Page 62 of Cross Check Hearts

Hannah laughs. “He definitely didn’t take it that way. But yeah, that’s the gist of it. I’m just glad he was there when it happened. I don’t even want to think about what might have happened if he wasn’t. But he was always like that, always looking out for me.”

My heart aches listening to the potent mix of love and pain in Hannah’s voice as she remembers her brother. Obviously, I never met him, but he must have been an amazing guy if he had such an impact on her. I don’t have any siblings, so I can’t even imagine how hard it must be to lose one, especially at such a young age. But it just goes to show how strong she is, and how strong her whole family is. Sure, they still have their difficult times with it like Hannah’s told me, and they probably always will, but it seems to me like they’re handling it much better than most people.

I kiss the top of her head. “Thank you for sharing that with me. Your brother sounds like he was a really special person.”

Hannah nods. “Yeah, he really was.” She falls silent again, and I don’t know where she went in her mind, but I don’t want to rush her. If and when she’s ready to share more about her brother and what she’s been through, I’ll be here to listen, but it has to be on her time and terms. I’m expecting her to let the conversation pass, but instead she frees herself from my grip and spins in the tub to face me, pulling her knees up to her chest.

“But that’s why I don’t get it,” she mumbles with her chin resting on one of her knees, not looking at me. I reach out to stroke her cheek with my thumb.

“Don’t get what?”

She slowly glances over at me and holds my gaze for a few moments like she’s trying to find the words, or like maybe she’s afraid to say them. The corners of her eyes start to well with tears. “Why he had to die but I didn’t. We were twins, and we shared so much of the same DNA. So why did he get cancer when I didn’t?”

Instinctively, I wrap my arms around her again and pull her head to my chest and cradle her there. I give her several kisses.

“I’m so sorry. Sometimes things happen in life that we don’t have the answers for,” I tell her, thinking of what my mom is going through and if I’ll be able to cope if I ever lose her. It’s not at all the same thing as losing a sibling, but I can still relate. “Survivor’s guilt is a real thing. It’s hard to deal with.”

Hannah falls silent again, letting me rock her against my body. A few beats pass before she looks up at me again and smiles. “Thank you for listening to me.”

“Always,” I tell her and lean in to kiss her.

Our lips have just touched when something crashes into the water, splashing and scaring the hell out of us both. I twist a bit in the tub to find a cat sitting on one of the edges and a small bottle of face wash bobbing in the water.

“Did you do this?” I ask the cat as I lift the bottle out of the water and carefully put it back on the lip of the tub. But as soon as I do, the cat swipes out with its paw and knocks it right back into the water. Laughing, I try again, but the cat isn’t giving up, as if we’re playing some sort of back-and-forth game.

“Ralph, quit it,” Hannah says through a laugh and flicks water off her fingertips to scare the cat away, but it doesn’t move. It just glares at her, unamused. Hannah laughs again and looks at me in disbelief. “I think she’s testing you.”

“Oh really? How am I doing on that test so far?”

She smirks. “You’re basically becoming Ralph’s bitch.”

I bark out a laugh and splash water at her. “Well, I guess that’s fitting because Ralph’s mama has me wrapped around her finger.”

Hannah’s gaze softens as she stares into my eyes, and she cups my jaw in both of her hands to pull me in for another kiss. I wrap my arms around her, feeling every inch of my body react to her closeness and the feelings that are raging inside me.

And when Ralph bats the face wash into the water again, I barely notice.

Chapter28

Hannah

I stretch languidly in my bed, blinking my eyes open as morning light floods the room. It takes me a few seconds to piece together where I am as consciousness slowly blooms in my brain, but when my head rolls on the pillow, I remember I’m at home. Declan and I fell asleep side by side, curled up together in an exhausted, sated haze, but I’m alone in bed now.

A soft laugh escapes me, because I can’t remember the last time I slept this deeply. I didn’t wake up once throughout the night, not even when Declan got up. Maybe that’s not a surprise after the full-body workout that he gave me last night, but as I start to stretch, extending my arms above my head, I wince as the delicious soreness pulses between my legs.

It’s the sweetest kind of ache. My muscles are tender, my body still humming from the leftover endorphins, and my limbs feel a bit like jelly. This is the perfect kind of lazy morning wake-up that I wish I could have every day.

But when I roll in the opposite direction and see the clock on my bedside table, my heart leaps into my throat and I sit bolt upright.

“Shit!” I hiss, scrambling for my phone like it’s going to show me a different time or something.

It doesn’t, so I toss my phone back on the nightstand and scramble out of bed to throw on some clothes, whatever I can find fastest.

I don’t have time to really care how put together I look, but I do at least stop in the bathroom to pull my disheveled hair into a ponytail and check myself in the mirror. Normally, I’d spend way more time in here making sure I look the part of a lawyer-to-be, but the jeans and ponytail look are just going to have to do.

But where’s Declan? Did he leave already?

The thought flashes through my mind as I splash my face with cold water to try to wash away the sleepiness from my eyes and pat them dry with the towel hanging by the shower. Back in the bedroom, I notice Declan’s clothes are gone too, so maybe he did head out before I woke up.

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