Page 25 of Just My Type (The Boston Hearts #3)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

HANNAH

“ O kay Hans, avoidance time is over. What the fuck is going on between you and Noah?” Jo takes a roasting stick from the pile by the fire pit and plops down next to me in one of the Adirondack chairs around the Wyles’ backyard firepit.

Grabbing the bag of marshmallows from my lap, she loads up her stick and shoves it straight into the flames.

“Jesus, Jo Jo, you’re going to light the whole thing on fire.”

She shrugs, popping a marshmallow in her mouth. “You know I have no patience for slow roasting. I need instant gratification. And I also know you’re using my inability to wait for a s’more as a delay tactic. Spill it, Hans.”

“Are we spilling about Noah?” Amelia bounces over and loads up her own stick, holding it over the fire like the slow roasting champion she is. “I’ve been dying to ask, but I thought maybe it wasn’t my place. But if Jo is asking, I am too.”

Jo yanks her burning marshmallows out of the fire and blows them out, assembling her s’more in a haphazard kind of chaos that has my hands twitching to fix it for her, and grinning at me like she knows it’s driving me crazy.

“Oh, I’m definitely asking, and I plan to be a super annoying little sister about it.

Tell me everything, Hans. I’ve been waiting so patiently. ”

“But have you really?” I ask wryly. “I don’t think you and patience exist in the same universe.”

“Is it gossip o’clock? I’ve been waiting all night for this.

” Pam comes over before Jo can answer me and drops a kiss on my head, then on Jo’s and Amelia’s before taking the chair across from me, glass of wine in hand.

I get warm all over from her easy affection.

The way she always makes me feel like a part of her family, even though I’m not really.

Not like Jo is. I’m not even here permanently.

“The boys are all over there drooling and making man noises over the riding lawnmower Rob got. I love those guys, but I can’t even fake excitement over something as boring as that.

So, while they’re otherwise engaged, I think Hannah has some news for us. ”

“Pammy, Hannah doesn’t have to tell us anything she doesn’t want to.” Cece takes the seat next to Pam and gives me a big smile. “But I really hope you want to because the looks my grandson was giving you during dinner were definitely not friendly looks.”

“Do you really need gossip?” I ask her. “I thought you knew all the things.”

Cece shrugs, tearing open new marshmallows and eating them straight from the bag. “Like I always say, the information I need comes to me in a multitude of ways, and right now, the information I need is going to come from you.”

I glance around the circle of chairs at the four of them, faces lit by the fire and the dying light of day.

At these women who have somehow, miraculously, become my women.

I’ve always had Jo and Hallie, but something about being here—being a part of this group—makes me want to share pieces of myself I usually don’t.

Not all the pieces, but some.

My gaze drifts to Noah, huddled with his brothers and his dad by the garage, and I find him already looking at me.

When he grins and winks, my stomach does a little flip.

And here in this pretty backyard on a beautiful summer night, I can admit to myself what I haven’t been able to before.

That this thing between us is something .

It’s more than two people who got drunk and did something stupid.

More than a friend helping a friend. I think it’s big and important, and it scares the shit out of me because so much of me is a mess.

But he doesn’t seem to care about that. With Noah next to me, and these women around me, I think that maybe I can be a little bit brave.

“We’ve been…spending some time together. A lot of time together.”

“Fuck yes,” Jo says, grinning widely. “I’ve been waiting for this. How did it happen? Tell me everything.”

I hesitate and then remember, be brave .

“I’m having trouble writing.”

The grin falls off Jo’s face, replaced by a look of concern as she reaches over and covers my hand with hers. “What do you mean you’re having trouble writing?”

I glance around the circle and see the concern mirrored on everyone’s face. Concern for me. Because they care about me.

Brave .

“I came to Boston because I had writer’s block for the first time since I started writing. I thought coming here would fix it, but it didn’t. Then I thought when I finally broke up with Brett, I would be able to write again. But I couldn’t.”

I feel Jo’s stare on the side of my face, and I know she’s just barely restraining herself from asking me more about my breakup with Brett. It’s made her crazy that I haven’t told her the whole story, but I just can’t tell her. Or anyone.

“That must be so scary,” Amelia says quietly, and I nod, relieved she gets it.

I nod, swallowing hard. “It is. I love writing more than anything in the world. Not being able to do it has felt like a piece of me is missing.” I pause, wondering what to say next, and decide that a tiny bit of revisionist history is in order.

“When we were in Vegas, Noah and I hung out a little bit the first night when all the couples went to sleep.”

Jo snorts out a laugh. “We definitely didn’t go to sleep.”

“Us either,” Amelia says, then slides her eyes to Pam like she forgot her probably one day mother-in-law is sitting in this circle.

Pam just grins. “Honey, you really think I’m going to get embarrassed and clutch my pearls over hearing that my sons have sex?”

“Well said, Pammy,” Cece says, patting her hand.

“It sounds like no one got much sleep that first night in Vegas.” She looks right at me when she says that, and I have no idea how it’s possible, but I know she knows that Noah and I got married accidentally that night.

Cece works in mysterious ways; I just hope she keeps it to herself because that’s one thing I absolutely do not want broadcast all over this circle.

“Does this have something to do with the karaoke?”

“Hannah did karaoke?” Pam asks, and I groan.

Jo gives me a wicked grin. “Did she ever. She and Noah killed at showtunes karaoke. A couple frat guys caught it on video and played it for all of us at lunch the day after. I think they sent it to Noah if you want to see it.”

“Oh, I want,” Pam says.

“No need to rush that,” I mutter. “Anyway,” I say, wanting to move on from my embarrassing turn as drunk Sandy.

“After that, I wrote a chapter for the first time in forever. I don’t know what it is, but it turns out that when I hang out with Noah, I can write.

When I don’t, I can’t. He kind of offered to help me out. ”

“What kind of help is he offering, exactly?” Amelia gives me a sly look, and I can’t help but laugh.

“We’re just hanging out. Doing fun things since he’s off for the summer. And…he may have kissed me a few days ago.”

And a whole bunch of times since then. And told me to make a list of my biggest fantasies so he could help me act them out. A list I made but haven’t been brave enough to send him yet .

“There it is,” Pam says, broad smile on her face. “I’ve been waiting for this.”

“You have?”

She nods. “Of course I have. I think I told you not that long ago that Noah would walk over hot coals for you, and I wasn’t exaggerating.

My sunshine boy feels fast and feels big, and something about you called to him right from the start.

He’s been looking at you for a long time.

Years, I think, even when you were with someone else.

Am I right that you’re looking back now? ”

I sigh, leaning back in my chair, my gaze drifting over to Noah.

As if he senses me looking at him again, he turns his head, my eyes meeting his.

His expression, fun mixed with heat, has butterflies swarming my stomach.

“I am. I don’t understand it, and I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I am.

I like him. A lot. He makes me feel like myself again.

Like I matter. It’s…been a long time since I felt like that,” I admit.

It’s as close as I’m comfortable getting to telling them what it was really like with Brett, and even divulging just that little bit has me squirming in my seat.

Sensing my discomfort, Jo reaches out and clasps hands with me. She may be frustrated that I won’t tell her everything, but I know she has my back no matter what, and in this moment under the stars, I’ve never been more grateful for her.

“He’s a very, very good man,” Pam says, giving me a look of such understanding that my eyes burn.

“I know,” I say quietly, not entirely trusting my voice right now. “I’m not just using him because I can write when I’m with him, I swear.”

Pam waves that away. “Hannah honey, I would never, ever think that. I don’t think I’m wrong when I say you’ve been though a lot. And for what it’s worth, I think he needs you just as much as you need him.”

“He absolutely does.” Cece nods. “I knew the two of you would be a match from the start. You have very complementary auras.”

“What was the start, exactly?” Amelia asks. “When Jordan and Jo got together?”

“Oh, I think it goes back a whole lot farther than that,” Cece says.

The look she gives me tells me that she knows exactly how far back it goes and also exactly what happened in that hallway at the back of Ben and Jeremy’s bar all those years ago, but that she’s leaving it to me to decide how much to tell. I give her a grateful smile.

“We met for the first time three years ago,” I tell them. “At the bar, after Allie’s funeral.”

“You were there with Brett,” Jo says, her tone telling me she’s trying to put the pieces together.

I nod, my anxiety spiking at the thought of that day. The way Brett acted. What he said. What he did. The way I brushed it all off and stayed. God, I never should have stayed. “We just met briefly. It was no big deal.”

It was .