Page 52 of Just My Type
I chuckle, loving the way she feels next to me. “I know you do. I have an idea, if you want to hear it.”
She groans, but it’s playful. “Another one?”
I sit up, turning to face her. “Hear me out. How much time do you have before you have to get back to your agent?”
“I don’t know exactly, but I’ve got some time. The publishing wheels move slowly.”
I nod. “Okay. Put it away for tonight, Han. Let’s go inside and have dinner with my family. There is almost nothing in the world that can’t be cured by some Wyles family shenanigans.”
“I actually think it’s possible that this particular problem might only be able to be cured by the hijinks of one particular Wyles.” Hannah looks at me with a small smirk on her face, and I love to see it.
I grin at her. “You’re talking about me, right?”
“Yeah, and I don’t know what it means that I can only write when you’re around. I’m not sure if I like it.”
I steal a Twizzler, tossing it in my mouth. “It just means you’ll have to keep me for longer.”
“And when I go back to Pittsburgh and don’t have you around anymore?”
My gut twists when she mentions leaving, and everything in me wants to tell her not to go back. That her life is here now. With me. With us. But it’s way too soon for that, so I go for casual. “Do you have plans to go back?”
She shakes her head. “Not yet.”
“Then we don’t worry about that today. Come on, Han. Come have dinner. Be with your sister and your friends. Be with me. Let my mom and Cece fuss over you a little and let my dad feed you. Then tomorrow, we’ll deal with whatever comes next.”
“Wehuh?” Hannah asks, not looking at all like she hates that idea.
I nod. “Definitely we. We’re a we now. Hannah and Noah. The dream team.”
She laughs, and the sound is the most beautiful music. “I don’t know what it is about you, but I think you’re exactly what I need. Thanks for coming out to rescue me from my thought spiral.”
“Gorgeous, I will always be here to rescue you. I think you’re exactly what I need too.”
I stand from the swing and hold out a hand, smiling when she slides her fingers into mine. And together, we go inside for family dinner.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
HANNAH
“Okay Hans, avoidance time is over. What the fuck is going on between you and Noah?” Jo takes a roasting stick from the pile by the fire pit and plops down next to me in one of the Adirondack chairs around the Wyles’ backyard firepit. Grabbing the bag of marshmallows from my lap, she loads up her stick and shoves it straight into the flames.
“Jesus, Jo Jo, you’re going to light the whole thing on fire.”
She shrugs, popping a marshmallow in her mouth. “You know I have no patience for slow roasting. I need instant gratification. And I also know you’re using my inability to wait for a s’more as a delay tactic. Spill it, Hans.”
“Are we spilling about Noah?” Amelia bounces over and loads up her own stick, holding it over the fire like the slow roasting champion she is. “I’ve been dying to ask, but I thought maybe it wasn’t my place. But if Jo is asking, I am too.”
Jo yanks her burning marshmallows out of the fire and blows them out, assembling her s’more in a haphazard kind of chaos that has my hands twitching to fix it for her, and grinning at me like she knows it’s driving me crazy. “Oh, I’m definitely asking,and I plan to be a super annoying little sister about it. Tell me everything, Hans. I’ve been waiting so patiently.”
“But have you really?” I ask wryly. “I don’t think you and patience exist in the same universe.”
“Is it gossip o’clock? I’ve been waiting all night for this.” Pam comes over before Jo can answer me and drops a kiss on my head, then on Jo’s and Amelia’s before taking the chair across from me, glass of wine in hand. I get warm all over from her easy affection. The way she always makes me feel like a part of her family, even though I’m not really. Not like Jo is. I’m not even here permanently. “The boys are all over there drooling and making man noises over the riding lawnmower Rob got. I love those guys, but I can’t even fake excitement over something as boring as that. So, while they’re otherwise engaged, I think Hannah has some news for us.”
“Pammy, Hannah doesn’t have to tell us anything she doesn’t want to.” Cece takes the seat next to Pam and gives me a big smile. “But I really hope you want to because the looks my grandson was giving you during dinner were definitely not friendly looks.”
“Do you really need gossip?” I ask her. “I thought you knew all the things.”
Cece shrugs, tearing open new marshmallows and eating them straight from the bag. “Like I always say, the information I need comes to me in a multitude of ways, and right now, the information I need is going to come from you.”
