“Hello to you, too,” he said, voice sounding strained.
“Sorry, I just didn’t expect— I . . .” She dropped the bag she was holding underneath her arm, jolted, then stooped down to pick it up. “You’re going on one.”
Fox frowned. “Going on one what?”
“Going out.” She stood slowly, holding the bag to her chest, eyes big and trained on him. “Going out on a date.”
Understanding dawned.
And then he saw her demeanor for what it was. This assumption that he was going on a date had thrown her big-time. Honestly, part of him wanted to shake her and say, Now you know how I feel sending you off to your director every morning. But what would that argument make them? A couple?
They weren’t. She lived in a different state and was actively pining for someone else. All he had to offer was a notched-up bedpost and the mockery that came along with it. Potentially for both of them. A relationship between them wasn’t happening, despite her obvious disappointment that he could be going on a date. And so for a split second, Fox considered letting Hannah believe he was going to meet someone else. Maybe it would put an end to whatever was happening between them. They shouldn’t be sleeping in the same bed, shouldn’t be telling each other deep, dark secrets. Look where it led. Jealousy. Longing that made him want to carry her back into his bedroom, wrap himself in her goodness, and feel normal again. She was the only person who made him normal. Made him . . . okay.
In the end, Fox couldn’t force himself to do it. He couldn’t let her think for a second that he’d rather spend his time with anyone else. It would have haunted him. “My mother is in town,” he said, relief coating his stomach when he saw hers. “Well, she’s in Hoquiam—tonight only. About forty minutes from here. That’s where I’m going. To see her.”
Her shoulders relaxed. It took her a moment to respond. “Why tonight only?”
Fox’s lips edged up into a half smile. “She’s a traveling bingo caller. Goes up and down the coast running bingo nights at various churches and rest homes.”
“Oh . . . wow. I did not expect you to say that.” Amusement danced behind her features. “Are you going to play bingo?”
“Sometimes I do. But mostly I help with crowd control.”
“You have to keep control of the bingo crowd?”
“Freckles, you have no idea.”
Glancing down at the bag in her hand, her smile turned into a curious one, a line appearing between her brows. “Fox”—she seemed to scrutinize him—“do you have a record player?”
Too late, he recognized the brown paper bag stamped with the purple logo for Disc N Dat and his gut seized. Of course she’d gone there. Why wouldn’t she visit at least once? It had been shortsighted of him to buy his records there when she could so easily find out he’d been to the shop. “Do I have a record player?”
Hannah raised an eyebrow. “That’s what I just asked you.”
“I heard.”
Her chest rose and fell. “You do have one.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Hannah.”
But she was already striding forward, on a mission, making panic sink like an anchor in his belly. Hiding the record player and albums from her had been selfish. He’d felt selfish so many times. But he’d bought the fucking thing for reasons he didn’t know how to express out loud. A gut-born need to be what she wanted.
And Hannah . . . she would make him admit to it.
On her way past Fox, she set her paper bag down on the kitchen table and circled the room, her gaze finally landing on his locked cabinet. “Is she in there?”
Fox gulped. “Yes.”
Hannah made a wounded sound, pressing a hand to the center of her chest.
This was it. No escaping what came next. With the discovery of the record player locked up in the cabinet, she was going to know how often he thought of her. She’d know the best parts of his days were her text messages before bed. She’d know his hands shook with the need to touch her when she was in the shower. That he could no longer look at other women, and his existence had become undeniably priestly. That all day long, her words from this morning had rung in his head, packing his chest tight with some unnamed emotion.
I’m just going to tell you that . . . I’ll be back tonight and that you’re really important to me.
Hannah remained silent so long, chewing on that full lower lip, he wondered if she was going to say anything at all. She seemed almost conflicted. What was she thinking?
“All this time, Fox? Really?” Her voice turned into a hushed whisper, and his pulse started to hammer against his eardrums. “I’ve been listening to music on my phone for no reason?”