Page 22 of Hung Up on the Hacker

“Will do. And I’ll be seeing you around, Rebel.”

Her steps stuttered at the unmistakable promise in his voice.

“I figure it’s high time I looked at moving home.”

Rebecca made her escape without another word.

Cash wondered if there was any popcorn in the back, because this was the most entertainment he’d had in a while. Clearly there was some kind of history between Jonah’s mom and his former CO. History that predated Jonah, if they’d gone to high school together.

All the warmth had left Jonah’s expression. “With all due respect, sir, how is it in all these years you never saw fit to mention you were from my hometown, and you knew my mother?”

Grey’s posture shifted. It was a subtle move, but one that unquestionably indicated he was back in the role of CO again. “It was need-to-know information, and you didn’t need to know. Glad you’re doing well, Ferguson. I’m sure I’ll see you again.”

He strode out without another word.

Immediately, the other patrons that had gone silent during the exchange pulled out phones and began to text. Whatever that was would be all over town by the end of business today.

“What the actual hell?” Jonah muttered.

Cash had suspicions, but before he could decide whether to share any of them, his phone vibrated with a text.

Hadley: Meet me back at the inn?

He fired off a quick reply that he was en route and packed up his stuff. Whatever was going on with Jonah’s shit could wait. Hadley was his priority.

Hadley paced the confines of their turret room at The Misfit Inn, feeling like a caged animal. She’d gone over and over the whole thing in her head, trying to find the right words, the right way to admit this to Cash that wouldn’t destroy who they were to each other. She’d gotten involved with him in the first place because she’d believed they could cross that line into more, then go back to being the friends they’d always been. The idea of losing him had never entered her mind.

But it had taken root now and brought to light the thing she’d been in denial about for months.

She was in love with Cash.

Maybe a part of her always had been. But what she’d found with him was so much more than her naïve teenaged self had imagined. He accepted her for who she was, utterly and completely. As someone who’d so often been told she was too much, being someone’s just right was an incredibly precious gift. But that just right didn’t include an unplanned baby, and Hadley was absolutely terrified this would change how he looked at her. That it would change who they were to each other.

Oh, if she chose to go through with this, he’d stand by her. She knew that. He’d give all the support she and a child needed because he knew what it was to be without. But what if this baby meant she stopped mattering? That was how a lot of people saw it. That the moment another life was made, the mother ceased to exist as a person. She was an incubator, and her dreams, her everything, were supposed to be put on the back burner for the sake of the child, because that was what a “good” woman did.

If Cash believed that, it was going to absolutely break her heart.

Overwhelmed, she dropped into the chair at the little writing desk, pulling her feet onto the seat and wrapping her arms around her knees, as if the position would protect her from what was to come. She’d done this so often as a child, in her room, in closets, wherever she and Holt had hidden to get away from the fights between their mother and her latest disappointment of a boyfriend, or the emotional tantrums she threw when they left and she fell into a bottle. But her brother wasn’t here to protect her now. He didn’t have an arm around her and wasn’t singing an endless parade of Disney tunes and Broadway musicals to distract her. She had to face this alone.

Alone was fucking terrifying.

It wasn’t that Cash would rage. That wasn’t his way. But this would change them, and she’d only just realized she desperately wanted to keep the them they’d become.

At the sound of the knob, Hadley tightened her hold on her legs and sent up a silent prayer that she didn’t somehow make this worse than it already was.

Cash stepped into the room, his gaze moving unerringly to her. His brows drew together in instant concern, and she could see him shifting into action mode, already striding toward her.

“What’s wrong?”

Hadley held up a hand to stay him. She wanted his comfort almost more than her next breath, but she didn’t think she could get through this if he touched her. And a part of her wasn’t sure she deserved that comfort.

He stopped two steps away, that groove between his brows deepening. “Hadley?”

“It was mine.” She blurted it out. And damn it, that wasn’t how she’d meant to begin. But the fear was multiplying like ants in her chest, and she had to let it out somehow.

“What was yours?”

“The pregnancy test.”

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