* * *
It wasn’t a date (or a group hang).
They were just two friends playing bingo.
Just two friends occasionally holding hands under the table, his knuckle brushing the inside of her thigh here and there. At some point Fox decided the hall was too noisy to hear Hannah properly and he’d yanked her chair closer, pretending not to notice her questioning look. What the hell was he doing?
Was he one of those idiots who wanted something twice as much because he couldn’t have it? The director had asked her out. Pretty soon, they would be back in LA, and Sergei would have all the access to Hannah he wanted, while Fox was in the Pacific Northwest, probably staring at his phone waiting for her daily text message. Which is exactly how it needed to be.
And yet.
Every time Fox thought of Sergei holding her hand instead of him, he wanted to swipe an arm across the bingo table and upset everyone’s cards. Scatter them all over the floor. Then maybe kick over the church bulletin board for good measure. Who the hell did this motherfucker think he was to ask out Hannah Bellinger?
A better man than him, probably. One who hadn’t been cheapening himself since approximately one day after his balls dropped. Like father, like son. Wasn’t that why he wore the bracelet that was currently resting on Hannah’s thigh?
“Sweet Caroline. This is so addictive,” Hannah whispered to him. And he heard it easily, because he was sitting way too close, trying not to stare at those little curly wisps of hair that the rain had created around her face. Or the way she sucked in a breath every time she got to blot out a square. Or her mouth. Dammit, yes, her insanely lush mouth. Maybe he should just lean over and kiss it, the hell with the consequences. He hadn’t tasted her since that night of the cast party, and the need for another hit was unbearable.
“Addictive,” he rasped. “Yeah.”
Hannah’s eyes shot to his, then down to his mouth, and the thoughts that ran through his mind were not appropriate to have in front of his mother. Anyone’s mother, really.
This need for Hannah never went away, but it was especially heavy right now. Having her there was more comforting than Fox could have predicted. He forced himself to go see his mother occasionally, not only because he cared about her, but because that involuntary flinch validated his existence as a responsibility-free hedonist.
But Hannah . . . she was starting to pull him the opposite way. Like a gravitational force. And right now, stuck between Hannah and the reminder of his past, going in her direction seemed almost possible. She was here with him, wasn’t she? Playing bingo, singing with him in the car, talking. Decidedly not fucking. If Hannah liked him for more than his potential to give her an orgasm . . . if someone so smart and incredible believed he was more . . . couldn’t it possibly be true?
As if reading his mind, Hannah rubbed her thumb over the back of his knuckles, turning slightly and resting her head on his shoulder. Trustingly.
Like a friend. Just a friend.
God. Why couldn’t he breathe?
“Bingo!” crowed one of the women sitting across from them.
“Oh hell. Did I hear Eleanor call bingo down there?” Charlene said, whistling into the microphone and banging the mini gong she kept perched on her station. “Eleanor, you have been on fire these past couple of weeks.”
“That’s because she’s a filthy cheat!” Paula spat.
“Now, Paula, be a good sport,” Charlene scolded lightly. “We all get a lucky run once in a while. Eleanor? My handsome son is going to bring me your card so I can check it over, okay?”
Eleanor handed the card to Fox with a flourish, baring her teeth in a triumphant smile entirely for Paula’s benefit. Fox scooted his chair back, wishing the round had gone on longer so Hannah’s head could have rested on his shoulder for another few minutes. Maybe if he played his cards right, she’d sleep in his bed again tonight? The prospect of holding her while she slept, waking up beside her, made him eager to get home and see how he could maneuver it . . .
Christ. Who am I anymore?
He was trying to come up with a way to get Hannah into bed so they could have an entirely platonic sleepover. Did he even own a dick anymore?
She’d probably be dreaming of another man the entire time.
Counting the minutes until she went back to LA.
Fox handed the card to his mother, realizing he’d nearly mangled the damn thing in his fist.
“Thank you, Fox,” Charlene sang, leaning forward to cover the microphone. “You serious about that girl, son?”
He was caught off guard by the question. Probably because he’d never spoken to his mother about girls before. Not since he’d turned fourteen and she’d made him watch an online tutorial on how to apply a condom. After which she’d put an empty coffee can in the pantry and kept it full of singles and fives at all times. She’d told him it was there, pointedly, without explaining the exact purpose. But he’d known she was supplying him with condom money. Before he’d ever had sex, she’d predicted his behavior.
Or maybe he’d behaved a certain way because it had been expected.
Fox had never really considered that possibility. But over the course of the last week, there’d been a sense of emerging from a fog. Looking around and wondering how the hell he’d gotten to that exact spot. Empty hookups, no responsibilities, no roots digging into the earth. Had he been living this way too long to consider stopping?
You have stopped, idiot.
Temporarily.
Right.
With his mother’s question still hanging in the air, Fox glanced back at Hannah. God, every cell in his body rebelled at the idea of meeting another woman—not Hannah—in Seattle. But he’d tried to escape himself before and it blew up in his fucking face. It left scars and taught him a painful lesson about the impression he gave people simply by existing. And he wasn’t going to try it again, was he? For this girl who could decimate him by choosing someone else? In a sense, she had chosen someone else already.
“No,” he finally answered his mother, sounding choked. “No, we’re friends. That’s it.” He flashed her a grin that almost hurt. “You know how I am.”
“I know you came home from school every day since freshman year smelling like Bath and Body Works.” She chuckled. “Well, be careful with her, will you? There’s something about her. Almost like she’s protective of you even though she barely reaches your chin.”
He caught the urge to tell Charlene that, yeah, that’s exactly how she made him feel. Protected. Wanted. For reasons he couldn’t have fathomed before meeting her. She liked him. Liked spending time with him.
“I’ll be careful with her.” His voice almost shook. “Of course I will.”
“Good.” She switched hands covering the microphone so she could reach up and cradle the side of his face. “My darling heartbreaker.”
“I’ve never broken anyone’s heart.”
That was true. He’d never been close enough to anyone for that to be a possibility. Not even Melinda. He might have given his college girlfriend more of himself than anyone who came before, but they’d been nowhere near as close as Fox and Hannah.
Did he want to get even closer to Hannah?
If Sergei was out of the picture, what would closer look like?