Chapter 35 Hug Circle
HART
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THREE DETERMINED STRIDES.
That’s how long it takes me to cross the bus and throw my arms around my brother.
Levi freezes under me, his hand stopping mid-motion, leaving the flipper idle in the pan.
“Should I be scared?”
I’ve got him trapped in a sideways bear hug.
“I told her,” I whisper, my voice hoarse. “I told Jade everything.”
It feels like a dream I could snap awake from at any moment. But I know it’s true. I know it to my core. And I haven’t felt this relieved in what feels like a lifetime. I fell apart with her, like a child.
Or as Wheeler would say, like a man who knows how to regulate his emotions. I hate it when he talks shit like that, but I understand it now. Putting everything out in the open healed me.
Almost everything.
Normally, I’d revel in that negative nagging and let it overpower and anger me, but not today.
Not ever.
Some things are worth protecting. And her respect for her father is one of them.
“You did? When? Congrats.” He manages a small pat on my arm, the only thing he can do with his arms pinned at his sides.
“This morning. I told her everything. I got it all out, man. And I cried. Like, ugly cried. Snot and all. Everything.” I still don’t let him go. “And she forgave me.”
The spatula clatters on the stove. “Damn, man, let me hug you for real.”
I shift, and my brother’s arms wrap around me firmly. “I’m proud of you.”
“I wouldn’t have been able to do it without you.”
He slaps my back. “It doesn’t matter how you got here, just that you reached your goal.”
“It matters to me, Levi. Thank you for not giving up on me when I’ve been such an asshole.”
“Grumpy asshole.”
I chuckle, remembering Jade saying it too.
“Yeah, grumpy asshole.”
The front door bangs open, and Dean stalks in, a toothbrush hanging from his mouth and a change of clothes under his arm.
“Are we hugging?”
He doesn’t wait for an answer. Drops the clothes, clamps the toothbrush between his teeth, and charges like he’s joining a rugby scrum.
It’s not gentle. He clamps his arms around us. Muscles press into muscles. Solid, like braided rope pulling tight.
We stumble, boots hitting ankles and curses coming out of us. The idiot nearly knocks us all over.
“Dude—what—”
“Group hug.” Dean hauls us tighter. “Don’t leave me out of your emotional breakthroughs.” As usual, he’s way too enthusiastic for the hour. “There was an emotional breakthrough, right?”
“Careful,” Levi grunts, twisted sideways, arms still pinned. “I still have a hot pan. This is how grease fires happen.”
“It’s Hart, right? Tell me it’s Hart.” Dean’s grip is too tight to fight in the angle he’s trapped me.
“Oh fuck,” I curse. “Get off.”
“Tell me why we’re hugging.”
“He made up with Jade.” Levi’s breath is short from being crushed.
“He did!” Dean’s toothbrush finally drops from his mouth and bounces off someone’s boot.
I pinch Levi’s arm. He jerks and swears.
“Loyalty, Levi.”
“He is being loyal.” Dean hits me upside the back of the head. “To the brotherhood.”
“Can I get out of the brotherhood, please?” But I’m surprised I’m not as serious as I once was.
The door creaks again.
“Oh shit,” Levi mutters.
“Who died?” Wyatt’s half-dressed, eating a granola bar.
“No one died.” I try to hit Dean with my shoulder, but he nuzzles it like the freak he is.
“We’re just hugging it out?” Wyatt folds his arms over his front in an observing stance.
“Hart made up with Jade.” Dean the blabbermouth, and I’m not surprised.
“Way to go, big guy,” Wyatt says.
“Bring it in.” When Dean lifts his hand to wave over Wyatt, I start to wiggle free, but Wyatt’s body closes in and slides into the mass.
“We like it tight,” Dean says, and Wyatt squeezes.
“Fuck,” I say.
“Shit,” Levi adds.
“Did you cry?” I swear Dean is somehow stroking my hair.
“Don’t answer that.” My snark is directed at Levi.
“He cried.” Dean pats my head.
“Make it stop,” I beg. “Y’all are bringing back grumpy Hart.
“This is getting weird,” Levi tries to reach for the flipper.
The greasy scent thickens like the eggs are beginning to burn.
“It got weird the second Dean moaned.”
“I did not moan.”
“You absolutely moaned.” Wyatt’s head is so close to pressing against mine.
The door opens again.
Bronx steps in, blinking at us. Don’t know why I keep getting a door view. It’s all the stumbling and wiggling. And right now, I wish I were facing any other direction. Bronx’s slippers are cactus-shaped, and he’s wearing nothing but briefs.
“You guys.” He beams a smile. “Hug circle.”
“No—” Wyatt starts, and I feel him ease off, but it’s too late.
Bronx gallops forward, his slippers squeaking. He launches himself into the already overstuffed hug. His entrance knocks Levi into the counter.
“Shit.”
“Mmmm,” Bronx says dreamily. “This is what the womb must’ve felt like.”
All at once, the entire group explodes apart.
“Jesus, Bronx.” Wyatt yelps, stumbling backward into a stool.
Levi lets out a strangled laugh, nearly doubled over. “Why are you like this?” He struggles to take the pan off the burner.
“I’m just honest.” Bronx itches his balls through the thin material of his briefs. “Also, I’m not convinced one of ya’ll didn’t just whisper ‘embrace me, brother’.”
We all curse, and that’s when Hope walks out of the bedroom. Her hands hold her belly, and she smiles warily at all of us. Before she can ask what we’re doing, I hug her too—gently.
“Oh. Hart. Good morning.” She stiffens under me.
“Welcome to the family, Hope. I’m sorry I didn’t say it sooner.”
For a year, the tension between us has been a silent crack running through our family. I want to mend that crack.
“Thank you,” she says.
“Alright, get off my wife.” Levi hauls me off. “He made up with Jade.”
Her eyes light up. “You did?”
I nod. “And we’re playing hooky, together. So tell our folks and town council we’re sick.”
An hour later, Jade and I are loaded in my Ma’s truck and heading into town.
I keep stealing glances at her, staring at her. I can’t believe she’s here, that we’re together, on good terms.
Plus, she is so fucking gorgeous, and I get to look without feeling the shame of wanting what I can’t have.
“You’re staring again.” She glances at me, her ponytail bouncing.
She didn’t wear her Stetson today. I miss it. But it gives me a clearer view of her hazel eyes, the soft curve of her jaw, and the delicate line of her neck—all of her right here in the open. And damn if she isn’t the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
I clear my throat. “Can’t help it.”
“Is that what you’re going to tell your mama after you crash her truck?”
“Yup. I’ll own it. Tell her I was staring creepily at a Fox.”
“I bet she’ll take that real well.”
I shrug and stare out the front window again.
“You know, no one believed we were both sick.” Her hands rest on our bucket list on her lap.
Finally, with the rightful owners.
“Yeah, well, that bucket list item was written back when two teens were planning to fake sick and skip school, so I’d say we’re as close to crossing it off as we’re ever gonna get.”
“Except the second part.” Her voice is hesitant.
Our eyes lock again.
Knowing.
Wanting.
But it’s too soon. It’s way too damn soon.
I shift in my seat, clearing my throat. “Hiding out in a barn loft until school ended is one thing, but I always thought sex in a loft of hay would be rather itchy.”
Her lips purse. “We made out in a loft of hay.”
The memory is embedded in my head.
“We had our clothes on.” I hope to hell I sound controlled. “Take the clothes off, there are a whole lot of opportunities for hay rash.”
My eyes flicker to the road, then back to hers. Her gaze is electric, bold, but still guarded. I can’t wait until that invisible shield comes down, when the uncertainty between us fades, and we’re just...us again.
“I think that would add to the experience.” There’s that sexual spark of the girl I used to know.
I run my tongue along the inside of my lip to keep from suggesting we find that hay bale, get naked, and spend the day together making out with the possibility of getting hay rash.
My hands would love to slide over every curve and dip of her rough denim legs.
To linger at her hips, glide over the fabric of her shirt, bunching the material, without removing it.
To cup her breasts through the cotton, pinch her nipples, and rub the warmth between her legs, knowing the denim barrier would both frustrate and excite her.
An old-school make-out session, like behind the theatre’s curtain, sounds fucking amazing.
I drag my gaze back to the road. “I thought we should start small. Like a secret tattoo.” My fingers drum the steering wheel. “We can kill two birds with one stone, considering the second part is the secret place.”
It involves neither of us touching each other. It’s one of the very few in the list.
Her boots tap lightly against the floorboard; her mouth twitches as if she’s holding back a smile.
“First off, a tattoo is not small. Second off”—she looks at me—“I already have a secret tattoo.”
I blink multiple times before I remember I’m driving, but I catch that smug little grin of hers just before my eyes have to focus on the morning traffic.
“Where?”
She shrugs like it’s nothing. “It’s a secret.”
“It’s our secret,” I shoot back.
She looks out the windshield. “I’m not telling you.”
“Then show me.”
She laughs, shaking her head.
“I’m only ten percent joking.” My fingers tighten around the wheel.
“You want me to pull my pants down right here?”
I choke.
She laughs.
“It’s in my nether region,” she says.
Oh fuck me now.
I let out a low growl and shift in my seat. Not subtle, apparently, because she bursts out laughing again.
“You can get one and I’ll watch,” she suggests between giggles.
“As tempting as that sounds, I already have one.”
“What?” She twists to face me fully now. “Where?”
I crack a grin. “It’s a secret.”
She narrows her eyes, leaning her shoulder against the seat. “You’re lying.”
I let the smile fade. “I promise to never lie to you again.”