What was he going to say? “Hey, want to color? Want to come over later and watch Sesame Street while I try to study chemistry, do laundry, and make sure my seventeen-year-old brother isn’t out getting arrested and the twins have a ride home from football practice?” He shook his head and started walking. Nick Walker, the antiparty.
Two days later, he caught sight of that dark hair up ahead. Unmistakable, it hung long and straight down her back, not in a ponytail or messy bun. She wasn’t dressed like the typical college coed, either, somewhere between pajamas and gym clothes. In khakis and a short-sleeved blouse, she looked more like a teacher’s assistant than a student, though he wouldn’t have put her a day over eighteen. She stopped to fill her water bottle at a fountain, allowing him to catch up.
“Hey.”
She turned those dark eyes on him in surprise. “Hey.” Then she smiled easily at his sister. “Hi, there. What’s your name?”
He waited a beat then answered. “Her name’s Hannah.”
“Hi, Hannah.”
His sister stared silently, interested in this new person. So was he.
“She’s precious.”
“Thank you.” He knew she assumed Hannah was his daughter, but since she didn’t outright ask, it felt wrong to say it. Like denying Jesus three times or something.
She started walking and he fell in step beside her. When they reached the double glass doors, he held one open and followed her out into the sunshine. They took a few more steps then paused awkwardly like people do when they’re not sure where the other person is going but knowing wherever it is, they want to go there too. “We’re headed outside.”
“We’re actually already there,” she said, then eased his idiocy with a quick smile bright enough to scramble his brain.
“Outside,” Hannah repeated.
“I’m Mia.”
“Nick.” He held out his hand, happy to take her small fingers in his even if shaking hands wasn’t the typical college meet and greet.
Hannah shocked him by leaning away, arms out. “Mia.”
“Oh, you are sweet,” Mia said, taking her, situating Hannah on her hip.
With his hands free, he stuffed them in his pockets and watched the two of them study each other. Hannah lifted a few strands of Mia’s hair, let it slide over the back of her hand, then did it again.
“I usually sit out here between classes on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and have lunch. We do. Sit here. If you want to sit with us.”
“Sure,” Mia said easily, as if they did this every day, while he could barely string a sentence together and his heart hammered in his chest.
This was ridiculous. Yeah, he’d been on social hiatus for a while, but he’d had no idea he could lose all skill.
They walked to the Knoll, a grassy hill that ran the length of a wide, brick-paved walkway. The sun was hot and bright in early September, and he pulled his shades up from the lanyard that hung around his neck. Two girls and a guy tossed a Frisbee. Small tables with club sign-ups attracted groups of milling students.
They reached the hill, and he made the three-foot step up to the brick wall. Turning, he offered her a hand up and wrapped his other around her slender upper arm. And there was that smile again.
He sat, and she lowered herself to the ground, sitting cross-legged beside him.
“I like your dress,” she told Hannah.
“It’s wewo.”
“Yes, it is. And I love yellow. It’s bright and happy like the sun, huh?” Mia settled Hannah in her lap and began untying her tennis shoes.
Hannah nodded, and he could only stare as she deftly switched the shoes to the right feet. “Damn. I can’t get that right.”
“It can be hard to tell,” she said, not looking at him.
“Yeah.” He stared at her dainty female fingers tying the little strings. All Hannah’s things were so damn small. He’d never felt so uncoordinated. “I do okay with the buckle shoes. I mean, I finally got it that the buckles go on the outside, but the lace-up ones…”
“Do you have a pen? I only have pencils.”
“Yeah.” He pulled a blue ink pen from his backpack.
Mia took it then wrote a large R on the bottom of one shoe and an L on the bottom of the other. “There you go.” She handed the pen back.
“Thanks. Don’t know why I didn’t think of that.”
She looked at him then, her eyes soft and kind. “I guess you have a lot of other things to think about.”
Her gaze held his with so much understanding of all the things he had to think about even if she didn’t know what they were. “Yeah. I do.” Hannah. School. His brothers. The twins, who needed him. Luke, who hated him.
Uncertain what to do with his hands, he dug into his backpack for Hannah’s lunch. “I have juice boxes.”
“Really?” Her tone was teasing, but she didn’t look up, still straightening the lacy fold of Hannah’s sock.
Idiot. He’d gone from “My fraternity’s having a party” to “Do you want a juice box?” But then Mia turned that brilliant, understanding smile on him, and just like a lightning rod in a storm, he was struck.
“I love juice boxes.” She took one, poked in the straw, and handed it to Hannah, who drank like she’d been lost in the Sahara. “I think it’s awesome that you bring your daughter to class, though I’m surprised the university allows that.”
“I hadn’t planned to bring her. She didn’t give me much choice, did you, Han?”
“I bite.”
“Oh. Well,” Mia said, fighting a smile.
“And I skeamed.”
“It’s kind of a new thing. She’s…my sister,” he added after a moment because, though he couldn’t say why, he cared what Mia thought. He hadn’t gotten a girl pregnant. He wasn’t a father who couldn’t tell the difference between left and right shoes. “My parents…our parents…” He looked at his backpack, zipped up one pocket, unzipped another, because his grief was still fresh. It was still hard to say. “They were killed this past summer. Car accident.”
“I’m sorry.”
He nodded, acknowledging her words, but he couldn’t make himself say it was okay. It was so not okay. It helped that she didn’t seem to be waiting for it. “We’re still working out the kinks. Hannah’s not big on staying with strangers. She’s not really big on me leaving her at all.”
“I can’t blame her,” Mia stated, not flirting, just being honest.
“No, neither can I. It was a shock, to all of us, but it’s hard for her to understand.” And every night when she asked for Mama, it broke his heart. He rocked and sang every song he could think of, but still she asked. Not crying. Just a question. Where Mama?
“Snack,” Hannah said.
He dug in his backpack, and Hannah sat patiently, waiting for whatever he put in front of her. She was such a good kid—a really, really good little kid—which made him feel worse for being so tragically inadequate.
Mia turned to face him, Hannah still in her lap. “You’re doing a good job.”
His hands stilled. “How do you know?” And how did she know he needed to hear that?
“I just do.” Her dark, intelligent eyes stared into his with unwavering certainty.
He wanted it to be true so badly. His eyes stayed locked with hers for a long moment, just breathing, letting her words sink in, letting himself sink farther into this girl who made his heart beat faster.
“Nicky, snack.” Hannah broke the spell.
“So what do you have in there?” Mia asked.
“Let’s see. I have Vanilla Wafers with peanut butter.”
“Always makes a hearty meal.”
“Two cheese sticks, a cut-up apple, and… a slightly mushed Snickers.”
“A feast.”
He held out the candy bar, but she shook her head. “I’m not taking your Snickers.”
“Sure you are.”
“No, I’m not. If I want something, I can go to the dining hall.”
He wasn’
t going to sit here and eat in front of her, and he really didn’t want her to leave. “We can share it.”
“Sare it, Nicky,” Hannah parroted as she often did, using the name she’d had for him since she started talking.
Nick opened the candy bar and held it out again, eyebrows raised, until Mia took it and broke off a piece.
“Nicky?” Mia’s eyebrows shot up, and her quick grin brought a sharp tug to his gut. Something of his old nineteen-year-old self simmered. It felt good.
And so he sat, with a juice box and half a Snickers, next to the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen.
Chapter 3
“YOU HAVE AN ACCENT,” Nick said the next time he sat with Mia on the Knoll. It was slight, and he couldn’t quite place it.
“Do I?”
“I think so.” He pulled a spiral notebook with kittens on the front from his backpack and opened it to a blank page for Hannah.
“I’m from Boston. Lived there all my life.”
“Hmm… I don’t know. That’s not it.”
“Really?” Mia grinned and leaned over next to Hannah, who sat between them. She held out the crayons for her choosing so they didn’t get lost in the grass. “You don’t think I’m from Boston?”
Nick smiled and shrugged, watching her watch Hannah.
“My parents are Bosnian,” she said after a moment.
“Really? So you speak Bosnian?”
“I do, and don’t—”
“Say something.”
“—ask me to say something.”
“Come on. Why not?”
Ignoring him, she pulled a book from her backpack, but he could see she was smiling.
“Mia from Boston, who speaks Bosnian,” he said, looking straight ahead at campus. “Or at least she says she does.”
She tossed a crayon at him, then followed his gaze. It really was a beautiful campus. Red-brick buildings set on gently rolling hills. She sighed. “My parents weren’t too happy with me coming to school here. Still aren’t.”
“Why not?”
“Too far away. Plus, I had some other scholarship offers.”
“Like what? Yale? Harvard?” He was half joking.
“Yes.” She looked at him as if daring him to crack a joke or say no way.
He did neither. “Wow. Pre-med at Harvard?”
She nodded slowly. “I promised I’d come closer to home for med school.”
“Is that what you want?”
“To be closer or to be a doctor?”
“Either. Both.”
“My parents are… old-fashioned, set in their ways. But I love them. I owe them a lot. I’m their only child.”
That didn’t answer his question. “So being a doctor is more what they want?”
“No. Not at all.” She looked at him then. “I mean, they do want it, but I want it, too. I’m going to be a surgeon. That’s been my dream as long as I can remember. I like the idea of putting people back together, you know? The challenge of it. Every case is different.”
“But you still came here.”
“Yes.” She nodded. “I’ve always done what was expected. I don’t know, I guess I wanted to step outside the box for once. Do something crazy.”
He studied her, brows raised. “Going to college at UVA is crazy?”
She grinned. “It’s about as crazy as I get. Disappointed?”
“No. Absolutely not.” Intrigued, fascinated… never disappointed.
“What about you? What’s your crazy? You seem pretty straight and narrow to me.”
“I guess. First born and all that. I’ve stayed on the line.”
Mia brushed her fingers through Hannah’s hair, and his sister’s sleepy eyes drifted shut. “And what have you wanted to be for as long as you can remember?”
He hesitated, it seemed so far fetched.
“Come on. I told you.”
“I’ve always wanted to join the FBI.”
She didn’t react, just waited, serious and interested.
“My dad’s brother was FBI. He was killed when he was pretty young, not on duty, snow-skiing accident. My dad always got a kick out of me wanting to follow Uncle Bo. They were tight.” Nick glanced at Hannah. “I don’t know.” He shrugged. “It was an idea. I’m not sure anymore.”
“Your dad wouldn’t want you to give it up.”
“You’re right. He wouldn’t.”
“So you’ll find a way, and you’ll do it.”
His eyes met hers. “You think so?”
“Yes.”
“Just like that?”
“Yes. Just like that.”
And again, when Mia said it, he could almost believe it.
She lay down on her side, chin in her palm. “I think my parents are mostly afraid I’ll come down here, meet a Southern boy, and get distracted.”
“And… are you getting distracted?”
She smiled. “No.”
“Well, that’s an ego killer.”
“I like you,” she said seriously, “but I won’t let anything distract me.”
“That’s good. I like a girl with a plan.”
She looked him right in the eye, happy, content, and so damn confident. “We both have a plan.”
* * *
THE THREE OF THEM fell into a lunch routine over the next several weeks. He expected it, counted on it—seeing Mia and talking to her. It was the best he’d felt since the funeral. The squeezing around his heart loosened when he was with her. He grew more decisive on Hannah’s play clothes versus pajamas, and her little shoes were on the right feet more often than not.
The grassy hill they sat on was strewn with fall leaves. Hannah lay on a thin blanket he’d added to his already-stuffed backpack. Curled up, she drifted into her postlunch nap.
Mia sat beside him, chin down, her eyes and attention on a stack of notecards she was flipping through. Such a good student. Such a beautiful student, he thought, with a clenching in his stomach. He was falling for her. This dark-eyed, quietly confident girl who had blindsided him with one smile.
He’d known girls who remained comfortably in the friend zone. And then there were others. Something hotter than friendship had been on his mind. But he and Mia were friends, definitely friends, which, combined with his other, more… nonfriend thoughts, confused the hell out of him.
Mia tapped her pen lightly against her chin, her pretty lips pursed like she did when she was thinking hard. It made him crazy. Even worse, she was oblivious to what she did to him or what he felt when he looked at her.
She was different, and he tried to figure it out. Mia’s kind of beauty wasn’t flashy. She didn’t throw sultry glances, inviting a guy to play a game of chase. She wasn’t short term or casual. Mia was serious but had a wicked quick sense of humor. She was also thoughtful, sweet, and smart and definitely long term, which should scare the hell out of him.
When she wasn’t studying, they talked about books and movies and parents and songs. Siblings, the fact he had so many and she had none.
They quizzed each other before tests, though with her perfect ACT and nearly perfect SAT, that last-minute push was more for his benefit. She was strong, determined, brilliant, and much, much too good for him. A Boston girl who spoke Bosnian, fluent Russian thanks to her mother’s parents, and near-fluent Mandarin thanks to her private-school education and her own achievement.
Hannah thought she hung the moon. So did he.
He wanted to ask her out, but he didn’t go out. Didn’t go to parties. Didn’t live in the fraternity house as he’d planned. His friends had finally gotten the message and stopped asking him to come by for band parties and drinking games. He didn’t exactly miss it. Mostly, he was too busy to miss it. But it felt weird, as if he’d undergone a massive change overnight, and he didn’t quite know the new person yet.
Mia made it better. The crushing weight of loss and new responsibility lifted when he was with her. Maybe the twins could watch Hannah, he thought, but leaving her with them while he
went out…No. That didn’t feel right. Plus, he was too afraid to give child protective services even one reason to swoop in and take Hannah, or even his brothers, pain in his ass that they were.
“You should be studying,” Mia said without looking up.
Strands of her citrusy-smelling hair blew over her shoulders and across her face, making it impossible for him to concentrate on anything but her.
He extended his arm behind her, his hand on the grass. “I’m studying you.”
She tried to hide her smile as she continued through a stack of notecards with chemistry symbols.
“Say something in Bosnian.”
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t beg.”
It was an old game they had: him trying to get her to speak to him in Bosnian and her telling him it was unattractive to beg.
“You’re distracting me.”
“Am I? Sorry.” But he didn’t move, instead leaning closer until his breath brushed her ear. She hadn’t turned a notecard in several seconds. He kissed her bare shoulder and felt her shudder. They’d kept it friendly up until this point. Not much else to do, sitting in public with a two-year-old between them. He hadn’t been sure what he could do but knew what he wanted. Had known and battled it for weeks.
Mia glanced up, catching him with her liquid brown eyes, and he couldn’t stop himself. Without warning, he pressed his lips to hers. He wouldn’t have to steal a kiss with anyone other than Mia, but that’s who she was. Heat flooded his entire body even though nothing touched but their mouths.
Hers were warm, soft, and full under his. He brought his hand up to lightly cup her cheek, teased her mouth open, getting his first taste of Mia. He was finally, finally kissing her.
For a second he was afraid she would push him away, ask what the hell he was doing. But she didn’t. Gentle and slightly shy, her hands stayed in her lap, but she tilted her head, allowed him to deepen the kiss.
Students milled past, and a burst of laughter jolted them both from the moment. He’d never thought about a kiss so much in his life, and it had ended way too soon. Not wanting to break the connection, he kept his hand on her cheek, his eyes locked with hers.
Worth the Wait (McKinney/Walker #1) Page 2