Hannah put a hand on his knee.
He laughed humorlessly. “She said she’d come back, but she never did.”
“How old were you?”
“Twenty-ish. Shawn was five. And I found myself his sole provider and guardian. It was…an intense time.”
“That was around the time I met you,” she murmured.
He licked his bottom lip and nodded.
A lot of things had started to unlock and click into place for him over the past couple of weeks. Talking about when his mom left and his subsequent meeting of Ashton James, who was also on a similar self-destructive path, caused discomfort to twist his stomach.
“So she’s still back there?”
“I have no idea. I haven’t spoken to her in two years. She went back to my father, who’s running the whole operation now and…” His words failed and he swallowed the anger and helplessness that wanted to come out shouting.
“Shawn was born a citizen. I couldn’t apply until I was twenty-one to become a citizen and that made everything crazy.
“It was hard to keep custody of him. The State tried to step in so many times. First, with the citizenship stuff, then with having to prove I could provide for him. I had to work ridiculous jobs and hours to make sure we had enough money for things that we never would have had in Honduras. For example, did you know that if a child doesn’t have a proper dresser and their own bed, CPS calls that neglect and it’s enough to remove the child from a home?”
“I see now why him getting caught with weed would be so scary.”
“It was a chance I wasn’t willing to take. And Carmen helped me as much as she could. But she was raising three kids and putting herself through school.”
He tried to exhale the tension that had built in his chest as he’d talked. “It was just me and Shawn. Fighting for our lives.”
“Johnny,” she said with a soft frown. “You’re so good.”
He snorted.
“No, really. You’re the kind of man who they design superheroes around.”
“I’m nowhere near perfect.”
She chortled. “Of course not. You have terrible taste in women, for one.”
He rolled his eyes.
“Just saying.” Hannah shrugged. “And you also hold a mean grudge.”
His smile was immediate.
“But I’ve never met anyone in my life who tries so hard to do the right thing so consistently. It’s actually really annoying, if I’m being honest.”
Johnny stared at her, wondering where in the world his choices were leading him.
Every time he was alone with Hannah, he only wanted more.
She seemed to reach a part of him that he thought no one else knew existed. But she saw it, zeroed in on it, and held it in her grasp.
He dropped his eyes to her mouth and wondered what she would do if he tried to kiss her.
Would she push him away?
Or would she kiss him back?
She tilted her head to the side, listening to music coming from the other room. He heard it too, and he almost pretended like he didn’t. Mostly because he was enjoying their private conversation. But the way her eyes lit up when she recognized the song that was playing made him happy to move into this new moment with her.
“Is that the Cupid Shuffle?” she asked, gripping his forearm.
He nodded. “We really like hip-hop around here. It’s sort of a tradition.”
She stood and grabbed him by the hand. “Piper!” she called.
But Piper was already headed in the direction of the music.
Johnny followed them into the large room that was normally the dining room, but it doubled as a dance floor in the winter since it was the largest room in the house with wood floors. Carmen’s husband, Dr. Ignacio, had moved the table and chairs to one of the bedrooms, and his cousins were already doing the dance.
Hannah and Piper joined a line and found the beat.
Johnny rubbed his arms with both hands, trying to get rid of the uninvited goose bumps.
Her first time in his auntie’s home and she was dancing with the cousins. And doing a damn fine job at it.
And she was laughing with a freedom he hadn’t seen yet.
Shawn bolted through the door and got in-line between Piper and Hannah.
And Johnny thought he might have just caught a glimpse of a future he never dreamed possible.
Chapter Sixteen
Trip to Your Heart
HANNAH
“What are you doing?”
Hannah glanced over her shoulder.
It was TJ.
“The Cupid Shuffle,” she replied, not missing a beat. Sure, the song was only in her head, but that didn’t mean she had to stop. “And making coffee.”
Her cup finished filling and she bopped over to the counter to add half-and-half.
“You seem different,” TJ said, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
She felt different. But that wasn’t any of TJ’s business. She peeked around the corner into the rest of the break room to see if Courtney was around. She wasn’t.
“TJ,” she addressed, leveling him with a serious look. He sucked in a nervous breath. “I overheard Courtney saying she wanted to try Wylde Pub, but she didn’t want to go alone.”
TJ’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.
“Oh.”
Hannah shrugged and shuffled out of the break room.
She hadn’t woken up that morning expecting to take an interest in her coworkers, but what the hell, right?
Three things happened all at once.
The spaghetti sauce boiled over on the stove, she answered her phone, and Piper whipped into the kitchen with wild eyes.
“I have to go to the library right now!” Piper panicked.
“Shit!” Hannah said, forgetting to use a glove to grab the handle of the saucepan, thereby burning herself. “What?” she asked, not sure she heard Piper correctly.
“The library,” Piper repeated much too loudly.
Hannah almost touched the pan handle again before remembering and grabbing the hot mitt. She turned the burner off while moving the pan to the back burner. “We’re about to have dinner—”
“No, you don’t understand. I completely forgot about this report I have to do tonight and I have to go the library to get what I need.”
“Can’t you just use the internet? Isn’t that why the internet was invented?” She felt kind of like an asshole for having to point that out.
“No! My English teacher said we had to use an actual library and I have to use the Dewey Decimal to prove my sources. I have to know the page number and paragraph, Hannah!”
Okay.
Hannah stared at the overdramatic almost-teen and tried not to point out how hysterical she sounded.
Because match meet gasoline.
“Do you know what time the library closes?” Hannah asked, proud of herself for not losing her absolute shit.
“It closes at ten.”
Both of them looked down at the phone on the counter.
Right.
Because Johnny had called and she’d hit the button right when everything had boiled over—the sauce, Piper’s sanity, Hannah’s routine.
“Well, the one closest to you closes at ten,” Johnny amended.
“I’ll get my stuff!” Piper dashed down the hall.
Hannah groaned out loud. “How does her lack of preparation translate to an emergency for me?”
Johnny chuckled. “What was for dinner?”
Was was right.
“Spaghetti.”
“Mmm, I bet you make good spaghetti.”
“I do,” she agreed. “Thank you for saying that.”
It would probably save just fine. She stuck a lid on the saucepan, and instead of putting it into her fridge (which would just create another mess), she carried it out onto the snow-covered balcony.
“I hadn’t made the noodles yet, so all is not lost. I guess we’ll just have
it later.”
Her stomach growled in protest. But it was fine. Everything was fine.
“You happened to know the library’s hours pretty quick there,” she said, going back to the kitchen to wash her hands.
“Shawn had Mrs. Pritchett in seventh grade too. We’ve done this dance.”
“Oh fabulous. So it’s not just me who gets informed last minute about these things.”
“Nope.” Johnny chuckled.
Piper opened the door of the condo while tugging on her coat. “We have to go now.”
Oh, the sass.
Hannah took a deep breath, because again, she was not going to lose her shit. It wasn’t worth it and it wasn’t warranted.
“I’m being summoned,” she said, picking up her phone.
“I’ll talk to you later.”
He hung up and she slid the phone into the back pocket of her jeans.
JOHNNY
“Mrs. Pritchett’s impossible task?” Shawn asked from his seat on the couch. He was slightly reclined, guitar across his lap, as he casually practiced a new riff he’d made up.
Johnny was constantly impressed by the music his little brother created. And he never stopped. Every spare minute, he sat down with an instrument and worked on it.
He was better than Johnny.
He was better than most artists Johnny had worked with.
And he was still so young.
“Sounds like it.”
Shawn snorted and rolled his eyes. “That old bat is never satisfied. That assignment is a joke. She has hidden expectations that no one can hit. It’s seventh grade, not a doctorate program.”
“You say that like you know anything about doctorate programs.”
Shawn rolled his eyes and made a fart noise with his mouth, making Johnny’s point.
“Too bad you can’t tell Piper about that ahead of time. She sounds pretty stressed about it.”
Shawn strummed the guitar in thought. He put his hand over the strings and sat up straight.
“Why can’t I?”
“What’s that now?”
Shawn stood and put the guitar in the stand. “We’re not doing anything. We should go to the library. I’ll help Piper with the impossible paper.” His grin turned devious. “Show Mrs. Pritchett something new.”
Johnny started to protest out of habit. Shawn had a lot of half-cocked ideas. Most of them should never see the light of day. But this one?
“Have a late supper?” Johnny asked, already planning ahead.
Shawn nodded eagerly. “Let’s do it.”
It wasn’t until he spotted her at a table on the top floor, her hair a tangled mess, eyes crossed as she stared at the pages of a reference book, that he thought he may be pushing this too hard.
He had literally followed her to the library. That was as close to stalking as he had ever gotten, and it made him a little queasy. The one thing she had made clear to him repeatedly was her need for anonymity.
Shawn had no such hesitations.
He pushed past Johnny and slid into a chair across from Piper and Hannah.
Hannah smiled at Shawn and immediately searched behind him, finding Johnny. Her smile changed to something new and small and soft, and Johnny felt it hit him right in the chest.
“Shawn thought he could be of help,” Johnny explained when he reached the table.
“We can use all the help we can get,” Hannah replied, sounding relieved.
She stood up and he took a moment to look her over.
“Work clothes?” he asked.
She glanced down at her wide leg, high-waisted dress pants, cream colored V-neck blouse, high-heeled boots, and shrugged.
“I didn’t have time to change before the crisis hit. I got my bra off at least. So there’s that.”
“Oh my God, Hannah,” Piper hissed in horror.
Johnny dropped his gaze to her chest, as if to verify what she’d just casually mentioned, but he looked away swiftly, hoping no one noticed.
“What?” Hannah asked Piper. “It’s a bra. A lot of women wear them. It’s hardly a scandal.”
Piper dropped her head into her hands. “Please go away. Please. Just stop speaking to me in public.”
Hannah rolled her eyes and shook her head. But she left the table and wandered closer to Johnny.
“Hannah Lee James, causing trauma among the innocent since she was conceived.”
Johnny cracked a smile and arched an eyebrow. “But it’s almost like you enjoy it.”
She waggled her eyebrows and he barked a laugh.
Shawn and Piper shushed him.
Hannah gestured for him to follow her and he was more than happy to oblige.
They wandered into the stacks, walking slow and speaking soft.
“Should I be embarrassed about what I said?” she asked, genuinely curious.
“About not wearing a bra?” he guessed. “I guess that depends; did you lie?”
She snorted and faced him, catching him glancing over her top half less than stealthily. He decided not to lie about it.
“I can’t tell,” he admitted.
She giggled, her happiness a warm welcome from the winter outside.
“You shouldn’t be able to. They were constructed to stand on their own, so to speak.”
His ears got hot. This conversation was going to test him, he could tell.
But what about Hannah wasn’t a test?
“So why wear a bra at all?” he asked.
“I wear one for society’s comfort, not my own.” She sighed and slid a book out of the shelf, opening it.
He glanced at the title, Honduras in Pictures.
“It’s such a beautiful country,” she remarked, paging through photos of jungle, beach, mountains, acres and acres of green.
“It is,” he agreed, feeling unsteady.
She tucked the book back into its place on the shelf and searched through the ones nearby.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Learning.”
It was such a casual response for what he saw as a very complicated question.
“Learning about what?” he decided to be more direct.
She frowned at him, like the question was confusing. “Learning about you and where you came from.”
Finding another, larger book, she slid it out. “I mean, not you, you. But your people and culture. I didn’t know anything before.”
“And now?” he asked, his throat tight.
“I want to know more.” She opened the book and carefully paged through it, hesitated. “And I want to know more about you.” She looked up at him, unguarded curiosity in her brilliant blue eyes.
HANNAH
This was strange territory for her.
Being this honest while simultaneously feeling safe to do so.
All other times she was ready to be misunderstood or disregarded.
But these moments with Johnny had started to happen more frequently.
And she found herself diving into them without thinking.
“What do you want to know about me?” he asked, his deep voice rough and quiet.
“Tell me something no one else knows,” she said, feeling both bold and afraid.
He licked his lips and she found herself distracted by the motion.
“My name, Enamorado, was my mother’s maiden name. It means ‘in love.’” He rubbed his chin with a hand, making his lower lip move around.
She couldn’t take her eyes off it.
It wasn’t the first time she had noticed Johnny’s perfect mouth.
But it was the first time she’d noticed it while he spoke to her in hushed tones in the darkened stacks of a library.
Pulling herself back to reality, she hefted the book between them. She turned a few pages, not really seeing the images.
“I’ve been reading e-books for so long, I forgot what it felt like to hold a hardcover in my hand.” She ran her fingers over the spine, feeling the texture, grounding herself.
&nb
sp; “What kind of books do you read?” Johnny asked, standing just a little closer than he normally would. His nearness sent shivers down her spine.
“Anything I can get my hands on. Romance, mystery, fantasy.” She tilted her head to the side. “All the books on how to not screw up a kid and the ones on how to be a better human.”
She closed the book, giving up on being able to focus, and slid it back into its place on the shelf.
She turned to face him, her back to the stacks, and found him even closer than she expected. His eyes scanned her face, something new in them she couldn’t identify. But it made her heart thump.
Just the once.
Like a stone falling to the bottom of an empty well.
Did that sound melodramatic?
“Hi,” she said, not caring that it sounded stupid.
“Hi,” he whispered, taking a small step closer to her.
She responded by taking a step back and losing her balance.
Not in a dramatic fashion, just a little slip, a teetering on the edge of being solid and falling. Her hands went back to catch her and gripped the shelf.
Simultaneously, Johnny caught her around the waist, stabilizing her.
She smiled hugely because of the silliness, and his eyes dropped to her mouth.
“I like your smile,” he said.
“I like yours too.”
He smiled in response.
He moved one of his hands slowly from her waist to cup her jaw, a slow, tender slide of fingers on skin.
The sensations it created were completely foreign.
And exciting.
She licked her lips and tried to inhale, but breathing had become too complicated.
His mouth drifted over hers, the barest of touches. He applied gentle pressure to her neck, tilting her head. She closed her eyes and surrendered to his request for her offering.
Every nerve ending in her body was aware of every small touch. His fingertips on her waist, the light stroke of his thumb along her jaw.
He slowly, almost lazily, kissed the corner of her mouth. His lips repeated the motion on the center of her upper lip, then again on her lower lip. Her mouth tried to follow his retreat, but he held her just out of reach. Then he came in again for the tenderest of salvos. Warm, lingering touches on her mouth, melting her reserves, stirring emotions in her head and heart that she didn’t understand.
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