mystery, living with Nate was easy. The kids were sweet. He was sweet to the kids. He was sweet to her, damn him, and it made her feel constantly on edge. Because no-one could be that pleasant forever, right? Surely it wasn’t a normal, natural thing? The kind of people who toasted bagels for everyone in the morning and cleaned up after themselves without issue and asked about your day as if they really gave a shit didn’t actually exist. It was just a front they put up for nefarious reasons.
Except she couldn’t imagine what nefarious reasons Nate might have to smile at her with such kindness, or joke with her even when she was prickly, or otherwise mind his damned business 24/7. Oh, and pay her on top of that. She didn’t get it. At all. And when she’d asked Ruth about the matter, all her nightmare of a sister had said was Evan’s nice all the time. Maybe Nate’s just one of those people.
Honestly, Hannah had far preferred it when Ruth could be trusted to support her cynicism.
The following Tuesday night—or rather, Wednesday morning—she woke up inexplicably early again. It didn’t make any sense, and it certainly didn’t ease her suspicions that this whole situation was some kind of elaborate twilight zone trap. Still, just like last time, she dragged a cardigan on over her scant pyjamas and wandered downstairs.
And, just like last time, she found Nate.
He was sitting in the dark again, head bowed over his phone like a supplicant. The little glowing rectangle lit up his face, and for a moment she stood there in the doorway and watched him.
He sighed as he tapped at the phone. The exhalation seemed to hold a century’s-worth of sheer exhaustion. Beyond the strong lines of his jaw, his cheekbones, and his hawkish nose, his face looked drawn and strained. Indigo bloomed beneath his eyes like bruises. He ran a hand through his too-long hair, and she tried not to stare at the tattoo on the inside of his elbow. But really, who had tattoos there? Surely that had to hurt.
Then again, she remembered darkly, he had a nipple piercing, too. The nipple piercing that, when she’d seen it last week in the dark, had made all of her thoughts fall clean out of her head. So clearly, he didn’t mind pain.
“Hey,” she called softly from the doorway. She’d been trying not to startle him, but he still jumped a little. She’d noticed, over the past week, that once he was focused on something, the rest of his world melted away. He didn't see anything else, hear anything else…
Hannah imagined that sort of focus could be put to use in a lot of interesting ways.
Actually, Hannah tried to imagine very little, because her imagination was a wild and reckless creature that could not be tamed. Dear Lord.
“Hi,” he said finally. “Fancy meeting you here.” And then he smiled.
She had a slight problem with Nate’s smiles. Especially this one, the slightly teasing one that was wry and sharp-edged and uneven. Zach’s sexy grin was the one that had achieved seductive infamy in Ravenswood, but she was starting to think of his as the knock-off version. Because Nate hadn’t smiled much back when they were young, but now? Now, he was the king of smiling. Smiling was his bitch. He owned smiling.
And she clearly needed more sleep, if the loopy train of her thoughts was anything to go by.
Stepping into the room, she nodded at the phone in Nate’s hand and asked, “Everything okay?”
He gave a negative sort of grunt as she settled down beside him on the sofa. Usually, Nate employed full sentences, probably for the kids’ benefit. To set a good example. But she’d started to notice that when they were alone, he didn’t bother—and she wasn’t sure if she should find that insulting. Of course, the mortifying truth was that she actually quite liked it, because it made her feel like he was comfortable with her.
Ridiculous. Ridiculous, ridiculous, ridiculous.
He held up the phone and said, “I’ve been reading about lung cancer.”
Her internal ramblings came grinding to a halt. “Oh, Nate. Don’t do that. You shouldn’t do that.”
He gave her a look. “Would you? If it was your mother?”
And really, what could she say? She already knew the answer.
He locked his phone with a click, extinguishing its light. Still, she saw the shadowy outline of his head as he shook it, visible in the low moonlight. “Maybe I’m reading a