Hook, Line, and Sinker (Bellinger Sisters, #2)(55)

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?”

Fox’s breath released slowly, relief warring with . . . disappointment?

No. That couldn’t be right.

Either she was letting him off the hook . . . or she didn’t realize the significance of him buying the record player. To be close to her. To have a connection to that day they’d spent together in Seattle when he’d felt human and heard for the first time in as long as he could remember. To be the man she imagined herself with. “I was . . . saving it as a surprise,” Fox said, reaching behind the cabinet for the leather pouch and removing the key, highly aware of how odd and telling it was that he’d hidden the damn thing. Beginning to sweat, he turned it in the lock. “Thought I’d break it out if you had a bad day at work, you know?”

His eyes closed when she hummed. From right behind him. She was so close he could almost feel the vibration on the back of his neck, his every hair follicle waking up. God, he wanted to touch and taste her so bad. Would get down on his knees if she batted her eyelashes. There was no denying the undercurrents between them—her distraught reaction to him going on a date spoke volumes. But he forced himself to accept what she was offering him, instead. Friendship.

Hannah knew it couldn’t work between them. She knew it as well as he did, and she was saving them when he wasn’t strong enough to do it. Maybe it would eventually get easier to keep his hands to himself. If he got friendship with Hannah out of the bargain, he had no choice but to be grateful.

Fox unlocked the cabinet and stepped back, absorbing her expression like a dry sponge dropped into the ocean.

When her face transformed with delight, he wanted to kick himself for not showing her sooner. “Oh. A Fluance.” She ran her finger along the smooth edge. “Fox, she’s beautiful. Are you taking good care of her?”

His lips twitched. “Yes, Hannah.”

She stepped back and tilted her head, looking at it from a different angle. Released a happy sigh. “This is such a perfect choice for you, too. The wood chassis reminds me of the deck of a ship.”

“That’s exactly what I thought,” he said, honestly. The validation she always seemed to give so effortlessly pushed him to open the cabinet beneath, revealing the neat row of records he’d collected over the last seven months. He laughed at her strangled gasp. “Go ahead. Play something.”

She spoke with quiet reverence, bending forward to peruse the selection of everything from metal to blues to alternative. “Please. I’m going to be playing something all night while you’re gone.”