Page 73 of Just My Type
I press a line of kisses up her leg, running my tongue over the sensitive skin behind her knee and grinning against her when she sucks in a breath. Then I roll over onto my back, looking up at her. “What I meant to say was, I had been a little bit obsessed with you for years, and sharing secrets with you up on the roofmade that first night the best night of my life until this night right now. That’s why having the same snack feels right.”
Hannah screws the cap back on the peanut butter jar and sets it aside, taking a sip from the Twizzler straw dunked in her Sprite can before laying down next to me, her head close to mine. Her vanilla scented shampoo surrounds me, and I love the solid feel of her body next to mine. The Common is quiet, the Carousel dark and silent and deliciously spooky, the sky above us studded with stars. It feels like we are the only people in the universe.
“It is right,” Hannah says, leaning her head against mine. “Everything about this night is right. What did you let out in your scream?” she asks, taking me by surprise.
“What?”
Hannah rolls her head towards me. “Your primal scream. I unloaded like three years worth of trauma and resentment. What about you?”
I turn my head towards her, running a finger over her cheek. “My job starts in a month.”
She nods. “It does. How does that make you feel? I know you mentioned being scared. Are you still?”
I laugh a little. “Yeah, still.”
Hannah leans up and kisses my forehead. “Tell me.”
I close my eyes for a second, wanting to capture the way it feels for her to kiss me like that. Casually, the way I always hoped she would. The look in her eyes when she’s focused on me. It’s everything I ever wanted, and it’s right here. She’s right here. I’m the luckiest guy in the world.
“Being a resident is weird,” I start. “At first, it’s all about survival. You work bananas hours, and your nights and days get all messed up to the point that time ceases to have any meaning at all. Every surgery is monumental because it’s something you’ve never seen, and every time you get to do something you haven’t done before, it’s exciting. But my residency was six years long because I graduated from dental school, but my goal was alwaysto get an MD and specialize in maxillofacial surgery, so eventually, it all becomes pretty routine. There are really complex cases, and that’s awesome, but you get used to it over the years. There’s no room for complacency when you have people’s lives in your literal hands, but it does become routine.”
“You get comfortable,” Hannah says, a look of understanding on her face.
I nod. “It’s exactly that. Six years is also a long fucking time. Jordan and Jo’s wedding wasn’t the only reason I negotiated a fall start date. I also needed the time. I could feel the burnout looming during my last six months. I love oral surgery. God, I love it so much, but I was also tired. So fucking tired, and I felt like if I held another scalpel or scrubbed into another surgery, I would lose my mind. It’s not just the fact that I’ll be in charge that scares me. What if I’m not ready? What if the summer isn’t enough time and I get to the hospital in September, and all those feelings come back? I guess I just wonder if I’m good enough for the next step. It feels like if I was a real surgeon, I would be counting the minutes until I could be back in the OR. I would be giving the entire world the finger and marching into that hospital all,I’m back bitches. I know I’m a real surgeon. I’ve been training for this for more than a decade. But there’s still that little corner of my brain that wonders if I really belong there. In charge and all that shit. Anyway, I guess I screamed out that.”
Hannah traces her finger over the back of my hand. “Did it work?”
I consider that, realizing that yeah, it kind of did. “Weirdly, yes. Also, what I didn’t tell you is that even though I’m still low key terrified, I’m like fifty percent less terrified than I was that first night on the roof.”
“Yeah?”
“Definitely. I know when we set out on this little adventure, I promised to help you get your writing groove back, but I didn’t realize how much I needed this too. How maybe I also needed to get my own groove back after six years of grinding. And doingit with you? Han, the last couple months have been…” I trail off, trying to figure out how to sum up the time I’ve spent with her in some coherent way. What it’s meant to me.
“The best ever?” she says quietly.
I roll closer, capturing her mouth with mine, kissing her deeply and with every feeling I can’t figure out how to put into words. “The best ever.”
Hannah smiles against my lips. “Fifty percent less terrified is pretty good. How do we get you the rest of the way there?”
I snicker. “I could call you my wife some more.”
She rolls back to her back and laughs up at the sky. “You know, at some point you’re going to slip up and call me your wife in front of everyone. You should probably cut that shit out.”
I inch closer to her, the sides of our bodies pressed together as we both stare up at the sky. “Never. Besides, would it be the worst thing if everyone knows?” Keeping it a secret doesn’t bother me, but I send the question up there like a little test ballon, curious what she’ll say.
Hannah stays silent for a second, and I can practically hear the wheels turning in her head. “I guess I don’t want to be a punchline. I spent so many years not being taken seriously by the person who was supposed to be closest to me. The person who was supposed to love me. So, the idea of everyone knowing I’m a romance author who got drunk and got accidentally married in Vegas like the actual main character of one of her books? The cliché makes me twitchy.”
I take her hand, lacing our fingers together. “You know you didn’t get drunk and get married alone. I was there too.”
Hannah gives me a wry smile. “Oh, I know. We have the picture to prove it.”
I turn on my side to face her, propping my head up on my hand. “I would never tell anyone if you don’t want people to know, but I can promise you that no one—not my family or yours—would ever think of you as a punchline. My family loves you, and my mom already thinks of you as one of hers. Andanyway, that’s just not what family does. Especially now that we’re…” I slam my mouth shut and snap my gaze to Hannah’s. She’s biting her cheek to keep from laughing, green eyes sparkling in the glow of the lanterns on the path.
“Now that we’re what?” she asks, her voice full of amusement.
“I’m not exactly sure what the right answer is to that question,” I say wryly.
Hannah smirks at me, and the lightness in her post-primal scream makes me want to cuddle her up. “Because you don’t know what we are, or because you’re afraid if you say out loud what you hope we are, I’ll run for the hills?”
