too drunk to be careful closing it.

  Maybe she was scared of him. Maybe she banished me to South Carolina to keep me from finding out what happened on the other side of those slammed doors, or to make sure I wouldn’t end up in the car when my father finally crashed one. Maybe Marcia’s right, and every time my mother pushed me aside or left me behind, she was trying to protect me.