to reveal the neatest, blandest, most minimalist little room she’d ever seen in her life. The walls were cream. The floors were pale wood. The furniture was cream and wooden. It held a no-frills double bed, a wardrobe, a desk, and a set of beside drawers.
“It’s not great,” he said ruefully, “but you’d be the only one using this bathroom over here, and I can—”
“It’s perfect,” she said. And meant it. She was quite thoroughly in love.
Nate stared at her for a moment, as if trying to read her. Which, of course, made Hannah so uncomfortable she might actually crawl out of her skin. Whatever. No big deal.
Then he said, “You’re serious.”
“I usually am.”
“You actually like this room.”
She looked over the neutral space again. There was nothing overwhelming or excessive or dark or distracting. This little room looked the way Hannah wished, more than anything, the inside of her head could be. Of course, she’d have to add the colours—always, she needed colours. But that was fine. Because nothing would clash, you see.
“It’s perfect,” she repeated firmly. Despite her commitment to polite distance and tamped-down enthusiasm, Hannah found herself smiling. She was vaguely conscious of Nate watching her with a quiet smile of his own, a sort of pleased disbelief that seemed to say, I don’t understand you one bit, but I still like you.
Which was ridiculous. People didn’t like Hannah. Nate didn’t like Hannah, despite claiming to. He was just… naturally… lovely. Even though, throughout their years growing up together, he’d been almost as antisocial as her prickly little sister. Oh, whatever. Clearly, people changed.
She wandered over to the room’s wide window and looked down into the garden below. The trees at its border made a sort of canopy, so she could barely see the grass—but she saw Shirley swinging on the patio, and Zach chasing a laughing Beth, and Josh carefully plopping grapes into the birdbath.
“Just to check,” she said absently, “are grapes allowed in the birdbath?”
“What?” She heard Nate come up behind her—but it seemed more accurate to say that she felt it. He frowned out of the window, leaning over her shoulder, then sighed. “That kid. How did he even get those out of the fridge? You know what, never mind.” Nate shook his head.
She turned to look at him fully, because the fond exasperation in his voice was just… it was sweet. Sweet and soft like marshmallows, and she wanted to see it reflected in his eyes. Only, just as she turned her head, he looked down at her, and all of a sudden—
Well. All of a sudden, their faces were much closer than she’d planned. Much, much closer. And she could see the tiny, moon-pale scars that littered his skin. There was one over the bridge of his nose, plus a few scattered across his temple in short, sharp slashes. And then there were little circular ones over his eyebrow, and a crease through his lower lip that made her think he’d had some… interesting piercings at one point. Which wouldn’t surprise her.
What did surprise her was the way she felt—as if all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room. As if something hung between them, too heavy and tense to turn away from. As if tearing her eyes from his would shatter it.
So, embarrassingly, it was Nate who broke the silence. Nate who cleared his throat, and blinked a little too slowly—more like a quick squeeze-shut of the eyes—and shook his head. He stepped back once, and then again. For a second, she worried he’d smack into the wall behind him. But he stopped just in time and said, “Well. Well, then. Shall we—I mean, if you like it, let’s…”
“Yes,” she said quickly. “Let’s.” And then she turned and left the room.
For some reason, as he followed her downstairs, Nate’s mind latched on to the fact that earlier—in the garden—Zach had called Hannah Han.
He supposed that was a decent nickname for Hannah. The kids at school used to call her Bunny, or some shit like that. Those same guys were probably kicking themselves, these days, but that was none of his concern. He couldn’t stop thinking about that nickname. Han.
Nate wondered when, exactly, his little brother had grown close enough to a woman like Hannah Kabbah to casually shorten her name. He had this idea that if he ever shortened Hannah’s name, she’d short-circuit like a robot under the sheer weight of all her horrified disgust. Around Nate, she seemed to