Chapter 14
Fourteen
Sean
Aside from the sound of music playing through the speakers, the drive on the way to the hospital is quiet.
Hannah looks out the window, no doubt in her head, her knee bouncing up and down uncontrollably.
I reach over, placing my hand on her thigh, and rub my thumb back and forth in a soothing motion.
“Are you okay?”
“No. I’m not okay.” She buries her head in her hands and groans.
“God, it’s going to be awkward . . . A literal shitshow.
I’m about to do a walk of shame in front of my father, and no offense, but we both know he’s not your biggest fan.
Dammit . . . you and your big fat mouth, Sean. Why did you do that?”
Because I’m sick and tired of her feeling the need to tiptoe around her father.
And I’m fed-up with people walking all over her and expecting her to put their feelings above her own.
It’s time she stands on her own two feet and does whatever the hell she wants to do without worrying about pissing off her father or anybody else for that matter.
I don’t tell her what’s running through my head, of course, because it won’t help my case, and voicing my opinion isn’t going to ease her mind, so instead I say, “Your dad and I are good, Rebel. I had his approval before I hit the end button on the call. We’re done hiding behind lies and secrets, sneaking around like teenage children. That shit is over.”
I know I sound hypocritical. I’ve been railroading the shit out of her, but you know what? I never claimed to be a fucking saint. If I thought she didn’t want me anymore, I’d leave her alone, but while her mouth tells me one thing, her body tells me another. She wants me back.
“I told you that us fucking wasn’t going to change anything.”
“You're right. It didn’t change anything Rebel, it changed everything.”
“But—”
“No buts. I have half a mind to hold a press conference, so everyone nationwide knows who you belong to.” I look over and smirk, giving her thigh a playful squeeze.
She rolls her eyes, and it makes me want to pull off the highway, bend her over, and redden that pretty ass.
“You’re insufferable, you know that? Here’s an idea: whip out your dick and piss all around me.”
Tossing my head back, I bark out a laugh. “That can certainly be arranged. How did I ever think she was boring?”
“You thought I was boring?”
Oh, fuck. Did I really say that out loud? “No. I didn’t mean—”
“You meant it.”
The streetlamps above the highway illuminate her features as we pass them, and that look on her face makes me swallow back bile.
Fuck. I’m such a dick.
“Okay, I confess, when I first met you, you seemed . . .” I trail off, searching for the right word that won’t sound insulting.
“I was shy. You’re . . . Well, you . . . and I’m just . . .” She trails off.
“Magnetic. Mysterious. Adventurous.”
Her breath caches, and when I look over, a smile grows on her lips, so I continue. “Beautiful. Smart. Wild. Dangerous. Brave. Charming—”
“Charming?” Her head rears back with a what the fuck look on her face. “I’m a far cry from charming.”
She definitely doesn’t see herself the way I see her.
“You can charm the pants off a priest, Rebel. You’ve had me in a trance since the night of Cal and Aspen’s wedding. It’s just that you were so fucking quiet and innocent the first time we met.”
“Because there was this insanely hot guy that I was being set up with, and I was a virgin.”
“It’s lucky for every male breathing that I was the one to rectify that situation. Thinking about you with someone else makes me murderous.”
“You’re ridiculous.” She tosses her hands up.
“I would’ve done it much sooner had I not made assumptions about you.” Grabbing her hand, I kiss her knuckles. “I have a lot of regrets, but my biggest one is breaking your heart. I’m sorry, baby. I was an asshole.”
“You’re still an asshole. The only reason why you want me now is because I was starting to move on.”
“No. The reason I want you now is because I finally moved on.” I cast a glance in her direction when she doesn’t say anything and find her looking at me in disbelief. “Okay, fine. Yes, when you said you were with Nate, it lit a fire to my ass, but I was already well on my way to make my move.”
“If we’re having a confession session, I guess I should admit that I lied. There hasn’t been anyone but you.”
“What about that guy you brought to the gala?”
“Nothing ever happened with Spencer. I only brought him to Cal’s gala to make you jealous.”
My head whips around, and my jaw drops. “Well fucking played, Rebel. I was jealous, and he was a goddamn tool.”
“He was. That’s the only time we ever went out, and he didn’t even get so much as a kiss on the cheek goodbye at the end of the night.”
“My heart breaks for him,” I sarcastically remark.
Laughing, she playfully slaps my arm and says, “Okay, your turn.”
I think on it for a few seconds. “The ring I used to wear on my index finger was my wedding ring.”
“No.”
“Yes. It was a reminder to never let another woman in. Any time you’d make me feel something, I’d fiddle with it, trying to ward off whatever witchy juju love spell shit you were trying to cast on me.” She tosses her head back and laughs as I continue, “Didn’t fucking work.”
“Where is it now?”
“Don’t even know. I tossed the damn thing out the window a few days after I picked you up from Nate’s club.”
“Oh.”
“Your turn,” I press when she doesn’t offer up her next confession.
“I can't think of anything that you don’t know about me. Um . . . I never trained for wing slut lying,” she spouts off so fast that her words run together and I don’t quite catch what she said.
“Say that again?”
She releases a sigh. “I said. ‘I never trained for wingsuit flying’.”
My heart stops. I flip on my blinker, take the next exit off the highway, then pull over onto a side street.
Shifting the gear into park, I rest my head back against the seat and close my eyes tight.
My jaw clinches so hard I can practically hear my molars breaking.
I’m caught between being fucking furious that she put herself in danger like that and relieved that she’s alive to tell the fucking story.
“What are you doing, Sean? We need to get to the hospital!”
“No.”
“But—”
“Give me just a minute,” I rasp, trying to reel in my emotions with the memory of that day flashing behind my closed eyelids.
The parachute all twisted up, her struggling to untangle the cords, the way she hit the ground. My stomach ties in knots, and my chest tightens to the point I can't fucking breathe.
“?Qué chingados!”
(What the fuck!)
God. She could’ve died. I rub the ache in my chest.
“Sean?”
I hold my hand up to stop her from talking while I calm the fuck down. Goddamn, reliving that memory scares the fuck out of me. It takes a while for me to collect myself, but once I’m sure I have my head on straight, I open my eyes and turn in my seat to face her.
“I’m sorry,” she rushes out. “I didn’t think you’d get mad.”
“I. Am. Fuming. You could’ve died. You said you trained. You lied to me.”
Unbuckling her seatbelt, she clambers over the console, and as she does, I press the button to move my seat back, knowing she’s heading in my direction to sit in my lap.
“I’m so sorry,” she says, burying her head into my neck. “I know it was stupid and reckless . . .”
“And dangerous, not to mention illegal.”
I’m down for her doing whatever the hell she wants, but not at the cost of her life.
“All of that too.” She agrees, sitting back and looking at me with pleading eyes.
She hates it when people are upset with her and I hate it when she looks at me like that. Everything I’m thinking and feeling seems to fly right out the window. Not this time.
“Tell me how you learned to wingsuit fly and fix your parachute like that when the cords tangled up.”
“Sean . . .”
“Tell me how you learned, Hannah. If you didn’t take the courses and didn’t get your license, how did you learn?”
She stares at me in silence, so I press again. “Tell. Me.”
“YouTube?”
Mother fuck.
She did not say that. I know I imagined those words coming out of her mouth because my Hannah is too fucking smart to pull some shit like that.
I close my eyes again. Dammit, she went too far.
I’m trying to keep my temper in fucking check.
All I want to do is get out of this truck and put some space between us, but I’m not leaving her in here alone for a second.
“I just wanted to feel alive. To feel a rush. You know? To feel fucking something. Anything. I have two weeks! Two fucking weeks, Sean, before I lose everything!”
I want to tell her that modern medicine is giving her a chance at everything.
She can still be a mom, maybe not conventionally, but it can still happen with adoption.
For me, it’s not about the how, it’s about the outcome.
And if she wants, she can still have reconstructive surgery, not that I think she needs it because she doesn’t, but if that’s what she feels she needs to do to make herself feel better, I’m behind her.
How can I tell her all of that? How can I tell her she’s looking at this the wrong way?
I can’t and I won’t. It’s impossible for me to understand the complex emotions she’s going through.
I’m not a woman. I’ll never know what it’s like to give up what she’s giving up just for a fighting chance to live.
Even after all of this, she could still get cancer. She could still die. That’s the shitty part. Hannah’s taking a gamble, but the way I see it, even though she’s putting her body and mind through all of this, she's not acting as though her risk is worth the reward.
I can still hear the sound of the rocks tumbling off the cliff, clanking against the canyon wall. Smell the dirt in the air. The way she looked at me right before she jumped. The words she spoke.
“See you on the other side.”
Was that a double meaning? Surely fucking not.
My eyes fly back open, and as bile climbs its way up my throat, I double down with a gamble of my own.
Reaching up, I thumb away the tears from her high cheek bones.
Her long thick lashes flutter, causing another tear to drop and trickle down along the side of her nose as I cradle her cheeks in the palms of my hands.
“If you don’t stop this shit, I’m going to be the one to lose everything! Do you understand that? You. Are. Everything. You are my life, and you’re testing my fucking luck like a goddamn game of Russian roulette! I understand you want to feel alive, but I need you to stay alive.”
She heaves a few breaths, and her face crumples.
Goddammit. Way to keep yourself in check, fucker.
I wrap my arms around her—pulling her into my chest—and my fingers thread into her curls.
“I’m an asshole, I know. Fear doesn’t make me gentle, baby, it makes me fucking desperate and ruthless. Please don’t back me into a corner, because I will fight for you, even when you won’t fight for yourself, and we both know I won’t be fair about it.”
We sit there for a while, holding each other while her tears spill onto my shirt. “Just a little speedbump, sweetheart. We’re okay.”
Her body shakes against mine. “I’m s-sorry that I scared y-you. I’m so sorry.”
I squeeze her a little tighter. “All is good. We’re good. Okay? Promise me. No más. You’re done putting your life in danger.” I tilt her chin up, and when she nods, I place a kiss to her lips, then give her ass a little tap. “Now, up-up buttercup, we need to go.”
Her phone rings as she plops back down into the passenger seat, and I cast my eyes over to the cup holder where her phone rests, her dad’s name lighting up the screen.
Hannah looks at me, then back at her phone as if trying to decide whether to answer it or not.
When she doesn’t make a move, I grab the phone and place it on speaker, then reach over and buckle her in.
“Hey, Coach.”
“What’s taking you so long?”
I glance over at Hannah as I try to decide what to tell him, then focus back on the road and put the truck in drive. “We had a minor setback, but we’re not far. Do you need anything while we’re out?”
The line muffles with Coach asking if anyone needs anything, then Aiden’s voice hits my ears loud and clear.
“We need food. And not this vending machine shit. I’m talking a fat ass juicy burger .
. . only thing is we can’t eat in front of the bear.
She’s starving and grouchy as fuck. They’re only allowing her ice chips, so whatever you get, we’ll have to eat in the waiting room. ”
“Whoa. Doc actually let you in the room?” I ask.
“Of course. He’s too distracted to care that I’m here.
River’s been cussing him up one side and down the other.
She squeezed his hand so hard that he dropped to his knees like a big fucking titty baby.
And then, in a demon voice she said, ‘If you think you're getting more than two, think again, asshole. There will be no more after the twins,’” Aiden mocks as Hannah and I both laugh our asses off.
“I shit you not, Mac. It sounded like Satan’s voice came out her mouth from the fiery depths of hell.
Freaked me the fuck out. I’m never having kids.
I’ll just be the fun uncle. This whole labor thing is for the birds. ”
“You do know males can’t actually feel labor pains, right, Aiden?” Hannah asks.
“Oh, trust me. We’re all feeling it, darlin’. The force is strong in that one.”
Hannah and I look at each other before busting up again.
“Okay, Yoda, we’ll grab some food,” I say, handing the phone off to Hannah.
“Thanks, guys.”
She hangs up and then smiles at me. “You know what sounds really good right now?”
I reach over and take her hand, placing a few kisses on the back of it. “Bag fries?”
“You stay the hell out of my fries!”
“Hannah . . . I’ve missed you.”
Her entire face lights up, and her smile widens.
Yeah, she might not say it back, but she’s missed me too. And the way she climbed into my lap goes to show I’m chipping away at her resolve. She can keep telling herself and everybody else that we’re not together. Her denial isn’t a rejection; it’s a challenge. One I don’t plan on losing.