On her way past Fox, she set her paper bag down on the kitchen table and circled the room, her gaze finally landing on his locked cabinet. “Is she in there?”
Fox gulped. “Yes.”
Hannah made a wounded sound, pressing a hand to the center of her chest.
This was it. No escaping what came next. With the discovery of the record player locked up in the cabinet, she was going to know how often he thought of her. She’d know the best parts of his days were her text messages before bed. She’d know his hands shook with the need to touch her when she was in the shower. That he could no longer look at other women, and his existence had become undeniably priestly. That all day long, her words from this morning had rung in his head, packing his chest tight with some unnamed emotion.
I’m just going to tell you that . . . I’ll be back tonight and that you’re really important to me.
Hannah remained silent so long, chewing on that full lower lip, he wondered if she was going to say anything at all. She seemed almost conflicted. What was she thinking?
“All this time, Fox? Really?” Her voice turned into a hushed whisper, and his pulse started to hammer against his eardrums. “I’ve been listening to music on my phone for no reason?”
Fox’s breath released slowly, relief warring with . . . disappointment?
No. That couldn’t be right.
Either she was letting him off the hook . . . or she didn’t realize the significance of him buying the record player. To be close to her. To have a connection to that day they’d spent together in Seattle when he’d felt human and heard for the first time in as long as he could remember. To be the man she imagined herself with. “I was . . . saving it as a surprise,” Fox said, reaching behind the cabinet for the leather pouch and removing the key, highly aware of how odd and telling it was that he’d hidden the damn thing. Beginning to sweat, he turned it in the lock. “Thought I’d break it out if you had a bad day at work, you know?”
His eyes closed when she hummed. From right behind him. She was so close he could almost feel the vibration on the back of his neck, his every hair follicle waking up. God, he wanted to touch and taste her so bad. Would get down on his knees if she batted her eyelashes. There was no denying the undercurrents between them—her distraught reaction to him going on a date spoke volumes. But he forced himself to accept what she was offering him, instead. Friendship.
Hannah knew it couldn’t work between them. She knew it as well as he did, and she was saving them when he wasn’t strong enough to do it. Maybe it would eventually get easier to keep his hands to himself. If he got friendship with Hannah out of the bargain, he had no choice but to be grateful.
Fox unlocked the cabinet and stepped back, absorbing her expression like a dry sponge dropped into the ocean.
When her face transformed with delight, he wanted to kick himself for not showing her sooner. “Oh. A Fluance.” She ran her finger along the smooth edge. “Fox, she’s beautiful. Are you taking good care of her?”
His lips twitched. “Yes, Hannah.”
She stepped back and tilted her head, looking at it from a different angle. Released a happy sigh. “This is such a perfect choice for you, too. The wood chassis reminds me of the deck of a ship.”
“That’s exactly what I thought,” he said, honestly. The validation she always seemed to give so effortlessly pushed him to open the cabinet beneath, revealing the neat row of records he’d collected over the last seven months. He laughed at her strangled gasp. “Go ahead. Play something.”
She spoke with quiet reverence, bending forward to peruse the selection of everything from metal to blues to alternative. “Please. I’m going to be playing something all night while you’re gone.”
“No, you won’t, because you’re coming with me.”
He didn’t think there was anything that could compete with the records, but Hannah’s eyes zipped to his with that pronouncement, and they stared at each other in the ensuing silence. Did he plan on inviting Hannah to come meet his mother? No. No, it shouldn’t even have occurred to him. Introducing a girl to Charlene? Pigs must have been flying. But as soon as the words were out of his mouth, he couldn’t imagine the night any other way. Of course she was coming with him. Of course.
“Who am I to turn down a bingo game so rowdy it needs crowd control?” she asked, breathless, her cheeks ever so slightly pink—and he had to restrain himself from kissing them. From tracing his lips down to her flushed neck and worshiping it until her panties were soaked. “Let me go change.”
“Yeah,” he said thickly, stuffing his fists into the pockets of his jeans.
Hannah was almost to her room when she stopped and jogged back to the turntable, pulling a Ray LaMontagne album out carefully and settling the needle on the first track, her lips curling happily at the first crackle. “For atmosphere,” she explained, eyes twinkling.
Then she fluttered back to her room, leaving Fox staring after her with his heart clogging his throat.
Phew. That had been a close one.
Chapter Sixteen
Fox wasn’t joking.
This bingo crowd came to win.
When they pulled into the church parking lot, there was already a line extending around the corner, and the (mostly) senior citizen players looked none too happy about being kept outside in a steady drizzle.
Fox turned off the engine and leaned back, tapping a finger in quick succession on the bottom of the steering wheel. Anxious. That’s how he’d been on the second half of the ride, and although she didn’t know why, she started to wonder if the jumpiness stemmed from seeing his mother.
Maybe she should be home searching for backup bands if the Unreliables didn’t come through, but she didn’t want to be anywhere else. The invitation to meet Fox’s mother felt almost sacred. Like a glimpse behind the curtain. And she’d been unable to do anything but say yes.
Simply put, she wanted to be with him. Around him.
He’d bought a record player and hidden it.
She wasn’t buying his excuse that he’d saved it for a rainy day. A surprise to pull out of the hat after a bad day on set. No, that was total baloney—and she was pretty sure both of them knew it. This man buying anything permanent for his bare-bones apartment had significance. And Hannah could admit to being a little scared to find out more. To peel back more layers and discover if her rapidly growing feelings for this man were returned. Because what then?
Apart from the obvious obstacle—they didn’t live in the same state—a relationship between them would never work. Would it?
Fox claimed not to want a girlfriend or any commitments.
Hannah was the total opposite. When she decided to commit herself to someone or something, she went in one thousand percent. Loyalty to the people she cared about hummed in her blood. Loyalty made her Hannah.
She’d pretended the record player was cool. No big deal. A fun discovery. But her apparently self-destructive heart wanted to pounce all over the deeper meaning. Ignoring that desire burned, but she forced herself to focus on the here and now. Where Fox clearly needed a friend to distract him, to ground him, and that’s who she’d be. Refusing to allow things between them to get physical had unlocked what felt like . . . trust between them. And it felt rare and precious, a lot like meeting his mother.