Chapter Twelve
Vik
“It was great seeing you both again,” Vivienne says, giving Hannah a big hug.
I wonder if she can smell the sex on her. She will be wondering if she’s lost her mind or if we’ve been up to no good.
It pleases me to think about it. Damn near brings a smile to my face.
Vivienne wasn’t the architect of my childhood misery, but she came into my life at the worst possible time. Any suffering inflicted on her is a deserved punishment for shacking up with the piece of shit I call Dad.
“And we’re sorry about stepping out for so long,” Dad adds. “But you know the Johnsons. Once they get started, you can’t turn them off.”
“It’s your birthday. You don’t have to apologize for anything.” Hannah shoulders the conversation, just as she always has. She’s spent her whole life playing peacemaker, and she’s become good at it.
I shake Dad’s hand, refusing another awkward hug. Vivienne wraps her arms around my waist, earning nothing more than a light pat on the shoulder. I’ve put in my hours in their home and around their dining table. Whatever pleasantries I once had to offer died a long time ago.
“Take care,” I say, leaving Hannah to finish the goodbyes while I climb into my car.
Then, she flops into the seat beside me, and I expect an earful about what happened upstairs.
She doesn’t give me one. She just smiles as we pull out of the driveway, waving at our parents as they wave back.
I shouldn’t be surprised.
Coming is a cure-all to almost every ailment. Mentally, at least. Getting your world rocked clears your mind and puts you at ease.
It definitely did for me.
We barely make it down the road before the fuel light starts blinking on the dashboard. I groan.
My meeting with X isn’t for another few hours, but I still have preparations to make. Small inconveniences like this have a habit of snowballing into much bigger problems.
“I need to stop for gas on the way home.”
“Sounds good,” Hannah says, still smiling.
I pass the first two gas stations, cutting it close before finally pulling into the third. Our parents only live an hour and a half away, but every minute I can shave off the journey matters.
I pull into a pump and climb out. I’ve barely got the nozzle into the fuel tank when Hannah’s door swings open and she hops out of the car.
“What are you doing?” I grind out, finding this small deviation from my plan irrationally irritating.
“I’m gonna run inside and grab something to drink,” she says. “Want anything?”
Twice now I’ve reached the same conclusion. And with every passing second, I regret my decision more. I can’t expect her to learn anything when the punishment benefits both of us. Making her scream in pleasure sends entirely the wrong message.
But it’s the choice I made. Now I have to live with it.
“No. Hurry.”
She scoffs and skips towards the shop without a care in the world.
I fucking love watching her leave.
Her pale legs disappear beneath that skirt, and knowing she never had time to clean herself up does dangerous things to my head. She’s been carrying the reminder of what happened between us ever since we left the house.
Then I notice I’m not the only one watching her.
A man parked behind me can’t take his eyes off her. His tongue drags across dry, cracked lips.
My fists clench.
Visiting my parents has left me on edge. Seeing another man looking at Hannah pushes me over it.
She’s mine.
Hannah takes her sweet time inside, giving him longer to stare. Eventually he gets back into his car and drives away, blissfully unaware how close he came to having his skull cracked on the pavement.
The sun hangs low in the sky. A glance at my watch tells me I’m running later than I’d like. Time wouldn’t matter if I didn’t have to get Hannah home first, but as it stands, I’m cutting my meeting uncomfortably close.
I look back towards the shop. Hannah’s already outside. But, instead of coming back to the car, she’s heading around the side of the building.
I finish filling the tank just as she disappears behind the wall.
Frustration mounting with every step, I storm after her.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I hiss, rounding the corner to find her hunched over a row of garbage cans.
I wouldn’t have been nearly as irritated if the sun were still high in the sky. But Hannah’s acting like an idiot who’d be shocked if she ended up getting raped behind a gas station.
“I heard something,” she says, glancing up at me. One hand remains buried between the garbage cans, fumbling with whatever she found.
“You wandered off on your own, in an unfamiliar place, because you heard something?” Saying it out loud only makes it sound more ridiculous.
“No, nothing like that.” She rolls her eyes. “I heard a meow.”
“A what?”
Hannah lifts her hands. Curled between them is the tiniest grey kitten.
It looks at me. I look at it.
I instantly know this is going to end badly.
“It’s time to leave, Hannah,” I say, trying to get ahead of the situation.
“Okay, but can we keep him?”
“Absolutely not.”
Hannah keeps me busy enough. The last thing I need is another living creature bringing chaos into my house.
“But he’s so cute.” She lifts the kitten a little higher. The tiny thing looks almost dejected, as though it somehow understands my objection to joining our family.
Instead of putting my foot down and dragging Hannah back to the car, I find myself weighing the pros and cons of bringing it home. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. Against all reason, I actually feel something for the miserable little thing.
In many ways, we’re the same. Abandoned when we needed someone most. Both left to fend for ourselves.
If anything, I admire its tenacity. All alone in the world, but it survived anyway. It found food. It found shelter among the filth. It lived when, by all rights, it should’ve died alone and afraid.
“I’ll take care of him too. You won’t even know he’s there if you don’t want to. He can stay in my room, and I—”
Her words carry very little weight.
The memory of this afternoon does. My obsession with Hannah has its disadvantages. It makes saying no to her far more difficult than it should be. Especially now that we’ve crossed another line.
And I rather like where we are.
“If I let you keep the cat, will you get back in the car?” I tug at the collar of my shirt. Whatever resolve I had slips with every request she makes. And I’m still on a deadline. My meeting is only a couple of hours away, and I’m not going to miss it because of a cat.
“Yes,” she says, clutching the kitten the way a mother cradles a newborn. “Anything at all.”
We drive home. Hannah spends the journey fawning over the kitten, laughing every time it does something remotely adorable.
She’s happy.
And all I can think about...
...is how perfect this would be if it were our child instead.