Page 50 of Just My Type
My mom smiles, untangling herself from me and sliding an arm around Cooper’s waist. “I know, honey. Who do you think taught you that particular skill?”
Cooper wraps an arm around her shoulder and plants a kiss on her head. “I learned from the best.”
“It’s a parent’s prerogative to shed tears any damn time they want, Cooper. One of these days you’ll be a parent, and you’ll understand.” Cece makes her pronouncement as she sweeps into the house with a smile, rainbow caftan billowing around her legs and massive blue tote bag slung over her shoulder.
Cooper makes a face. “Let’s not rush that day.”
Cece shrugs, leaning up to kiss Cooper’s cheek and then mine. “You never do know how these things will go.”
“Can you imagine Cooper with a kid?” Jordan chuckles as he walks in with his arm around Jo, followed by Elliot and Amelia. “Horror show.”
Cece puts her hands on her hips, studying Cooper with a glint in her eye. “Yes, I can imagine it quite well, actually.”
Jo hugs my mom. “Thanks for having us, Pam.”
“Oh, honey, it’s my greatest pleasure. Especially now that my sons have started bringing me daughters.” She lets me and Cooper go and links arms with Jo and Amelia.
Elliot leans down and kisses my mom on the cheek. “It’s almost like you like the girls better than you like us.”
My mom gives him a sly smile. “Don’t be ridiculous, El. I absolutely like them better than you and they have to put up with the heathens I raised, so in my book, they’re perfect.”
“We are perfect, aren’t we,” Amelia says, grinning at Elliot.
He leans down to kiss Amelia, smiling against her lips. “No doubt about it, Mystery Girl.”
“Where’s Hannah?” Everyone turns to me when I ask the question. She rode here from graduation with Jordan and Jo, but I haven’t seen her yet. I’ve had one eye on the door for the last five minutes, but there’s no sign of her, and I’m starting to get antsy. Now that I know how she feels in my arms, it’s like my tolerance for being apart from her has shrunk to nothing.
Jo shrugs casually, entirely oblivious to my need to attach my mouth to her sister’s mouth as soon as possible. “Her phone started blowing up when we got out of the car. She stayed outside to check it.”
My family starts to drift back towards the kitchen, where I can hear the sounds of my dad getting dinner ready, but I stay where I am, my gaze drifting to the front door, willing Hannah to appear.
“You should go check on her.” I turn to see Cece studying me with that look she gets when she knows something we don’t know. Which is always.
“You think? Maybe she needs some privacy or something.”
“Noah, you haven’t hesitated to get in that girl’s way since she showed up here six months ago. Why are you hesitating now?”
I blow out a breath because she’s not wrong. “It’s…a little different now.” I say the words without thinking them through, but I realize the truth of them immediately. Between accidentally getting married and Hannah agreeing to let me help her with her writing by spending time together, and now deciding to stay married for a while, and all the rest of it, my confidence is faltering just a little. I’m not sure I like this feeling at all.
Cece gives me an uncharacteristically soft smile. “Because suddenly you’re close to having everything you’ve ever wanted.”
I realize the truth of those words too. “Yes. It’s important. She’s important. I’m starting to realize exactly how much. I don’t want to mess it up, Cece.”
“You mean like by accidentally getting married in Las Vegas?”
My eighty-year-old grandma smirks at me, and I just stare at her incredulously. “How did you know?”
She shakes her head, giving me a disappointed look. “Noah, honey, you’re thirty years old. You should know by now that I know everything. Besides, you have a very married aura about you. And don’t think I missed the two of you sneaking off earlier tonight at your graduation. I see everything, too.”
“Are you sure you’re not a witch?”
“Honey, I’m not sure of that at all. Go out there and get in her way, Noah, and then bring her in here to spend time with family. She needs that. She needs you. And I think you need her too.”
“I do need her. I didn’t realize how much until recently, but I do. I think…” I pause and then think, what the hell. Cece knows everything anyway. “I think maybe she’s it for me.”
Cece pats my shoulder. “No maybes about it. That girl was made for you. But she’s been through a lot, Noah. She needs patience and kindness and a whole lot of love.”
“I have it for her. I swear I do.”
