The Heartbreaker I Adore (When In Waverly 2)

“Why is mine purple?” I ask.

“Well, I didn’t bring them for you, Mr. I’m-too-macho-for-purple. I brought them for me. This one is a relaxation mask. It has lavender in it.”

I take a quick sniff of it, and I’m pleased with how nice it smells. A little girly, but that’s to be expected. I have a hunch that men aren’t the main consumers of face masks. She takes the packet back from me and stands directly in front of me. I stare up at her chin as she begins smearing the goopy substance all over my face. Her touches are light and gentle, and it sends tingles all over my body. I release a shaky breath, and she jerks her hand away from my face. We stare into each other’s eyes for what feels like minutes but are realistically only moments. I could stare into her blue eyes for the rest of my life if she’d let me.

She gives her head a little shake and backs away to rinse her hands off in the sink. She grabs the soap dispenser and fumbles with it. I stand and pace the bathroom a few times. I’ve made her evening awkward. Maybe I should just leave, but what if the girls wake up, ready for round two of their reign of terror, and I’ve abandoned her? There’s only one thing I can do to make this better…

“So, do you want to go watch creepy serial killer videos?” I ask. I try not to sound like I’m dying inside, but I feel like I’m selling my soul to the devil—quite literally. One of those videos she showed me earlier was about a satanic cult. I’m going to have to bathe in holy water later.

“Really?” she asks as she turns to face me. She does a little jump and grabs me by my biceps. Shivers run up my spine as she runs a hand down my forearm and grasps my hand to pull me down the hall to the living room to pick which video to watch first. We go back to the bathroom to wash off our masks before getting comfortable on the couch and starting the video.

And this is how I wind up watching hours of this woman named Bailey putting on crazy makeup while telling the good people of the internet about murderers. Sometimes the stories are too intense for me, so I just focus on what she’s doing with her makeup, because even that’s intense and interesting. Like right now, she has neon-green eyeshadow stuff, and her lips are bright red. I wonder if she actually goes out in public with her makeup like this, or if it’s all just for the video. It looks pretty cool, but she’d for sure get stared at in the grocery store. That much makeup seems like it would be irritating on your face all day. My face feels itchy just thinking about it.

A new video starts, and the woman says something funny. I chuckle, and I wonder why Hannah didn’t laugh. I look over at her to find her eyes closed and her head bobbing to the side. Now that I’m paying attention, I notice her soft snores.

I wrap my arm around her and gently lay her down on the couch with her head on my lap. I touch her cheek and wonder if it has always been this soft or if that’s thanks to the face mask. I rub my cheek for a second to see if mine feels soft too. It doesn’t really feel any different than it did before. If anything, it just itches like the dickens. I feel like scratching my face off right now. I’ll be leaving the face masks to Hannah in the future.

She stirs and adjusts her position to get more comfortable. My heart completely stops beating when she wraps her arms around my thigh and cuddles into me, and then it explodes when she sighs and her breath evens back out.

That’s it. I’m never moving from this spot. This will be my new home, my permanent residence. Tess and Dan will just have to figure out how to live their lives with me and Hannah right here, because I’m not letting her move from this spot either. I will permanently attach her to me at the hip if I can feel like this forever.

Am I turning into a lovesick puppy? Maybe. Do I care? Not that much. Colby will have to man up and deal with the fact that I’m dating his little sister, because I will date her. I will find a way to sweep this woman off her feet and show her that I’m the man for her. She knows pretty much everything there is to know about me, so I don’t really know how I’m supposed to do that. Long-time friends have fallen in love. If that can happen, surely there’s still a smidgen of hope for me. Crazier things have happened.

The lock on the door turns, and Tess and Dan walk in quietly. They stop in their tracks when they see me sitting on their couch. “Seth, is that you?” Tess whispers. “What are you doing here?”

“Hannah called for some back-up,” I answer quietly, trying not to wake Hannah just yet. I want one more minute like this.

Tess’s eyebrows raise up to her hairline, and her mouth hangs open in an O shape. “I should have known she’d fall asleep on the job. It’s impossible to find good help these days,” she jokes.

I look around the room and notice the huge mess we’ve left everywhere. “Sorry we didn’t clean up before you got back,” I say, but she waves a hand dismissing me.

“Small price to pay for a night out. Okay, my feet are killing me, and I can’t breathe in this dress. I’m going to change. Be back in a minute,” Tess says, and I think she just winked at me. She beckons Dan with a head nod, and he looks back and forth between me and Tess for a moment.

“Umm, I’ll…go check on the girls,” he says before leaving the room.

I guess I can’t actually stay here. I take a moment to trace my eyes over all of Hannah’s features before I have to wake her up and end this perfect moment: her shoulder-length blonde hair in disarray on my lap, her long dark eyelashes touching her cheeks, her full mouth relaxed in sleep. I take a snapshot in my mind to pull out at a later time.

I rub the hair back from her face and place my palm on her soft cheek. “Hannah, you have to wake up,” I say close to her ear.

“Hmmm, I don’t want to. You’re too comfy, and you smell so good,” she mumbles as she burrows in closer. I run my knuckles against her cheek and chuckle. She’s so cute and sweet. Her body suddenly tenses up, and I know she’s fully awake now. Her eyes pop open, and their wide gaze turns to me. We stare into each other’s eyes for a heartbeat before she sits up and jumps off the couch.

She’s full-on panicking. I can feel the embarrassment pouring off of her. I scratch my forehead while watching her rub her hand up and down her arm, looking everywhere but at me. Hannah has always been on the more shy, reserved side. She only lets her guard down around certain people, and I’ve only been lucky enough to see it a few times over the years.

Lately, she’s been letting me see sides of her I have never seen before. I’ve gotten to see the real Hannah behind the quiet mask she wears. I like it, and I want to break down those barriers she’s holding up one by one. I’ll chip away at them one microscopic bit at a time.

I want her to get snarky with me, laugh with me, and take care of children who are losing their minds with me…that seems to be our thing now. I’ll weasel my way in so slowly with random, mundane tasks that she won’t even realize it’s happening before it’s too late.

“What happened? How did I get in your lap?” she asks in a breathy voice.

“You fell asleep watching the videos, so I laid you down. No biggie,” I say with a shrug and a smile, trying to ease her nerves. She scrunches up her mouth and nose in the cutest way, and I want nothing more than to kiss that nose and each individual freckle dotting it.

“So, I didn’t accost you?” she asks.

“I feel like you’re making this a bigger deal than it needs to be,” I say while giving my cheek a scratch. I start picking up all of the chip bags and twisting them closed. She breathes out a sigh of relief and begins helping me. We finish straightening up the living room just as Dan and Tess come out. They’re both wearing lounge pants and t-shirts now, and Tess’s hair is pulled up in a messy bun on top of her head. That is exactly what I want with Hannah someday—to come home from a fancy date and throw on old, grungy clothes.

“I’m guessing it didn’t go well if you had to call for help…or…did you just want some company?” Tess asks Hannah. Hannah gives Tess’s arm a smack, and she turns to busy herself by picking up blankets from the floor.

“The girls were very fussy. Seth only came to help me,” she says in an adamant tone. “Anywho, I need to get going. It’s late, and I have to work in the morning.”