Chapter 15
she kept it
Rowan
Hannah gathers her wits enough to put her address in the GPS for me once we’re on the main road. Puking in the alley sobered her up some, but she’s still tipsy. Thankfully, with the parking lot in the rearview, some of the heaviness seems to have lifted.
For now.
“Oh my god!” Hannah shrieks, and I jolt from possible cardiac arrest.
“What is it?”
She leans toward the dash, eyeing the digital clock with a concerning level of contempt. “Is it really eleven-thirty?”
“Appears so.”
Slumping back, she groans. “I have to be up in six hours.”
“Maybe you should take a personal day tomorrow.”
Her lip curls in a grimace. “Ew. I don’t take personal days.”
I pull to a stop at a red light, level her with a look as serious as what I’m about to say. “Take the personal day, Hannah.”
Something haunted flickers in her dark golden eyes. I hold her gaze through it.
Her throat bobs. “I’m fine.” She turns toward the passenger window. Conversation over. I accelerate through the intersection and grit my teeth, holding back everything else I want to say.
You’re not fine. Please talk to me…or somebody. Anybody.
“Tell me something real.” Hannah’s soft voice pierces the nervous hum of the tires over the road. I glance at her. Head lolled toward me on her headrest, she looks sleepy.
A thousand memories swoop by in high definition. Five-year-old snapshots as vivid today as they were in real time.
“Something real,” I parry, stretching the silence to find just the right response. “When I do shooting practice, I imagine GEM’s face on my target.”
My side-eye lingers long, smile fighting to contain itself.
It takes a second for my words to land, but when they do, her laugh is reckless and full and everything this night shouldn’t be—light, easy, joyful.
If this is the only way she’ll let me help, then I’ll make it my life’s purpose to make her smile like that.
For the next two weeks at least. Because I can’t stay. The reality sobers my mood on a dime.
Her laughter fades to a simmer as she retrieves her phone from her purse. “That reminds me, I need to call my mom.”
My head snaps toward her. “Your mom?”
Confusion sweeps her face for half a second before she sucks in a quiet breath. My favorite smile comes back. “Oh, yeah. She didn’t die.”
I shouldn’t laugh, but the giddy look on her face makes it impossible.
She hisses through her teeth. “Sorry. Apparently alcohol makes me a morbid comedian. Honestly? Mom would be proud.”
My attention battles with itself, caught between her and the road as I try to make sense of her comment while she laughs at her own joke. Last I knew, her mom’s cancer treatment wasn’t working.
Reading my mind, she clarifies. “Not long after we met the first time, her doctor got her in a new medical trial and it worked. She beat it.”
Hannah blinks slowly at her screen like she can’t interpret all the icons and numbers.
“That’s incredible.”
“Whoa, there soldier.” She lobs a hand within an inch of my face without looking up from her phone. “Hate to burst your bubble, but she’s definitely dying now.”
My expression sinks. And she’s…laughing again?
“Oh my god. Now I really have to call her. She lives for death humor.” One hand swipes under her eyes, her shoulders still bouncing through her fading amusement.
The laugh sounds natural, but I know it must be rooted in grief, only made light of through the haze of alcohol combined with the events of this evening she’s trying to pretend didn’t happen.
The GPS directs me off the main road and into a neighborhood. Hannah holds up a finger to silence me—I wasn’t making a sound, but whatever. She taps around her screen for a second, then holds the phone to her ear.
“Hello?” she asks, completely unaware she’s the one who made the call.
I chuckle and she backhands my arm.
“Mom, hi!” Swear to God, she’s gotten tipsier since making this call.
She nods along to whatever her mom says, humming every few seconds until I finally pull into her driveway. Turning off the car, I lean back in the seat, watching her for whatever comes next.
“Date ended hours ago, Mom. Rowan drove me home.” A pause, my brows arched in question.
“Not Daniel, Rowwwwan.” Her eyes drift shut, half delirious with booze and exhaustion.
“Daniel was a big bad pervy dude, but Rowan…” She pats my cheek, attempting a wink that looks more like a skittish triple blink.
“Rowan saved me. My knight in shining Ducati.” I dip my chin and fidget with my ball cap to hide my ridiculously smug grin. It’s not the time or place for that.
“No. Ducati, Mom. Knight in shining Ducati. You know what, never mind.” Long pause.
“I’m not drunk, I’m just a little tipsy.
” She gives me a finger gun. “He bought me alcohols, but it’s okay.
It’s okay because I drank water, too.” A hand curls around her mouth like she might whisper next.
But she doesn’t. Maybe she thinks she’s whispering? “Mom, he made me drink so much water.”
She props her feet on the dash. “Anyway, Rowan brought me home and—” She shakes her head, face distorting in disgust. “No, I don’t wanna talk about Daniel. That’s not why I called. I called because I made a death joke and I knew you’d wanna hear it.” Another proud chuckle. “Huh?”
Then she holds the phone out to me. “My mom wants to talk to you.”
Puppy-dog eyes and a cutesy grimace pin me to the spot. I take the phone because what the hell else am I supposed to do?
“Hello?”
“You’re Rowan?” Her mom’s voice is curt.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Tell me what happened with Daniel because obviously my daughter is masking.”
I toss my hat on the dash and rake a hand through my hair. “I think that’s something you should hear from her. But I assure you she’s safe and he won’t bother her again.”
Silence. I look over at Hannah. Legs now curled beneath her, she faces me, head resting against the seat.
“Thank you for protecting my little girl.”
“You’re welcome,” I answer, gaze locked on her daughter across the center console watching me with the softest eyes.
“Is she drunk?”
I grin. “No, ma’am. Just a little tipsy.”
Hannah scrunches her nose, nods her head.
“I assure you, Ms. James—”
“Lydia, please,” she interjects.
“Lydia, I’m here to make sure Hannah gets home safely. I promise.” She goes quiet again. “Is there something you’d like me to say or do to help ease your mind right now?”
“You have your cell phone, Rowan?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I need you to text me a picture of your driver’s license.”
I smother a laugh. “Yes, ma’am.”
“From your phone.”
A chuckle escapes. I know a strong mama bear when I see it. She won’t let me off this call until she has my number and all my personal information. “Yes, ma’am,” I oblige, pulling my phone and wallet from my pocket.
“Well, you are polite. I’ll give you that. I bet you were raised by a good woman.”
I swallow, clear my throat. “The best, ma’am.”
She hums, waiting as I type her number into my phone and send off the text with a picture of my I.D.
Hannah’s asleep now. I lower my voice to a whisper. “Did you get it?”
“I did. Don’t tell her, because she’ll insist I shouldn’t, but I’m coming over.”
“I think that’s a good idea.”
Lydia sighs and I hear the rustling of keys and footsteps. “Did he hurt her?”
I look at Hannah again. Lips parted slightly, eyes shut, but brows pinched—mask cracked just enough when she thinks nobody’s watching. “Yes, ma’am. But he won’t anymore. You have my word.”
My word means nothing to Lydia—she doesn’t know me—but she has it, regardless. I’ll take care of Daniel in my own way whether or not Hannah decides to report him.
A minute later, I end the call and climb out of the car.
When I open the passenger door, Hannah doesn’t stir.
I dig around her purse for her keys, then tuck it under my arm.
I shimmy her body around, moving to cradle her the way I did in the parking lot.
Her forehead falls to my shoulder and a quiet snore vibrates along my collarbone.
It takes some creative maneuvering, but I finally haul her out of her seat.
Her purse rests on her stomach, and I dangle her heels from the hand I have braced behind her back.
At the door, I try three keys in the deadbolt before I find the right one.
Hannah sleeps through all of it. Inside, I use my elbow to flip the nearest light switch and spot a hallway around the corner.
The room at the end has a queen-size bed and a nightstand littered with half-empty water glasses, a few books, a bottle of hand lotion, and at least five tubes of chapstick.
I get her situated safely on the mattress and place her belongings on the dresser. After taking the old water glasses to the kitchen and fetching a fresh one, I dig through the cabinet in her en suite bathroom until I find a bottle of ibuprofen.
“Hannah,” I whisper, sweeping the hair off her face. “Can you take these for me?”
Her lids flutter open, gaze catching on my face before dipping to the capsules in my hand. She tips them back and collapses to her pillow again.
I drop to my knees, eyes level with hers. “Do you need to use the bathroom?”
“Too tired,” she mumbles.
“What about your clothes? Do you wanna change?”
She shakes her head and opens one eye, gesturing to the chair in the corner. “Just hand me my sweatshirt.”
I tread over and find the gray hoodie draped over the arm rest. The black text across the front slams into my chest the second I turn it over in my hands. ARMY.
A lump forms in my throat. She kept it.
Back at her side, I coax her to a seated position and help her slide it on. She hides her face inside the neck like it’s the only place she feels safe. Sagging back to the pillow, she curls onto one side, knees tucked up to her stomach.
I don’t know what to make of what I see. Beautiful. A little bruised. Swallowed up by my sweatshirt I sure as hell don’t ever want back now.
“You didn’t ask me,” she says, voice groggy.
I settle on my haunches beside her. “Ask you what?”
“To tell you something real.”
One wrist breaks free of the sleeve as she shifts into a more comfortable position. I graze my thumb over the shadowed marks on her wrist. A muscle in my jaw ticks. “Tell me something real, runaway.”
The corner of her mouth lifts. Half asleep, she mutters, “I think about that night all the time.”
My heart thunders. “Me too.”