Page 40 of Heart Strings & Hotlines
“My narrator’s quiet, still there of course, counting, but whispering instead of shouting.”
“Your what now?”
I glare at him. I don’t like being made fun of. “My narrator. In my head? You know, the thing that announces everything I’m doing and everything I need to do before I do it.”
His face is blank. There’s no flashcard for it.
“When you say narrator, do you mean like in the movies? You have a voice that talks to you all the time?”
“Of course I do.” I move to the window, ready to put Hercules in her pen, but stop before I reach the dog crate. Angling my head to the side, I study his face. “Don’t you?”
Slowly he shakes his head.
Just as slowly, something explodes in my mind. What does he mean he doesn’t have a narrator? How does he move from one task to the next?
“Thane, I know you’ve been resistant to this, but?—”
“I don’t need to go through testing for someone to tell me I’m different, or what kind of different, or put me on a scale and say I’m half this and one part of another. I know how my mind works. I don’t need a piece of paper telling the world to give me preferential treatment. I’ve never had it, and I don’t expect it in the future. I manage just fine.”
“It’s not for the world. It’s for you. What if there were tools that made your day easier or less…noisy? What if?—”
“What if they tell me I’m different and everything my father ever said to me is true?”
I hadn’t meant to say that. I hadn’t even known I thought it. But now that it’s out there, I know it’s true.
“I’m thirty-two years old, Rafe. I’ll do whatever kind of hocus pocus you and Lottie require of me to help Kara, but I don’t need a label to tell me who I am, or how I process things. Okay? I know that I’m different. I’ve accepted it. I’m good with it, even.”
My head pounds with exhaustion. Opening the crate door to Hercules’s little bed, I rearrange the blankets and toys but don’t put her in it yet. I’ll wait until Rafe leaves.
When I stand and face him, Rafe throws himself at me like a desperate date from hell.
“You’re the best kind of different I’ve ever known, Thane.”
I grip his shoulders to hold him back, so he doesn’t squash the dog.
“I want you to understand your greatness too,” he tells me.
Shoving him off, I head downstairs to let Hercules outside. But I call back up the stairs, “Do I look like someone who doesn’t understand that I’m the king of my castle, Rafe? A lack of self-confidence is not one of the many issues I have.”
His laughter follows me, and against all odds, I feel my lips curl up.
This started as a night from hell, but it’s ending on a ray of hope I’m not sure I’ve ever felt before.
All because of Charlotte Sinclair.
CHAPTERTEN
LOTTIE
“Shut. Up.”Jenni smacks her bubble gum between her lips.
She’s my closest friend in Sweetbriar, even though she’s almost twenty years older than I am, living her best life and dating like a rock star.
I spare a quick glance at Kara. She’s chatting away with Jenni’s twenty-year-old niece, Abbi, who graduated from cosmetology school a few months ago and is currently working on Kara’s hair.
I’d meant to have Jenni do it, but I saw the hearts in Kara’s eyes the second she saw Abbi, and I figured she could use some girl time with someone at least a little closer to her age. Plus, it gave me a chance to catch up with my friend.
“I told you to be quiet,” I hiss. “The last thing Kara needs is to hearallmy thoughts about her big brother.”
