Page 24 of Just My Type (The Boston Hearts #3)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

NOAH

“ M y baby’s a doctor!” My mom throws her arms around my waist and sniffles, squeezing tight the second I walk through the door of her house.

My residency graduation was earlier today, and my mom insisted on having everyone over to my parents’ house in Newton instead of doing the more convenient thing and going to dinner somewhere downtown since the food at the graduation was, to put it lightly, fucking terrible.

If there’s an opportunity for my mom to have her entire family over, best believe that’s what’s going to happen.

I kind of love it. I’ve been feeling mostly ambivalent about finishing residency, so being with my whole family feels exactly right.

And since my whole family also includes Hannah, who came to graduation and beamed from her spot in the front row next to my mom, and who let me kiss her in an empty hallway around the corner from the ballroom where the graduation was held, I’m a happy guy.

I chuckle, hugging her back. “You’re the best, Pam Wyles.”

“I know.” Her voice is muffled against me, and she sniffles again, her tears seeping into the front of my shirt. When there is a choice between crying and not crying, my mom is crying every single time.

“Jesus, Mom, simmer down. He’s been a doctor for six years, and you already cried at the graduation.

You don’t need to cry now too.” Cooper strides in behind me, squeezing my shoulder and stepping around us into the house.

He doesn’t make it very far before my mom reaches out and slaps the back of his head without breaking our hug.

“Shut it, pal. My son finished his residency today. His six-year residency . I’ll cry if I want to.”

Cooper grins. “You wouldn’t be Pam Wyles if you didn’t shed some tears. I’m just giving you shit.”

My mom smiles, untangling herself from me and sliding an arm around Cooper’s waist. “I know, honey. Who do you think taught you that particular skill?”

Cooper wraps an arm around her shoulder and plants a kiss on her head. “I learned from the best.”

“It’s a parent’s prerogative to shed tears any damn time they want, Cooper.

One of these days you’ll be a parent, and you’ll understand.

” Cece makes her pronouncement as she sweeps into the house with a smile, rainbow caftan billowing around her legs and massive blue tote bag slung over her shoulder.

Cooper makes a face. “Let’s not rush that day.”

Cece shrugs, leaning up to kiss Cooper’s cheek and then mine. “You never do know how these things will go.”

“Can you imagine Cooper with a kid?” Jordan chuckles as he walks in with his arm around Jo, followed by Elliot and Amelia. “Horror show.”

Cece puts her hands on her hips, studying Cooper with a glint in her eye. “Yes, I can imagine it quite well, actually.”

Jo hugs my mom. “Thanks for having us, Pam.”

“Oh, honey, it’s my greatest pleasure. Especially now that my sons have started bringing me daughters.” She lets me and Cooper go and links arms with Jo and Amelia .

Elliot leans down and kisses my mom on the cheek. “It’s almost like you like the girls better than you like us.”

My mom gives him a sly smile. “Don’t be ridiculous, El. I absolutely like them better than you and they have to put up with the heathens I raised, so in my book, they’re perfect.”

“We are perfect, aren’t we,” Amelia says, grinning at Elliot.

He leans down to kiss Amelia, smiling against her lips. “No doubt about it, Mystery Girl.”

“Where’s Hannah?” Everyone turns to me when I ask the question.

She rode here from graduation with Jordan and Jo, but I haven’t seen her yet.

I’ve had one eye on the door for the last five minutes, but there’s no sign of her, and I’m starting to get antsy.

Now that I know how she feels in my arms, it’s like my tolerance for being apart from her has shrunk to nothing.

Jo shrugs casually, entirely oblivious to my need to attach my mouth to her sister’s mouth as soon as possible. “Her phone started blowing up when we got out of the car. She stayed outside to check it.”

My family starts to drift back towards the kitchen, where I can hear the sounds of my dad getting dinner ready, but I stay where I am, my gaze drifting to the front door, willing Hannah to appear.

“You should go check on her.” I turn to see Cece studying me with that look she gets when she knows something we don’t know. Which is always.

“You think? Maybe she needs some privacy or something.”

“Noah, you haven’t hesitated to get in that girl’s way since she showed up here six months ago. Why are you hesitating now?”

I blow out a breath because she’s not wrong.

“It’s…a little different now.” I say the words without thinking them through, but I realize the truth of them immediately.

Between accidentally getting married and Hannah agreeing to let me help her with her writing by spending time together, and now deciding to stay married for a while, and all the rest of it, my confidence is faltering just a little.

I’m not sure I like this feeling at all .

Cece gives me an uncharacteristically soft smile. “Because suddenly you’re close to having everything you’ve ever wanted.”

I realize the truth of those words too. “Yes. It’s important. She’s important. I’m starting to realize exactly how much. I don’t want to mess it up, Cece.”

“You mean like by accidentally getting married in Las Vegas?”

My eighty-year-old grandma smirks at me, and I just stare at her incredulously. “How did you know?”

She shakes her head, giving me a disappointed look. “Noah, honey, you’re thirty years old. You should know by now that I know everything. Besides, you have a very married aura about you. And don’t think I missed the two of you sneaking off earlier tonight at your graduation. I see everything, too.”

“Are you sure you’re not a witch?”

“Honey, I’m not sure of that at all. Go out there and get in her way, Noah, and then bring her in here to spend time with family. She needs that. She needs you. And I think you need her too.”

“I do need her. I didn’t realize how much until recently, but I do. I think…” I pause and then think, what the hell. Cece knows everything anyway. “I think maybe she’s it for me.”

Cece pats my shoulder. “No maybes about it. That girl was made for you. But she’s been through a lot, Noah. She needs patience and kindness and a whole lot of love.”

“I have it for her. I swear I do.”

“I know, sweetheart. Go get her.”

I bend and kiss my grandma’s cheek. “Thanks, Cece. And could you maybe keep the whole accidental marriage thing to yourself? Hannah is a little skittish about it. And maybe the rest too? I don’t know how she feels yet about everyone knowing that we’re…whatever we are.”

“And you?” Cece asks.

“I’d scream it from the rooftops if she’d let me, but I want to go at her pace.”

Cece pats my cheek. “Good boy. You’re definitely my favorite today. I’ll keep your secret even though the universe is telling me that keeping secrets is bad for my complexion this month.”

I snort out a laugh because my zany grandmother is exactly what I needed right now. “You’re the best.”

“Oh honey, I know. Go get your girl.”

I see Hannah the second I walk out the front door.

She’s sitting on my mom’s beloved front porch swing, legs drawn up to her chest and her chin resting on her knees, her pretty, white summer dress that makes her skin glow spread out around her.

She’s staring out at the street, and she looks a million miles away.

I approach quietly, laying a hand on her shoulder. She stiffens slightly, but when she looks up and sees me, her entire body relaxes. I take that as a sign to sit down next to her, laying one arm behind her over the back of the swing.

“You okay, Gorgeous?”

Hannah blows out a breath and scrubs a hand down her face. “I’m fine, I just needed a minute.”

With my other hand on her cheek, I turn her face so I can look at her. “It’s okay if you’re not fine. It’s also okay if you don’t want to talk about it. But if you do, I hope you know you can talk to me.”

“I think you might be the only one I can talk to,” Hannah mutters, and her words have my heart leaping out of my chest and into her hands.

“Lay it on me, Han.”

She turns on the swing so she’s facing me, and I drop my hand to hers, tangling our fingers together. “My agent called me just as I was getting out of the car.”

“You have an agent?” I ask incredulously. She really is amazing.

Hannah shrugs, like that’s not the coolest thing in the world. “ Yeah. She helped me with the audio deals for my books and a few other things. Foreign rights and stuff.”

“She did a good job. Your audios are killer.”

She huffs out a laugh. “Okay, real talk, what’s your deal with my books? You’re, like, obsessed with them.”

Now it’s my turn to shrug. “I just like what I like. Back to you now. What did your agent have to say?”

“A publishing company wants to buy the print rights to my books. All of them.”

I can feel my grin spread. “Holy shit Han, that’s amazing,” I say, but then I watch as her face falls. “Wait, that’s not amazing?”

She shakes her head. “I mean, it is, but it also isn’t. Because they want to buy all three of my series together. The first two are finished, so that’s easy. But I still have three books left in this current series. And…” she trails off, looking miserable.

“And you’re worried about being able to finish the series.”

“Got it in one,” she says dryly.

“But you’re writing. You told me this morning you wrote a whole chapter last night.

” I smile at the memory of this morning.

When I got to her apartment to leave her coffee and muffin by her door, she threw the door open and launched herself at me, kissing me breathless and telling me all about her late-night writing session right there on the landing.

“Yeah, but there’s no guarantee I can keep it up. Not for this book and definitely not for two more,” she says glumly.

I hate her defeated tone, and everything in me wants to fix this for her. I reach into my pocket, pulling out the bag of Twizzlers Nibs I have and handing it to her. She looks down at it and back at me. “Why do you have this?”

I lift our joined hands and kiss her knuckles. “Started carrying a bag with me in case you ever needed an emergency Twizzler. I know it’s not the regular ones, but I figured these would do in a pinch.”

She turns and leans into me, resting her head on my shoulder while she tears the bag open and pops a couple pieces of candy in her mouth.

I lean my head on hers, sure that I have never been as content in my life as I am sitting on this swing with Hannah, looking out over my childhood street on a soft summer evening.

“Thanks for this. I think better with Twizzlers.”

I chuckle, loving the way she feels next to me. “I know you do. I have an idea, if you want to hear it.”

She groans, but it’s playful. “Another one?”

I sit up, turning to face her. “Hear me out. How much time do you have before you have to get back to your agent?”

“I don’t know exactly, but I’ve got some time. The publishing wheels move slowly.”

I nod. “Okay. Put it away for tonight, Han. Let’s go inside and have dinner with my family. There is almost nothing in the world that can’t be cured by some Wyles family shenanigans.”

“I actually think it’s possible that this particular problem might only be able to be cured by the hijinks of one particular Wyles.” Hannah looks at me with a small smirk on her face, and I love to see it.

I grin at her. “You’re talking about me, right?”

“Yeah, and I don’t know what it means that I can only write when you’re around. I’m not sure if I like it.”

I steal a Twizzler, tossing it in my mouth. “It just means you’ll have to keep me for longer.”

“And when I go back to Pittsburgh and don’t have you around anymore?”

My gut twists when she mentions leaving, and everything in me wants to tell her not to go back. That her life is here now. With me. With us. But it’s way too soon for that, so I go for casual. “Do you have plans to go back?”

She shakes her head. “Not yet.”

“Then we don’t worry about that today. Come on, Han. Come have dinner. Be with your sister and your friends. Be with me. Let my mom and Cece fuss over you a little and let my dad feed you. Then tomorrow, we’ll deal with whatever comes next. ”

“ We huh?” Hannah asks, not looking at all like she hates that idea.

I nod. “Definitely we. We’re a we now. Hannah and Noah. The dream team.”

She laughs, and the sound is the most beautiful music. “I don’t know what it is about you, but I think you’re exactly what I need. Thanks for coming out to rescue me from my thought spiral.”

“Gorgeous, I will always be here to rescue you. I think you’re exactly what I need too.”

I stand from the swing and hold out a hand, smiling when she slides her fingers into mine. And together, we go inside for family dinner.