Hook, Line, and Sinker (Bellinger Sisters #2)(17)

“Isn’t that interesting.” Opal beamed.

“Thank you.” She moved some of her hair out of the way and performed a show-and-tell with the bandaged knot on her forehead. “Unfortunately, this is what happened the first time I tried to ask.” Piper and Opal both looked at her wound with an appropriate level of concern. “It’s fine. It doesn’t hurt.” She laughed lightly, letting her hair drop back into place. “Fox bandaged me up and gave me ice cream.”

It was fleeting and subtle, but she felt Piper stiffen, giving off definite protective-older-sister vibes. “Oh, did he?”

Hannah rolled her eyes. “This is your one and only reminder that me staying with Fox was your idea.”

“I took it back right away,” Piper fretted. “Has he tried anything?”

“No!” Hannah squawked. Never mind that she could still feel the shape and exquisitely defined musculature of his shoulder on her midsection. “Stop talking about him like he’s some kind of sexual predator. I’m adult enough to make these judgment calls by myself. And he’s been a perfect gentleman.”

“That’s because he hasn’t been in town,” Piper grumbled, smoothing her romper.

“He decorated my room with a Himalayan salt lamp.”

Piper sputtered, “He might as well be mauling you!”

“Someone explain to me what is going on here!” Opal scooted her chair closer. “I want to be involved in a conversation about men. It’s been an age.”

“There is no conversation to have,” Hannah assured her grandmother. “I am friends with a man who happens to . . . appreciate women. Frequently. But it has been established that he won’t be appreciating me.”

“Tell her about the Fleetwood Mac album,” Piper said, patting Hannah vigorously on the knee. “Go on and tell her.”

Hannah released a gusting breath toward the ceiling. Mostly to hide the weird twist that happened inside her when she thought of the album and how she’d gotten it. “It’s no big deal, really.” Liar. “Last summer, we all went to Seattle. Me, Piper, Fox, Brendan. We broke off for a while, and Fox took me to this record convention. And I found an album that sang to me. Fleetwood Mac. Rumours.” A paltry description for a shock to the nervous system. “But it was expensive. At the time, me and Pipes were on a tight budget, so I didn’t buy it . . .”

“And then the day Hannah left to return to LA, there it was. On my porch. Fox went back and bought it without her knowing.”

Opal made an O shape with her lips. “Oh my. That is romantic.”

“No. No, you have it all wrong, ladies. It was kind.”

Piper and Opal traded a very superior look.

Part of her couldn’t even blame them. Fox buying her that album was the one thing she couldn’t seem to define as one hundred percent friendly. It sat in a place of honor back home, facing out on the hanging rack that displayed her albums. Every time she passed it, she replayed the moment at the convention when she’d gasped over the find, tracing the square edge of the album with her fingers. The warmth of his arm around her, the unsteady pound of his heart. How for the first time, she’d let someone into the music with her, instead of disappearing into it alone.

Hannah shook herself. “You’re actually helping me prove my point, Pipes. If he wanted to . . . appreciate me, why would he wait until I was leaving to hand me his golden ticket like that?”

“She makes a good point.”

“Thank you, Opal. Case closed.”

Piper rearranged the perfectly curled ends of her hair, physically accepting the end of the subject. “So. How is LA? Does she miss me?”

“She does. The house feels even bigger without you in it. Too big.”

Their mother, Maureen, had left Westport over two decades earlier in a cloud of grief after Henry Cross’s death, relocating to Los Angeles where she’d worked as a seamstress for a movie studio. She’d met and married their stepfather at the pinnacle of his success as a producer. Seemingly overnight, the three of them had gone from residing in a tiny apartment to a Bel-Air mansion, where Hannah still lived to this day.

With Piper in residence, the mansion never failed to feel like home. But ever since Piper moved to Westport, Hannah felt more like a visitor. Out of place and disconnected in the gigantic palace. It had become obvious that their parents led a separate life, and lately, she’d started to feel like an observer of it. Instead of someone who was happily off living her own.

“I’m thinking of moving out,” Hannah blurted. “I’m thinking of a lot of things.”

Piper angled her body to face Hannah, head tilted. “Such as?”

Being the focus of the conversation was unusual, to say the least. It wasn’t that it embarrassed her to be the center of attention. There was simply no use involving everyone in problems she could fix herself, right? Like finagling a trip to Westport because loneliness and a sense of missing something had started getting to her. “Never mind.” She waved a hand. “How are things going with Brendan’s parents?”

“She’s changing the subject,” Opal pointed out.

“Yeah. Don’t do that.” Piper poked her with the tip of a red fingernail. “You’re going to move out of Bel-Air?”