Page 43 of Just My Type
I drop my hand back to her leg, tapping three times—the same rhythm I tap on my ceiling back in Boston when I know she’s alone in her apartment. I don’t know why I started doing it—just a little reminder to her that she’s not alone, I guess. A reminder that I see her. That I’m here for her. And when she started tapping back twice, I kept doing it, and it became our little thing.
We’ve never spoken about it, so I don’t know how I know she understands the significance of my tapping on her leg, but I do. Because she de-escalates immediately. She takes a deep breath, and her shoulders relax. She closes her eyes for a second, and when she opens them, the anxiety is gone.
And when she reaches down and taps a finger twice on my hand in response, my heart stutters in my chest. I realize here and now, in this crowded Vegas restaurant at a table full of our family and friends, that I would burn down the world for Hannah. But right now, what she really needs is for everyone to change the subject.
I glance over at my brothers, and in the wordless kind of communication we’ve always had, they get me immediately.
“So, what’s the plan today?” Cooper asks, looking at Jordan, who has planned this entire weekend down to the minute because this is what Jo wanted, and when Jo wants something, Jordan delivers.
Jordan starts to rattle off the itinerary, and Jo’s excitement is contagious, so within minutes, no one is focusing on Hannah. Except for me.
“Thank you,” she says quietly, pressing her shoulder lightly to mine. “Too many eyes on me makes me twitchy.”
“Anything for you, Gorgeous. Literally anything.”
“Why?” she asks, like she can’t figure out why I would do anything in the world for her. Like no one else ever has, and god, her ex can really fuck right off. Even thinking about him makes me stabby.
There are a lot of things I could say in response to Hannah’s question, but almost none of them are appropriate for wherewe’re currently sitting, so I table all of those for later and go with something else instead.
“Because you’re my wife.”
When Hannah literally growls, I just grin at her, swinging an arm across the back of her chair, loving life when she doesn’t do one single thing to move away from me.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
HANNAH
“Goddamit,” I mutter, banging my hands on the keyboard.
Sitting cross-legged in the middle of the rooftop terrace, my laptop on my knees and a Twizzler dangling from my mouth, I level a glare at my computer screen. At the ten disjointed sentences I’ve managed to cobble together. Scanning the words, I just barely resist the urge to stick my tongue out at the computer like a petulant toddler having a tantrum. These are very, very bad words, and Brett’s voice is very, very loud.
Ridiculous hobby.
Won’t ever amount to anything.
Write something people will actually read.
I grit my teeth and try not to scream.
“That is not a happy face.”
I spin around at the sound of Noah’s voice, the Twizzler hanging from my mouth unceremoniously slapping my cheek. Shoving the rest of it in my mouth, I take him in while I chew. He’s leaning against the door to the roof dressed in athletic shorts, a T-shirt, and those damn flip-flops. His brown hair is messy, as usual, and he has a lazy grin on his face, his blue eyessparkling in the low light of dusk. His legs are crossed at the ankles, his whole vibe giving lazy summer casual, and it’s really working for him.
Despite my general hatred of life in this current moment, it’s working for me, too.
It’s been a week since we got back from Vegas. A week where I’ve mostly tried to avoid all things Noah Wyles. The rest of our trip was, to put it lightly, weird as fuck. Noah stuck to me like glue, called me his wife whenever he thought he could get away with it, and was generally his goofy, funny, cheerful self. I was…the opposite of that. I spent two days vacillating between wanting to kill him and wanting to kiss him. Wanting to never speak to him ever again and wanting to throw myself at him and never let go.
Weirdly, the one upside to Vegas is that between waking up accidentally married to Noah and my flight home with Jo, Jordan, Elliot, and Amelia, I managed to write almost an entire chapter I didn’t hate. One I almost, just a little bit, even liked.
I also spent that time keeping the secret of our accidental marriage from everyone we know. And even though keeping things from people I love is my default, for some reason, keeping this secret dialed my stress hives up to an eleven.
So, the second we got back from Vegas, I hid myself away in my apartment and talked to no one. I ignored texts from my sisters and Amelia and the book club chat and pretended Noah Wyles didn’t exist. Except for the morning iced latte and muffin deliveries he dropped at my door on his way to work. And the three knocks on his ceiling that I always answered with two knocks of my own because it would be rude not to.
That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.
I tried, and failed, to write any more words, and steadfastly ignored Brett’s incessant texting too. At my lowest moments, I scrolled back through his messages and reread every single awful thing he’s said to me in the last couple of months. I relived the terrifying moment that finally broke us, and Isurvived on Twizzlers, Sprite, and peanut butter straight from the jar.
I did not thrive this week.
