Page 57 of Just My Type (The Boston Hearts #3)

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

NOAH

“ W here is she?” I mutter, my eyes roving the room, searching for Hannah.

The last time I saw her, she was standing in a circle of all the girls, but they are now scattered all around the room, Hannah nowhere to be found.

It’s late, and the wedding crowd is thinning out, so Hannah should be easy to spot, but I don’t see her anywhere.

I shake my head, laughing at myself a little, because I’m basically a lost puppy dog right now, looking for its owner.

Except I’m me, and my owner is a green-eyed, golden-brown haired romance writer who threw my world right off balance

She owns the fuck out of me.

“What’s your deal?” Elliot asks, as he and Amelia come off the dance floor, arms wrapped around each other.

“What do you mean?”

He smirks at me. “Your face. You look like a puppy who’s been kicked or something.”

Okay, so I guess that puppy dog thing was pretty damn accurate. “I was looking for Hannah, but I can’t find her.”

Elliot laughs and rolls his eyes at the same time, and I get it. I’m a stage-five clinger, but I don’t know how else to be right now. “You’re so completely fucked.”

I give him a fuck off look and glance between him and Amelia. “You’re one to talk.”

Amelia laughs and tucks herself deeper into Elliot’s hold. “He’s got you there, El. Hannah told me she was going to the bathroom earlier. Maybe she’s still there?”

“How much earlier?”

Amelia shrugs. “Before El and I started dancing so, like, twenty minutes or so?”

A shimmer of unease races through me, but I shrug it off, telling myself I’m being ridiculous and to get a fucking grip, but my brain doesn’t get the message. I’m not a worst-case scenario kind of guy, but something about this moment has my instincts screaming.

“You’re worried.” Elliot’s words are a statement, not a question.

Now it’s my turn to shrug. “No reason to be. There are a lot of people here and she knows most of them. She could be anywhere.”

And yet, now that I’ve gone down the something might be wrong track, my brain is a runaway train. I shake my head, as if to clear it, but it doesn’t help, so I make a split-second decision. “I’ll be right back.”

“Where are you going?” Elliot asks.

“To the bathroom, to see if she’s still there.”

Elliot and Amelia look at each other, and I expect to see them rolling their eyes all, Noah is being ridiculous , but both of their expressions are serious as they have a silent conversation.

“We’re coming with you,” Amelia says.

I nod and head towards the bathrooms with them following me, but I don’t get more than four steps before running into my parents, who are talking to Cece, Cooper, Jordan, and Jo.

“Where are you off to?” Cece asks, her eyes fixed on my face, studying me intently .

“I’m looking for Hannah. I haven’t seen her in a little bit, and it seems silly to be worried, but…” I trail off.

“You’re worried anyway,” Cece says.

I exhale heavily. “Yeah.”

Cece takes my hand. “Come on.”

“To where?” I ask.

“To find your girl, Noah. If you’re worried, that means there’s something to worry about.”

Cece’s confirmation that I’m not ridiculous to be worried acts like kerosene, turning my low simmer of anxiety into a blazing inferno. Without another word, I turn and head straight for the bathrooms, my family following behind me.

The angry, male voice filters out of the corridor where the bathrooms are before I even reach it, and I know without consciously knowing what I’m going to find, even before I turn the corner and see the guy I recognize immediately as Hannah’s ex-boyfriend, Brett, with his back to me.

His tall frame and broad shoulders are blocking my view of the person he’s cornering, but I know immediately it’s Hannah’s wrists he has bracketed in his death grip. Her hands he has pinned to the wall.

My brain plays a highlight reel of the way she reacted to having her wrists pinned. How terrified she must be. Fury slams into me, but through the red haze, my brain focuses on only two things.

Get Hannah .

Keep her safe .

“Get your hands off my wife or I will fucking end you.” My voice is a growl I barely recognize, and I dimly register the shocked gasps and murmurs of my family behind me when I say my wife , but I’m too focused on the way Brett’s body goes rigid. How he turns toward the sound of my voice.

“Your wife?” He scoffs, looking between Hannah and me, his hands still locked around Hannah’s wrists.

“My. Wife.” I spit out, my eyes fixed on Hannah, as I calculate how to get her away from him without her getting hurt even more than she already is.

The look on Brett’s face tells me he’s a powder keg ready to explode, and the thought of what he could do to her—what he might have done to her if I hadn’t gotten here in time—has fear curdling in my stomach.

But the terror on Hannah’s face has me abandoning my calculations, moving straight for them.

Before I can get there, Hannah’s face changes from fear to something else.

Something powerful and determined that has me stopping in my tracks.

I watch as she takes advantage of the space Brett gave her when he turned to me, saying nothing as she snaps her knee up between his legs so hard I would feel sympathy for the guy if he didn’t have the woman I love pinned in a dark corner, about to do who even knows what to her.

The noise that comes from Brett’s throat is barely human as he lets Hannah’s wrists go and bends at the waist, his breath wheezing out. Hannah skirts around him, making a beeline for me, her breath hitching when she sees the rest of our family standing behind me. Standing there for her.

My instinct is to shield her from ever having to see this asshole ever again.

But something deeper tells me to keep her next to me.

That she doesn’t need me to protect her.

She needs me to stand with her. So instead of tugging her behind me, I wrap an arm around her and pull her tightly to my side, tapping my finger to her waist three times to remind her I’m here.

I’ve got her. Her body is shaking, but as she faces Brett, her spine snaps straight, her shoulders square.

She’s a goddamn queen.

“What are you even doing here, Brett?” Hannah asks, fixing him with a glare, voice rock solid and dripping with disdain.

“I was invited.” He rolls his eyes, his shoulders drooping just slightly when he notices all the people standing behind us.

That’s right, asshole. She has a whole damn family behind her. Mess with one of us, mess with all of us .

“No, you weren’t,” Jo says from behind us, her voice fierce. “My sister was invited. It was her name on the invitation. You got to come when she wanted you here. You are now very clearly the last person she wants here, so you can get the fuck out.”

“Get him, Hurricane,” I hear Jordan murmur.

Brett pulls himself up to his full height of shorter than me and it may be immature of me to get satisfaction out of that fact, but boy do I ever.

Brett faces us all down, and even though I can’t see them, I feel my entire family take a collective step closer to Hannah and me.

“I’ll leave when I damn well please. This is a public space, and I have every right to be here.

Now if you’ll all excuse me, Hannah and I have some unfinished business to take care of. ”

This fucking guy, honestly. Get a clue and have some freaking dignity. I open my mouth to respond, but Hannah holds up a hand, taking a step in front of me.

“The only unfinished business we have is the kind where I tell you that I should have left you years before I did. You’re an asshole, Brett.

A misogynistic fuckhead who couldn’t handle the fact that I’m smarter and more successful than you could ever hope to be.

My little romance writing hobby , like you enjoyed calling it, makes more money in a month than you make in a year, and your ego just couldn’t take it.

It’s too bad for you that smut sells, and I’m really good at writing it. ”

Hannah puts a hand on her hip and gives Brett a steely glare that makes me want to stand up and cheer.

“You never wanted me for me. You wanted me because I did your laundry and made your coffee and fed your damn cat. I did fucking everything for you, and it still wasn’t enough.

You took and took and took until I didn’t have anything left to give, and even then, you took some more.

And you know what? Maybe you did me a favor, because when I thought I was running away from you, it turned out that I was actually running towards something else.

Towards a brand-new life with friends and family who accept me for exactly who I am and never ask me to be someone I’m not.

Who give instead of take. Towards someone who treats me the way I deserve to be treated. I know what that looks like now. ”

Hannah looks back and locks eyes with me, and the emotions swirling in her gaze have my heart galloping in my chest, arms aching to get around her as she turns back to Brett.

“And it doesn’t look anything like what you gave me.

So unfinished business? No Brett, we don’t have any more of that.

Showing up here, at my sister’s wedding?

It’s sad and pathetic, and I’d say it was beneath you, but I’m not sure there’s anything beneath you when you’re already the lowest of the low.

” Hannah pauses, her lips curving into a smirk before going in for the kill. “And talk about a second-rate lay.”

Brett’s face goes crimson as someone behind me—Cooper I think—lets out a low, appreciative whistle and Hannah takes a step back, wrapping an arm around my waist and leaning into me.

I kiss the top of her head before standing straight and facing Brett.

“So, as my sister-in-law so aptly put it before, get the fuck out.”

“What did you say?” Brett sneers at me, and Jesus, this guy really needs to get a fucking clue.

“I said that literally no one wants you here, least of all my girl, and she’s the most important one of all. Get. The. Fuck. Out.”

I don’t know why my words are the thing that sends him over the edge, but Brett braces as if he’s about to lunge at me.

I’ve never been much of a fighter, and the last thing Hannah needs to see is more violence, but I can’t say I would hate it if I got to lay Brett out for everything he did to Hannah.

Brett starts to move, his eyes fixed on me and his arm cocking back as if he’s about to throw a punch.

“Oh, no you don’t.” Before Brett can reach me, Cece, in all her five-foot two-inch swirling rainbow chiffon glory, comes flying in front of Hannah and me.

I’ve barely had a second to figure out what the fuck is going on before the crack of skin-on-skin echoes through the hallway, and a startled yelp comes from Brett as he grabs his cheek with one hand and stares, incredulously, at my grandmother .

Cece lets out a very grandmotherly and very unlike her tsk , shaking her head in a show of disappointment that Hannah, apparently, finds hilarious because she lets out a snort of laughter, her shoulders shaking as she tries, and fails, to hold it in.

“Now then,” Cece says, her eyes fixed on Brett.

“I could see that my grandson here was about to give you exactly what you deserve, but I didn’t want him to have to do that.

Lucky for all of us, I’ve always had a good slap.

I knew right from the second Hannah came to us that eventually you would come crawling out of whatever hole you were hiding in to cause trouble, and I’d like to say I’m sorry for hurting you but, well, I’m not. ”

Cece grins and shrugs. “You interrupted my grandson’s wedding, and you tried to hurt someone who has become very, very important to me. When you mess with one member of this family, you mess with all of us.”

At Cece’s words, an echo of my own thoughts from before, I hear Hannah’s sharp inhale. Feel the emotion coming off her in waves. I wrap my arm around her shoulders and hold her close to me, letting the solid weight of her settle my nerves.

She’s here.

She’s safe.

She’s mine.

“Now,” Cece says, pinning Brett with a stare as she crosses her arms over her chest and taps her toe on the marble floor like this is all extremely inconvenient.

“Are you going to leave quietly, or do I have to tell my four very tall and very fit grandsons to haul your ass out of here? You’re fairly short, you know, and it doesn’t seem like you’ve got much muscle to you.

I’m sure they won’t have much trouble at all tossing you right out on your ass. ”

“Fucking fine,” Brett spits out, throwing his hands up in the air.

He has the audacity to look aggrieved, like he’s the injured party in all of this.

Did I already say fuck this guy? Because, seriously, fuck this guy.

He looks at Hannah and he tries to go for indifferent, but I can see the rage simmering underneath the who even cares attitude.

“You’re not worth it. You were never my type anyway. ”

I tug Hannah closer and kiss her temple before grinning at Brett in a way I know will enrage him even more. “Lucky me, then, because she’s just my type. And she’s worth everything.”

A low growl comes from Brett’s throat before he stalks away. I don’t even have to look at my dad and brothers before the four of them are following Brett, making sure he leaves the museum.

Once they’re out of sight, Hannah collapses against me, and in one second flat I have her wrapped up, one arm around her waist and the other hand tangled in her hair, holding her against me.

She lets out a slow, shaky breath as her arms wind around my waist. She’s shaking from the adrenaline crash, and to be honest, I kind of am a little bit too.

And I’m relieved. I’m fucking relieved because Hannah is here and she’s okay, and she’s with me. Exactly where I hope she’ll stay.

Forever, if I get my way.