Page 112 of Whenever You Call

LOGAN

Hannah didn’t speak during the car ride back to her place—her thoughts her own as she stared ahead, gripping the wheel tightly. Luckily, Bella hadn’t stopped talking from her car seat in the back, as though she hadn’t just dropped a bomb on the entire classroom about Hannah and me.

A bomb we hadn’t known she had in her arsenal.

The moments after Bella’s announcement were deathly quiet, the questioning glares of every single child and parent in that room on us.

Thankfully, the class teacher had clapped her hands to break the awkwardness, encouraging the children to go to their desks to tidy their things before they could head home with us. A few of the parents cleared their throats and turned away, leaving me to shove my hands into the pockets of my uniform pants and brush my shoulder next to Hannah’s, neither of us daring to look at each other, only at Bella as she loaded her backpack.

“Did that really just happen?” Hannah whispered.

“Yeah… I think so.”

“God, Logan,” she hissed, turning her back on her daughter as she pretended to look at some of the children’s artwork plastered on the wall behind me. “What the hell are we going to do?”

I smiled at a parent who walked by, offering a nod of acknowledgement, no doubt wondering who the hell I was and where I’d come from. “We roll our eyes, put on a smile, pretend it’s just kids’ talk, and then we get out of here.”

Blowing out a breath, Hannah nodded, then turned back around just in time to see Bella walking toward us both with her backpack over both shoulders, her hands clutching the straps on either side.

“You guys ready?” she asked.

That had been the last time Hannah had spoken, and now, as we pulled into the driveway of their home and climbed out of the car, letting Bella run off ahead in a hurry to get inside and tell Livia about her day, I caught Hannah’s wrist, tugging her back to me when she tried to walk off.

“Talk to me. You haven’t said a word, and it’s freaking me out.”

“That’s theonlything freaking you out? Not the fact that a classroom full of strangers now think we’re a couple. Or that we haven’t been as discreet around Bella as we thought. I’ve been wracking my brain, trying to figure out when she could have seen us. We’ve been so careful, Logan. The only time she could have noticed would have to have been while we were sleeping somehow. But even then, we always went to bed long after she did, and we woke way before her, too, so…?” She trailed off, looking everywhere but at me. “I can’t do this. We can’t—”

“Woah.Hey…” I tilted my head. “Don’t go there.”

“But—”

“Look at me.”

She did, full of worry. “She’s already had so much change in her life, and now I’ve brought us into it.”

“And you think she hates that?”

“How could she not? She’ll think I’m trying to replace Cole. She’ll think…”

“...that you’re an amazing, strong woman, who has finally started smiling again, and she will want that for you more than anything. Don’t you see? We’re the ones freaking out, not Bella. She told her friends about us, and she did it with a smile on her face. She’s been full of life these last few weeks. She wants for nothing, and you give her everything, and even though I never want her to think I’m trying to replace anybody, she has me now, too. Another friend in her life.” I leaned closer. “That’s a good thing.”

Her chest rose and fell too quickly as she struggled to control her breathing. Her eyes had misted over, but I was so fucking sick and tired of seeing her tears that I refused to allow to let them fall. Not while she was mine. I wouldn’t be the guy to allow pain into her life without trying to burn it to the ground before it could touch her.

“What if someone leaks it to the media?” she asked.

“Then, we’ll deal with it. Together.”

“And you think you’re ready for that? To have your name splashed across the Internet? To have people you don’t know insult you or have opinions about you that will turn your stomach sick?”

“Yep. I’m ready.”

“I’m not sure you are. You said so yourself: you like a quiet life. This will change everything.”

“Everything’s already changed because now I have you, and I wouldn’t go back to my old life for anything. Whatever they say about me, let them… so long as I get to be with you.”

“I’m starting to think you’re crazy.”

“Blame the woman who’s turned my world upside down recently.”

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