Page 80 of Playboy

Maybe that’s downplaying it, but it’s hard to admit some of her worst attributes. Despite that, I find myself wanting him to understand me better, and I guess a part of that includes who I am because of my mother.

“And your father?”

“Not like Daddy Hall,” I say breezily.

Daniel snaps his head to the side and glares. “Don’t.”

I giggle. “Sorry, habits die hard. And you’ve got to admit, you’ve got one hot dad.”

He groans, pushing his head back against the seat. “Hannah.”

“You should be happy about that. Good genes. You’ll probably look just like him when you grow up.”

He coughs out a laugh. “I am grown up.”

“Nah, you’re still a baby.”

He shakes his head, but he’s smiling. “So you’re close with your stepdads?”

“Yup. And unfortunately, you get to meet them all. Don’t worry, only one of them owns guns and knows how to use them.”

He grips the wheel tighter, making it creak, and hisses out aJesus.

“Honestly,” I say with a grin, “he’s the last one you should worry about. The rest own guns and don’t know how to use them. Far more dangerous.”

“Hannah.”

I shake with my silent laughter.

“You’re evil, you know that?”

“I do.”

An easy silence falls between us as the sound of Billy Joel’s voice fills the car. When we hit the sign for New Hampshire, Daniel pulls over to the side of the road and tells me to get out.

I turn to him, my back pressed to the door. “Damn, what did I do to make you mad enough to kick me out of the car?”

He steps out and rounds the hood, hand outstretched when I throw my door open. “I want to get a picture in front of the sign.”

I glance at the Welcome to New Hampshire sign. “But why?”

He shakes his head. “Do you always ask so many questions?”

“Yes. So like I said, why?”

He ducks into the car, looming over me, and unbuckles my seat belt, then tugs me by the hand. I follow him away from the whizzing cars and toward the sign, still confused.

He positions me in front of it, then backs up and pulls his phone out. “For the baby album,” he says, holding it up. “I want to show him or her where we took them for their first road trip.”

The smile I wear as he snaps the picture might be the most genuine ever to be caught on camera. It reaches my soul.

He does this again when we reach Vermont, only this time, I ask him to join me in the picture, and we take a selfie. “Our first real picture,” he says quietly as he studies it.

“Can you send it to me?”

He looks up, his brows lifted in surprise, but without a word, he forwards it through text.

“So are we crossing the border?” I ask. If we’re headed to Canada, then I’m going to have to stop at a bathroom first.

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