A soft chuckle escapes. “You sound like Pops.”
He smiles a little. “Every choice you make is in service to others and it’s one of the best qualities about you. But where do you think you get that from?”
I slide my tongue over my teeth and drop his gaze, the attention splitting me clean open.
“You think you’re special out here carrying some martyr’s cross when the OG is right there.” Dubs points at the house where the woman who raised Bri and me, nearly single-handedly, currently resides. “You get it from her.”
I force down the pressure building behind my eyes. “It’s my job to take care of them.” Mom. Bri. And now, Hannah. The burden I feel to ensure their well-being, their safety—it consumes me.
“Damn straight it is, it’s in your blood. But you don’t have to give up what you want to take care of others. It’s not what they’d want for you and it’s certainly not what you deserve.”
What if all I want is her?
Bri’s words on the dock yesterday flash in my mind.You can have this.But when?
Hannah steps outside, unaware of my truck shielded by her SUV in the driveway.
She’s so damn beautiful it hurts.
As though he can read my mind, Dubs says, “Promise me you’ll think about it.”
I give him a quick nod, settle my attention back on Hannah as she steps in front of my bumper, finally catching sight of us. Her lips are flat, but her hazels are smiling. I hide my grin behind my hand.
She stands there, hip popped, holding up her new house key in one hand and a roll of duct tape in the other.
“Every time, Rowan,” she says, voice barely audible through the windshield. “Every time I use my emergency key, I have to come outhere with a roll of tape. What if it’s snowing or there’s a zombie apocalypse, hmm?”
I meet her deadpan stare through the glass and mimic playing a tiny violin on my shoulder.
She shakes her head through a roll of her lips, giving it all she’s got to not let that smile show. Then she turns for the planter and crouches down to secure the key where I told her to.
Dubs clicks his tongue and grumbles something under his breath in Spanish before sighing and adding, “Love in plainfuckingsight. Don’t be an idiot, Shaw.”
48
my heart already knows
Hannah
Every yearwhen the gala rolls around, thoughts of Maddy take over. She’s never not on my mind, but the fundraiser always sharpens the memories of her.
How different would my life be if we’d gone off to college together like we’d always planned? Would either or both of us be married by now? Would we have babies together the way our moms did?
I called her my best friend, but she was more like a sister.
“What’s happening in that head of yours?” Mom’s question shakes me out of my thoughts.
My feet slosh in the water and I turn to look at her in the next pedicure chair over. “Sorry, just distracted I guess.”
“Nervous about tonight?”
I bob my head, but it hardly suffices for the anxious energy pulsing through me. Nerves on gala day are nothing new, but this year hits different—a sledgehammer of memories straight to the sternum.
“Is your speech ready?”
Another nod.
Aversionof my speech is ready, though I’m trying not to obsess over the fact I might need to rewrite it once I hear back from Mr. Whitley.He promised to have an answer for me by this morning, and the suspense is doing a number on my blood pressure.