Page 39 of Just My Type (The Boston Hearts #3)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

NOAH

“ I like the symmetry of the Oreos and peanut butter,” Hannah says, digging an Oreo into the peanut butter jar.

“I don’t know why, but for some reason it feels appropriate that this is the snack we had during our first late night on the roof, and now we’re having it again. It’s ridiculously sentimental of you.”

I smile, pressing a kiss to her knee. I’m sprawled out on my stomach on the blanket we spread on the ground, while Hannah sits, legs stretched out in front of her, devouring our midnight snack.

“I’m a sentimental kind of guy. And it feels appropriate because you wanted me so badly that night and now you get to have me. Like bookends.”

I give her an innocent smile, and she laughs. “Want to try that again, my guy?”

I press a line of kisses up her leg, running my tongue over the sensitive skin behind her knee and grinning against her when she sucks in a breath.

Then I roll over onto my back, looking up at her.

“What I meant to say was, I had been a little bit obsessed with you for years, and sharing secrets with you up on the roof made that first night the best night of my life until this night right now. That’s why having the same snack feels right. ”

Hannah screws the cap back on the peanut butter jar and sets it aside, taking a sip from the Twizzler straw dunked in her Sprite can before laying down next to me, her head close to mine.

Her vanilla scented shampoo surrounds me, and I love the solid feel of her body next to mine.

The Common is quiet, the Carousel dark and silent and deliciously spooky, the sky above us studded with stars.

It feels like we are the only people in the universe.

“It is right,” Hannah says, leaning her head against mine. “Everything about this night is right. What did you let out in your scream?” she asks, taking me by surprise.

“What?”

Hannah rolls her head towards me. “Your primal scream. I unloaded like three years worth of trauma and resentment. What about you?”

I turn my head towards her, running a finger over her cheek. “My job starts in a month.”

She nods. “It does. How does that make you feel? I know you mentioned being scared. Are you still?”

I laugh a little. “Yeah, still.”

Hannah leans up and kisses my forehead. “Tell me.”

I close my eyes for a second, wanting to capture the way it feels for her to kiss me like that. Casually, the way I always hoped she would. The look in her eyes when she’s focused on me. It’s everything I ever wanted, and it’s right here. She’s right here. I’m the luckiest guy in the world.

“Being a resident is weird,” I start. “At first, it’s all about survival.

You work bananas hours, and your nights and days get all messed up to the point that time ceases to have any meaning at all.

Every surgery is monumental because it’s something you’ve never seen, and every time you get to do something you haven’t done before, it’s exciting.

But my residency was six years long because I graduated from dental school, but my goal was always to get an MD and specialize in maxillofacial surgery, so eventually, it all becomes pretty routine.

There are really complex cases, and that’s awesome, but you get used to it over the years.

There’s no room for complacency when you have people’s lives in your literal hands, but it does become routine. ”

“You get comfortable,” Hannah says, a look of understanding on her face.

I nod. “It’s exactly that. Six years is also a long fucking time.

Jordan and Jo’s wedding wasn’t the only reason I negotiated a fall start date.

I also needed the time. I could feel the burnout looming during my last six months.

I love oral surgery. God, I love it so much, but I was also tired.

So fucking tired, and I felt like if I held another scalpel or scrubbed into another surgery, I would lose my mind.

It’s not just the fact that I’ll be in charge that scares me.

What if I’m not ready? What if the summer isn’t enough time and I get to the hospital in September, and all those feelings come back?

I guess I just wonder if I’m good enough for the next step.

It feels like if I was a real surgeon, I would be counting the minutes until I could be back in the OR.

I would be giving the entire world the finger and marching into that hospital all, I’m back bitches .

I know I’m a real surgeon. I’ve been training for this for more than a decade.

But there’s still that little corner of my brain that wonders if I really belong there.

In charge and all that shit. Anyway, I guess I screamed out that. ”

Hannah traces her finger over the back of my hand. “Did it work?”

I consider that, realizing that yeah, it kind of did. “Weirdly, yes. Also, what I didn’t tell you is that even though I’m still low key terrified, I’m like fifty percent less terrified than I was that first night on the roof.”

“Yeah?”

“Definitely. I know when we set out on this little adventure, I promised to help you get your writing groove back, but I didn’t realize how much I needed this too.

How maybe I also needed to get my own groove back after six years of grinding.

And doing it with you? Han, the last couple months have been…

” I trail off, trying to figure out how to sum up the time I’ve spent with her in some coherent way. What it’s meant to me.

“The best ever?” she says quietly.

I roll closer, capturing her mouth with mine, kissing her deeply and with every feeling I can’t figure out how to put into words. “The best ever.”

Hannah smiles against my lips. “Fifty percent less terrified is pretty good. How do we get you the rest of the way there?”

I snicker. “I could call you my wife some more.”

She rolls back to her back and laughs up at the sky. “You know, at some point you’re going to slip up and call me your wife in front of everyone. You should probably cut that shit out.”

I inch closer to her, the sides of our bodies pressed together as we both stare up at the sky. “Never. Besides, would it be the worst thing if everyone knows?” Keeping it a secret doesn’t bother me, but I send the question up there like a little test ballon, curious what she’ll say.

Hannah stays silent for a second, and I can practically hear the wheels turning in her head.

“I guess I don’t want to be a punchline.

I spent so many years not being taken seriously by the person who was supposed to be closest to me.

The person who was supposed to love me. So, the idea of everyone knowing I’m a romance author who got drunk and got accidentally married in Vegas like the actual main character of one of her books? The cliché makes me twitchy.”

I take her hand, lacing our fingers together. “You know you didn’t get drunk and get married alone. I was there too.”

Hannah gives me a wry smile. “Oh, I know. We have the picture to prove it.”

I turn on my side to face her, propping my head up on my hand.

“I would never tell anyone if you don’t want people to know, but I can promise you that no one—not my family or yours—would ever think of you as a punchline.

My family loves you, and my mom already thinks of you as one of hers.

And anyway, that’s just not what family does.

Especially now that we’re…” I slam my mouth shut and snap my gaze to Hannah’s.

She’s biting her cheek to keep from laughing, green eyes sparkling in the glow of the lanterns on the path.

“Now that we’re what?” she asks, her voice full of amusement.

“I’m not exactly sure what the right answer is to that question,” I say wryly.

Hannah smirks at me, and the lightness in her post-primal scream makes me want to cuddle her up. “Because you don’t know what we are, or because you’re afraid if you say out loud what you hope we are, I’ll run for the hills?”

“Ummmm, the second one, I think?”

Hannah grins, rolling on her side to mirror my position. “And what do you hope we are, Noah?”

I run a finger down her side, tracing the dip of her waist, the curve of her hip.

“Promise you won’t run for the hills? It’s late and dark, so if you run, I’ll have to chase you, and I would do anything to keep you safe, but honestly, I think I ate too many Oreos to run anywhere. Please don’t make me.”

Hannah cackles, leaning in and kissing me, light and sweet. Like a promise. “I swear on the fifty thousand words I’ve written in the past month that I won’t make you chase me.”

“That’s a really big swear.”

She smiles. “That’s how you know I’m serious. So, tell me, Noah. What do you hope we are?”

I think briefly about how to say it and then decide to just shoot my shot. It’s worked until now, and under the late-night sky with my favorite person next to me, I’m feeling lucky. “Is it weird to hope that you’re my girlfriend if you’re already my wife?”

Hannah’s grin spreads, and it lights me up inside. “It’s so weird.”

I roll on top of her and prop myself up on my elbows, hovering over her, dipping my head to kiss her when she laughs. “I know, right? But I don’t hate it, the weirdness of it all.”

“It feels very us.”

“Us.” The grin in my voice is unmistakable. “Is there an us, Han?”

Hannah runs her hands through my hair and over my shoulders, down my body, setting them on my hips.

It makes me want to purr like a kitten. “I mean, you’re really pretty to look at, and you bring me an iced latte every morning, and you bake and cook.

You were totally right that hanging out with you helps me write words, and you stock me emotional support Twizzlers and bite the ends off of them for me when I want to use them as a straw.

Also, you’re really, really good in bed.

So, I guess being an us wouldn’t be so bad.

” She pauses, giving me a sly smile. “Husband.”

I groan, wrapping an arm around her waist and rolling us so she’s sprawled on top of me. “You know what that word does to me, Gorgeous. I get hard just hearing it.”

Kissing my neck, I can feel her smile against my skin. “I know. I like that I have that kind of power over you.”

Framing Hannah’s face with my hands, I just look at her for a minute. At the lightness in her eyes and the smile on her lips and her cheeks flushed with happiness.

And I know.

I am going to remember this night for the rest of my life.

Tugging her face down gently, I bring her mouth to mine, kissing her slowly, thoroughly, with all the love I feel but can’t give her.

Not yet. But I will. The sultry July air wraps itself around us, and Hannah’s body is a warm weight above mine.

The air between us crackles with possibility as our mouths move together in a dance as old as time, and no one in this world or any other could tell me that this woman was not made exactly for me.

“You have no idea how much power you have over me, Hannah,” I murmur against her lips. “All the power, really. One look at you and I’m weak. One press of your lips to mine and I want to fall to my knees in front of you. You’re everything, Hannah. Absolutely everything I ever wanted and all I need.”

“Noah,” Hannah says quietly, her voice thick as her forehead falls to mine. I watch her blink away the tears that gloss her eyes. I know she wasn’t ready to hear all those words, but I’m not sorry I said them.

I want her to know she owns me.

All of me.

She takes a deep breath, erasing the emotion that paints her face, and when she lifts her head to look at me, a smirk takes over. “We should definitely do the knee thing. If I’m remembering correctly, I think that’s number six on my list.”

I chuckle, lifting my head to kiss the spot behind her ear. “Number eight. And you better believe I’ll get on my knees for you. We can do it right here if you want. It would be a whole damn pleasure.” I wink at her. “Yours and mine.”

Hannah laughs, the relief in her eyes at my taking her lead and lightening the mood obvious. I think about how much she’s been through. How she’s still coming out the other side. I’m in awe of her. She’s my goddamn miracle.

Mine .

“Thank you,” she says quietly. “For today. For this night. For being an us with me. For keeping our Vegas marriage a secret. All of it.”

I stroke a hand over her cheek, down her jaw, resting it on her neck. “Anything for you.” I grin at her. “We are going to be the best us there ever was.”

Hannah grins at me. “Bet your ass we are.”

She rolls off me and reaches for the peanut butter jar with one hand and the Oreos with the other.

I grab more drinks out of my bag, and Hannah laughs when I show her my Late Nights With Hannah playlist on my phone.

Then we eat more snacks and talk and laugh and laugh some more until the sun peeks over the horizon and starts to rise .

It bathes the Common in a soft orange glow, and Hannah lays her head on my shoulder, my arm wrapped snugly around her as we fall silent for the first time in hours, watching Boston wake up to greet a new day.

It is the most perfect moment of my life, and it feels a whole lot like the start of forever.