load of Google bullshit, but everything seems off to me. Her symptoms are…weird. Different. Worse than they should be.”
“Don’t stress yourself out,” she said firmly. “It won’t help anything. Not a single thing.”
“I’m already stressed out. Always. My heart rate seems to think life is the grand fucking derby.”
And now her heart was kind of breaking. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“I know,” he whispered back.
But it didn’t seem like enough. What would be enough?
Nothing, she realised. Pain wasn’t neat like that. It wasn’t about checks and balances, and there was no spell that would make it disappear. Maybe that was why she felt so impotent, sitting here beside him, knowing he was suffering in a way she couldn’t comprehend. Maybe that was why she ached with the urge to hold his hand. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d held an adult’s hand. But she wanted to comfort him, and hand-holding was comfort, wasn’t it?
It didn’t matter, in the end, because she wasn’t going to do it.
Instead of reaching out, she nodded toward the vast, ghostly shape standing just a few feet in front of them and said conversationally, “How about that fort, huh?”
She could almost feel the relief radiating from him. Nate didn’t like heavy subjects. He liked to keep things light. She understood why.
“It’s a feat of engineering,” he said. “I’m very proud.”
The kids had built the mammoth structure of blankets, pillows and furniture just yesterday. Apparently, it was a castle. No-one was permitted to take down the castle, on pain of death—which was a direct quote from the lovely Beth.
“They did it alone, too,” Hannah said. “I was making dinner. I didn’t help at all.”
“You didn’t?” he asked, disbelief colouring his voice. He’d been with his mother.
“Nope. I came in and they were done. Have you been inside yet?”
“I have not. Which is very poor parenting, I know.” Without hesitation, Nate went to crouch beside the fort’s shadowy entrance. He looked over at her, his eyes catching the low light, gleaming like something celestial. “Are you coming?”
“Me?”
“No, the household ghost. Yes, you. Have you been in here?”
She huffed out a breath. “I’ve had a look.”
“A look?”
“You know, poked my head in.”
“Oh, that won’t do. Come on, Hannah. That’s not very supportive, now is it?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The kids put their hearts and souls into this majestic architecture, and you haven’t even nipped in for tea? I’m shocked.” He clicked his tongue. And then, as she squinted at him through the darkness, Nate began squeezing his broad shoulders through the fort’s narrow entryway.
“Careful,” she murmured. “You’re a lot bigger than the kids.”
“I am? I had no idea.”
She snorted.
“You’re coming in here too, you know.”
“I most certainly am not.”
“You most certainly are,” he said calmly. As if it was perfectly ordinary for them to have a conversation about a fort while he crawled deeper and deeper into said fort. “You’re very uptight, you know, Hannah.”
“Uptight?” she spluttered in outrage, as if it wasn’t true. Which it was. But good lord, he didn’t have to say it.
“Yep. Not that I mind.”
“How very gracious of you,” she drawled.
“I mean, it works to my advantage. And it’s cute.”
Hannah almost choked on her own tongue. Cute? Cute? What the fuck was that supposed to mean?
“But I’m getting worried about the amount of work you do,” he said casually, as if he hadn’t just thrown her into a minor internal crisis. “I’m in, by the way.” A glow that she could only assume was his phone lit up the fort from within, and she saw the dark silhouette of his body, half-sitting, half-lying in the crouched space.
Jesus. She hadn’t been this into a shadow since she’d watched Peter Pan as a kid.
“Are you coming?” he called.
“No. What do you mean, you’re getting worried?”
“Let me rephrase that,” he said. “You are coming.” Why did he have to say coming like that? Why did his voice have to be so deep and rich and ugh, this fucking man. Irritating, he was. Beyond irritating. “And what I mean,” he added, “is that you never stop. You must’ve cleaned the house a thousand times in the last week. You and the kids play the kind of games that even I can’t be arsed with, and I’m their dad. And when there’s nothing else to do, you’re in your room typing… well, whatever it is you’re always typing.”
My blog, her mind supplied. Yes, I have a blog. I have a lot of feelings and I am a millennial cliché. It’d