Page 42 of Just My Type (The Boston Hearts #3)
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
NOAH
Hannah
[picture attached of Hannah, Jo, and Amelia each holding two pink cocktails]
How many pink cocktails is too many pink cocktails?
I grin at the picture, drinking in the happiness on Hannah’s face, the flush on her cheeks and the hazy look in her eyes that tells me she’s about to motor past tipsy and straight into drunk.
Me
The limit does not exist.
Hannah
You may be singing a different tune if you have to hold my hair back later while I’m hanging over the toilet.
Me
Gorgeous, it would be an honor to hold your hair back, in any location, for any reason at all.
Hannah
I think Cece made the last batch double strength.
Me
She’s been known to do that. We think she has a hollow leg or something. She can drink us all under the table.
Hannah
I believe it. I’m typing this with one eye shut because there’s two of everything. I haven’t been this drunk since
Fuck. Where’s the unsend option?
Me
Since when, Han?
Since you brought down the house with your rendition of La Vie Boheme?
Hannah
Ugh.
Me
Since you and I were the hottest drunk Danny and Sandy to ever grace the Vegas strip?
Hannah
Don’t remind me.
Me
Since we had the best kiss of my entire life in the dark hallway of a karaoke bar?
Hannah
I’m begging you to stop.
Me
Since you let me put a ring on your finger and marry you?
Hannah
Accidentally marry me.
Me
But was it actually an accident, or was it the greatest day of our lives?
Hannah
Definitely the accident one.
Me
Savage, Han.
Hannah
What can I say? I’m spicy when I’m drunk.
Me
You’re hot as fuck when you’re drunk.
Hannah
I’m hot as fuck all the damn time.
Me
Bet your ass you are. My wife is the hottest woman in the entire world.
Hannah
Can I tell you a secret?
Me
You better.
Hannah
I like it when you call me your wife.
And I like wearing my ring when we go out and pretend to be married.
Me
No pretending about it, Gorgeous. We are married.
Hannah
Sometimes when I’m alone in my apartment I wear my ring. I like the way it feels on my finger.
Fuck. I should put a stop to this. I really, really should.
She’s saying these things because she’s drunk, and I know if she reads these messages back tomorrow, she’ll regret them all.
But goddamn, this little window into her head is like a revelation.
I know we sort of, kind of made things official last week on the Common—or as official as you can make a relationship when you’re already married.
But I also know that even though she’s opened herself up to me a lot, there’s a piece of Hannah that’s still walled off from me.
Any glimpse behind those walls feels like something to be treasured.
I dip my hand into my pocket, running my fingers over my wedding band that I secretly carry with me wherever I go and decide, what the hell?
Me
Can I tell you a secret?
Hannah
Always.
Me
I like wearing mine too. And I like being married to you.
Hannah
Even if it’s not for real?
Me
Hannah, there isn’t one single thing between us that isn’t real.
Hannah
Is it weird that I just saw you this morning and I kind of miss you?
My heart thuds painfully in my chest at her last message, my arms aching to get around her as I wonder how to respond to that.
Saying I miss you even when you’re sitting in the same room as me sounds dramatic as fuck, even though it’s the truest thing in the world.
I’m still wrestling with what to say when my phone dings again.
Hannah
Cece just handed me another drink, so I’m pretty sure I’ll see you never because my legs don’t work anymore. I live in this couch now.
Me
Live it up, baby. I’ll come pick you up and carry you home later.
Hannah
Whose home?
That painful thud again. The desperate need to tell her it doesn’t matter whose home because her home is with me.
Me
Your apartment. The place with 400 bags of Twizzlers, a lifetime supply of Sprite, an entire wall of books, and a desk where you sit and write magic.
Hannah
It’s a pretty good place. Will you knock on the ceiling before you go to sleep? I like it when you do that.
Me
No need to knock on the ceiling if I’m sleeping right next to you.
Hannah
You’ll stay?
I rub a hand over my heart at the thought that she would still need to ask that question. At the desperate need I have to tell her that I want to stay every night. That I never want to leave. That the idea of her leaving has a gnawing ache clawing at my chest.
Me
Try and stop me .
“Put the damn phone down. No texting girls on guys night.” Cooper slaps my shoulder and sets a beer bottle down in front of me.
“What about them?” I ask, gesturing to Jordan and Elliot on the other side of the high-top table where we all sit, faces buried in their phones.
Cooper glances over and scowls. “No. No way. No fucking phones. Give them to me.” He grabs Jordan’s phone with one hand and Elliot’s with the other, smirking at them when they protest. “Here, Dad, you take them. You’re the only trustworthy one here.”
He gives the phones to my dad and then holds a hand under my nose. “Give it.”
“Why me? I put it away when you asked me to.”
Cooper rolls his eyes at me. “You put it in your pocket, which means that you’ll feel it when it vibrates, and you won’t be able to help yourself because you’re more obsessed with Hannah than they are with their girls.
” He waves a hand at Elliot and Jordan. “I’m saving you from yourself.
And preserving the sanctity of brother time. ”
“Jesus, what’s up your ass?” I mutter, digging my phone out of my pocket and slapping it into his hand.
“Same question,” my dad says, taking my phone from Cooper and stacking all the phones in front of him, studying Cooper intently. “It’s not like you to be so…”
“Ornery?” Jordan says.
“Assholish?” Elliot adds
“Crotchety?” I try.
“Yep,” my dad says, leaning back in his chair and taking a sip of his beer. “All of those. What gives, Coop?”
Cooper sighs and flops back in his chair, raking a hand through his hair. “I’m tired,” he mumbles. “I’m so fucking tired.”
“Does you being tired have anything to do with you sending us an SOS to meet you at an ax-throwing bar?” I ask, glancing around the room at the wooden stalls lined up along the wall, each with a target at the end.
The bar is filled with the thwack of axes hitting wood and the occasional cheer when someone hits a bullseye.
“Not that there’s anything wrong with it—it has a surprisingly homey vibe for an activity where you hurl deadly weapons at the wall. ”
“Gotta love getting beers where a liability waiver is required for entry,” Jordan snarks.
Cooper takes a long pull of his beer. “Listen, it was either this or stab my coworker with a ballpoint pen. I chose the option less likely to land me in jail.”
“She still giving you issues?” my dad asks.
Cooper huffs out a laugh but there’s no humor in it.
“Issues? She’s the bane of my fucking existence, and I was just staffed on a litigation with her that’s going to last at least the next six months.
Probably longer. That’s, at minimum, one hundred and eighty days of all-nighters, document review sitting at the same fucking conference table, and her criticizing every single thing I do over and over again until I want to kill myself and her.
” He scrubs a hand down his face. “But enough about me. Someone change the subject before I cry into my beer. Or quit my job.”
“Is quitting something you’re considering?” My dad’s voice holds no judgment, only curiosity.
Cooper shrugs. “I don’t know. Seven years in BigLaw is a long fucking time.
I used to love every damn thing about it, but it’s wearing on me, especially with a potential partnership decision looming next year.
I’ve always thought that was the goal, but the idea of competing to make partner and then the grind that comes with the partnership?
” He blows out a breath and takes another sip of his beer.
“It just makes me want to lay down and take a nap. Fuck it,” he mutters, standing up and stalking to our ax throwing stall, picking up one of the axes and hurling it at the target.
It hits dead center, but he doesn’t even crack a smile.
When I catch Cooper’s eye, his expression is miserable, like talking about this is the very last thing he wants.
He’s the sensitive, intuitive one of us, the one who is always in touch with his own feelings and all of ours.
So to see him so unglued is a little startling.
I decide to throw him a bone to take the heat off him for now.
“I think I’m in love with Hannah.”
The table is silent for ten seconds, my dad and brothers staring at me, before all four of them burst out laughing.
“What?” I ask, glowering at them.
“You say that like it’s news,” Jordan says, smirking at me.
“Isn’t it?” I ask.
“Uh, no,” Elliot says, expression amused. “You’re obsessed with her. Whenever you’re around her, you can’t go thirty seconds without touching her. Before you guys were…whatever you are now…you turned proverbial backflips trying to get her attention.”
I roll my eyes. “Like you’re any better with Amelia.”
Elliot smiles at me. “I’m not. Because I’m in love with her, just like you’re in love with Hannah. Amelia is my whole damn world, just like Hannah is yours.”
“He’s right, Noah.” My dad salutes me with his beer. “That girl was made to be yours.”
“You think?” I ask, hearing the uncertainty in my voice. Hating it.
“You don’t?”