she wondered if she’d been wrong to assume he was drunk.
But then he turned his head and looked at her, and she saw… everything. He was fucked. He was absolutely fucked. And she wasn’t just talking about the sweet scent of whiskey on his breath.
“You should go to bed,” she whispered.
The corner of his mouth twitched up into a zombie of a smile, one with a dangerous edge. “You know I won’t sleep.”
“You can take things for that.”
“I,” he said grandly, “am generally resistant to sedatives and hypnotic agents.”
“Oh,” she replied. “Well… that’s…”
“Irritating,” he finished. “It’s very fucking irritating. Do you take sleeping pills, Hannah?”
She swallowed. “Not really.”
“I’m just asking because, you know, the kitchen’s right under your room, and the other night I dropped a Wok on my foot and swore for ten minutes straight. But you didn’t wake up.”
She tried, rather unsuccessfully, to hide her laughter. “I see.”
“Sometimes you sleep hard. Like the kids. But other times you come down here and see me. So I thought, maybe sometimes you take something.”
Every night, she took something. She still had no idea what it was that made her wake up sometimes. But all she said, tentatively, was, “I don’t know if we should talk about my…”
“Your private medical history?” he suggested. “Mmm. Yeah. You’re right. Because, you know, technically, I am your employer. Do you ever forget that? I forget that.”
He’d thrown his arm over the back of the sofa at some point, and she was conscious of it like a burning flame, just behind her neck. She’d have been lying if she said anything other than, “Yeah. Sometimes I do forget.” Mostly because I want to.
“I think we forget in different ways. I feel bad about it—I really do. But I didn’t know, when I hired you.”
She frowned, partly in response to his odd words and partly because his expression had just turned dark and stormy. He looked… troubled. And he sounded baffling. “Know what?”
In the shadows, his eyes were like twin black holes. “Maybe I did know, and I was just being an oblivious prick. But your face, you know, is perfect. Perfectly imperfect in the way that’s actually perfect. I think that blurs the lines. Don’t you? How was I supposed to know, when I thought it was just… just about your face?”
Hannah blinked. “Are you always such a rambling drunk?”
His tense expression melted into a half-smile, that harsh gaze softening. “I’m never drunk. When Ellie died, that’s the last time I was drunk.”
Oh, dear. “And when did Ellie die?” she asked softly.
“Tuesday the 7th of February 2014 at 11:57 a.m.,” he said. “Hey, I sounded like you for a second there. Queen of details. Hannah Kabbah, Her Royal Highness, Queen of Details.” He sounded… disarmingly cheerful. He sounded oddly like his son. She could even see him smiling through the darkness, that single dimple sending an arrow of unwilling affection to her chest. He settled deeper into the cushions, and the heat his arm gave off, so close to her neck, increased. As if he were closer, now. As if, in a minute, she might feel the fine hairs on his arm whispering against her skin.
“Nate…”
“What?” he asked, propping up one of his legs. His knee, covered in denim, grazed her bare calf. Suddenly, that arrow of affection in her chest didn’t seem so innocent—because one glancing, accidental touch sparked another, hotter arrow, and another, and another. They slammed into her so hard, she barely remembered to breathe.
Focus.
“Are you…” She frowned, pursed her lips, wrestled with the awkward words. “I mean—do you think you’re over Ellie’s death?”
He’d told her before that he was. But they hadn’t been close then. He could’ve lied. There were family pictures all over the house that included the woman who must’ve been his wife, a woman with cropped, brown hair and dark eyes and a broad smile. If he was still hurting, would he keep the pictures up? She wasn’t sure. Because occasionally he’d say something—like the precise minute that his wife had died—and she’d worry that despite his cheerfulness and his casual attitude, he was secretly crumbling inside.
He looked at her now, his expression thoughtful. “I ask myself that sometimes,” he said calmly, as if they were planning the week’s dinners. “You know, I talk about Ellie a lot. I mean, a lot. I think it’s important for the kids. Don’t you think that’s important for the kids?”
She would’ve said yes, but his words stumbled on without pause.