Against all my better judgment, I grab the hem of her shirt and tug her close. “Let me help.”
Her throat bobs as I click the strap in place. My eyes lift to hers and, for a moment, there’s a flash of…something. An electric current—foreign and exhilarating all at once.
Idrop her gaze only to see a wave of goosebumps break out around her belly button. “You cold?”
“A little.”
Her long sleeves aren’t enough to ward off the night chill once the bike gets moving. I take my jacket off and pass it over.
Once my jacket is on her, she hauls the backpack on. Her silence is so heavy I clear my throat to fill the void.
She moves to climb on behind me but stops herself. “Rowan, I—” Her eyes pinch shut. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Say about what?”
“You just spent a crap ton of money on me in there.”
I fight a smile. She already thanked me at the checkout. “Well, how about I let you off the hook and tell you to let it go.”
“I promise I’ll pay you back.”
“So you’ve said. AndIkeep telling you not to worry about it.”
“Rowan.”
“Hannah.”
Her tongue slides over her teeth behind tight lips, smothering a smile so big my heart grows two sizes in my chest.
“Hannah,” I repeat, quieter this time. “Get on the bike.”
She rolls her eyes but obliges.
The engine rumbles beneath us. Her arms snake around my waist and I turn over my shoulder. “Don’t worry about the money.”
“I’m ruining your entire night.”
My hand finds hers on my stomach. “No, you’re not.”
Her thumb curls under my touch, the pad of her finger running so slightly over my skin maybe she doesn’t mean to do it. But I don’t retreat. My thumb grazes her knuckles and she shifts in her seat. Settling. Relaxing. Leaning into me.
“Let me buy you a drink.”
10
i remember everything
Rowan - now
I wringmy hands on the steering wheel of Pops’ truck.
My eyes drift to the bag full of door knobs, sandpaper, and spackle sitting on the bench next to me, a painful reminder of how much there is to do here and back home in North Carolina. A million plates balancing precariously in the air. And they’re all mine.
Two houses full of stuff, dozens of acres of coveted lake front property, a couple of six-figure life insurance death benefits, a camper from last century, a beat-down pick-up truck, and a vintage Ducati—my inheritance. I’ve always known it would all be mine when Pops and Nana passed. But no amount of properly ordered paperwork or competent estate attorneys prepared me for howrealit would feel when it finally happened.
For half a second, I think about what it’d be like to wash my hands of it all. Return to the Army and let this—the attics and garages full of stuff, the broken faucets and squeaky hinges—be somebody else’s problem. If I’m not here, maybe it isn’t really happening.
Except it is.