Page 47 of Soft Flannel Hank

He winked. Hank winced. Esther groaned.

“So I can’t leave. At all?”

Hank crossed his arms over his chest and dropped his gaze to the floor, wishing like hell he could just fall through it.

“No offense, sweets, but you’re not exactly subtle,” Nat said, answering the question for him. “That hair? Those freckles? You’re memorable as hell.”

“So?”

“So, if somebody asked about a guy who looks like me, I might escape memory. After all, lanky guys with brown hair are fairly common. But you? With that hair? You’re a goddamn unicorn, Esther, and every single person in this town would remember you.”

Esther rolled her eyes but didn’t say anything.

“So, you either leave tonight, or you stay here on house arrest until the coast is clear.”

“She’s not under arrest, Nat,” Hank growled.

“That’s not what you told me earlier,” Esther snapped, her fury now fully directed at Hank. He couldfeelthe anger radiating off of her in pulses.

“You’re not under arrest. You never were. I told you that,” he murmured to her feet. He couldn’t look her in the eye. He couldn’t watch her face when she told him she would rather take her chances alone in the world with all its dangers than be stuck in World’s End with him, in his house.

Doesn’t that feel too goddamn familiar?

“So let me get this straight. I’m nottechnicallyunder arrest, but if I stay, I’mbasicallyunder house arrest?”

Hank took a deep breath. And then another, blowing the air out through pursed lips the way that guy in his meditation app had instructed. He looked at her. Looked deep into her eyes which, if possible, looked even more blue when she was angry.

“You wouldn’t be under house arrest,” he said, feeling the words between his teeth like sand grit. “You would be laying low. Flying under the radar. And then, as soon as Nat says it’s clear, you’d be free to go and leave and never look back or give me or thisprisona second thought.”

He should stop. He was getting dangerously close to saying too much. But unbidden, more words spewed forth. “Or go. If you’d rather face them on your own. Since the thought of staying here with me is so awful to you.”

Fucking hell.

Mortification rocked him to his core. Hank turned on his feet, feeling his socks slide on the linoleum. “You both know your way out,” he barked as he walked as fast as he could without jogging into the hall where the stairs brought him up to his room. He slammed the door behind him.

He sat on his bed with his head in his hands. For a brief moment, he missed going days without speaking. He missed being alone. Not because helikedbeing alone, but because when you were alone, you couldn’t make an ass of yourself. You couldn’t say too much or hang your feelings out on the clothesline with the rest of your dirty laundry for all the world to see.

Hank heard the mudroom door close, felt the slight reverb in the floor in the aftermath. He took his hands away from his face and brought them to his thighs, where he rubbed them. Up and down across the soft denim.

He wasn’t going to spiral. He was not going to allow himself to spiral. He kept breathing, kept up with the friction against his palms. He felt his heart rate coming under control. Felt the restless crawling of his muscles start to calm. Still, he kept breathing. Eyes closed, he listened to the sounds of his quiet house. His empty house. Everything as it always was.

But then he heard the soft creaking of the stairs. The sound of socked feet tiptoeing down the hallway. He lifted his head. A soft knock at the door.

“Hank?” Esther’s voice was quiet on the other side of the door. Hesitant.

“Yeah,” he said, though it sounded more like a groan than an answer even to him.

“Can I come in?”

He stood quickly. “Uh. Sure. Yeah.”

The door opened. He hadn’t bothered with the lights when he’d stormed in, but the light in the hall was on and glowing behind her, making her red curls look like wildfire. His mouth felt dry.

“I’m sorry for the things I said, Hank. You didn’t deserve to be treated like that. I—” She stopped. Sighed. Chewed on her bottom lip. Hank’s eyes zeroed in on that flash of white teeth against the plush pink of her bottom lip. “I’ve had a really rough few months. I think I hit my breaking point.”

Hank cleared his throat. “You don’t have to apologize. I can take you to your car if you want,” he said, walking to stand in front of her, expecting her to step aside and follow him downstairs, out of his house, out of his life.

But she didn’t move to the side. Instead, she put her hand against his chest. Hank looked down at her freckled fingers against his plaid shirt. Her fingers were long. He couldn’t feel their warmth through his layers, but he felt them all the same. It was like she branded him. He sucked in a breath and leaned forward. Just a little. Pressing just a little harder into her hand, into her touch.