braids, or made her breakfast, or held her hand, it sped up.
It only stopped when he bent her over his desk and kissed his way up her spine and fucked her hard.
She was trying her best to ignore that damned clock, and sometimes she even succeeded. Because being with Nate, even if it was illicit and undefined and everything else that would usually make Hannah’s skin crawl… well, being with Nate made her happy.
The only real problem was keeping the source of that happiness a secret. Even Beth had started asking her why she was always singing—badly—and why she wasn’t quite as strict anymore. On Sundays, Hannah went to church and thanked God that her little family consisted of one unbelievably oblivious mother and one adorably unobservant sister.
Until the fourth Sunday, when she went to her mother’s for dinner and found Evan sitting in the living room, his arm around Ruth’s shoulder.
Hannah froze in the doorway. Her sister’s boyfriend turned his head to look at her. “Hey Hannah. How are you?”
Terrible. Because you—you are not my mother or my sister. You don’t live in the clouds, and you read facial expressions without trying. So I’m fucked, Evan. That’s how I am. I’m absolutely fucked.
She allowed herself that small, self-indulgent moment of panic before pushing it away, pasting a smile on her face, and chirping, “Great, thanks! You?”
The words sounded plastic even to her own ears, but she didn’t let her smile falter. No-one ever got anywhere without a can-do attitude, now, did they?
Evan paused before answering. “I’m good. How’s the party planning?”
“In full swing!” she laughed nervously. Zach’s birthday was coming up, and Nate was throwing him a surprise party. For the past few weeks, they’d been making the arrangements together—and taking occasional breaks for certain extracurricular activities. Aaaand now Evan was staring at her as if he knew all about those extracurricular activities, and he was going to burst out with the truth and shame her completely.
Actually, she might be imagining that. Her ever-present anxiety expected him to leap up and shout, “Aha! I can tell just by the look on your face that you’ve been sucking Nate’s dick when you should’ve been setting up a Facebook event!”
But all that came out of his mouth was, “Cool. Blog going okay?”
Hannah’s cheeks heated. She looked past him to glare at Ruth. “You told?”
Ruth blinked like a cornered rabbit. “Was I not supposed to? I thought it was Mum I couldn’t tell.”
And then, like a cherry on top of that clusterfuck cake, Patience Kabbah floated into the room and asked, “What is a blog, Hannah?”
Great. The one time Hannah needed her mother to be oblivious, the woman started paying attention to conversations.
“Nothing, Mummy. It’s a… a computer thing.”
Patience wrinkled her nose. “Ah. Come and help me with dinner, now. You want me to take your hair out later?”
“Oh, yes. Yes, please.”
“Good.” Patience floated away again like a cloud of absent-minded, cinnamon-scented perfume. Hannah followed, flashing Ruth a death stare over her shoulder.
What? Ruth mouthed.
Later, Hannah mouthed back, pouring every inch of sisterly menace she could into a half-second glare. Which was rather a lot.
But Ruth, the cow, seemed unconcerned.
All through dinner, Hannah was cool, calm and generally Hannah-like. Not giddy, not overly cheerful or excessively relaxed; just her normal, ordinary, stick-up-the-arse self. She thought she did quite a good job of it, too. It wasn’t hard, with nerves stiffening her spine and sharpening her tongue.
But when she and Ruth stood to clear the table after dinner, Evan pulled the plates from Ruth’s hands. “Sit down,” he said. “I’ll do it.”
Then he looked at Hannah and she knew that she was busted.
By the time they reached the kitchen, she was so nervous that the click of the door shutting behind them almost made her drop a crystal glass. She had a minor heart attack when it wobbled in her grip. If she smashed the crystal, Mum might be upset enough to glare at her. Or speak sternly, even. Hannah didn’t think her nerves could take that.
While she was staring, frozen, at the glass in her hand, Evan put down his plates. Then he took the crockery she was holding and put that down, too. Then he put his hands on her shoulders and said solemnly, “Something’s wrong with you.”
She scowled. “Nothing’s wrong with me. Get off.”
He gave her a suspicious look. “You’re distracted. And… weird. You keep doing this thing with your face.”
“What thing?”
“Kind of like a smile. A weird smile—”
“You can