Chapter Nineteen

Hannah

After dinner, I suggest taking a drive through downtown Cleveland, past the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It’s a pretty transparent attempt to get some time alone, but Dad just smirks and tells us to drive safely.

As I direct Ben through town, we talk about school stuff—Jasmine’s trip to Pasadena later this week with Sean while Arlington State plays in the Rose Bowl, poor Ralph stuck actually interacting with customers while Ben is here with me, Ben’s roommate, John, doing some kind of mind-blowing research at a satellite array in Arizona over the holidays. We drive past the sports stadiums and Hall of Fame, and I navigate us toward Voinovich Park, where it’s quiet and dark this time of night.

I point to a tiny parking lot right off the road. “So you haven’t said a word about Christmas with your family.”

Ben pulls over and kills the engine. His car always surprises me, nicer and newer than I’d expect for a college student. It’s one of those subtle reminders of his family’s money that pops up every now and then.

“That’s because there wasn’t much to tell.” Ben runs his thumb along the top of the steering wheel as he stares out the windshield. Cleveland’s lights are bright and clear in the cold night air.

I take his hand and weave our fingers together. “No fights?”

“I said as little as humanly possible to avoid one.”

“Is your dad still hassling you about law school?”

He smirks and shakes his head sadly. “Steve Fisher never gives up when he knows he’s right.”

“Ben…” I hesitate. “You wouldn’t go, would you? To law school?”

He keeps his face turned toward the view, the glow from the city reflecting off his glasses. “He’s not wrong about everything. It would mean a decent paycheck one day.”

I frown. Is he…actually considering it? “It would mean you’d be miserable forever.”

He shrugs absently. “Who ever said we were guaranteed happiness?”

“You deserve to try to be happy.”

“Do I? Sometimes I wonder if I’m just being selfish.”

I cross my arms over my chest. “Do you think I’d be selfish if I didn’t become a drug researcher like my dad?”

“Of course not. We’ve talked about this.”

“And we’ve talked about law school, too. Come on, Ben. You know it’s not right for you. Quit humoring your dad by pretending to consider it.”

“Sorry.” He reaches under his glasses to rub his eyes. “I’ve just gotten into the habit of agreeing with whatever he says when I go home. It’s easier that way.”

I smile and squeeze his hand. “Well, cut it out. You’re with me now, and I know you better than he does.”

He releases my hand and cups my face. “Yeah, you do.”

I want to press him further, resolve this once and for all. His diffidence scares me. If he can bend on something so important to him, will he be just as quick to bend when it comes to me?

But I only have him for tonight, for a precious hour alone in his car, and I don’t want to waste it poking at him. Besides, I can’t imagine what Ben’s Christmas must’ve been like, everybody angry, Ben not speaking, nodding along with everything his jerk father says just to keep the peace.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “It sounds like a really terrible Christmas.”

He shrugs off his scowl and smiles at me. My stomach flips, just like it did the first time I saw him. “It was. But the day after is shaping up to be pretty terrific.”

“I’m really glad you came. Dad likes you.”

“I like him, too. He seems great. Not at all an ogre like my dad. He might be a lot more understanding—”

“No.” I cut him off as my heart pounds and my hands go cold. “Of course he’ll understand. And he’ll do his best to hide how horribly disappointed he is. I just…”

“Hey…” Ben takes my face, cradling my cheeks in his palms. “It’s okay. You have to deal with it in your own way. But keeping this from him is killing you, Hannah.”

“I’ll tell him before I go back to school. I just have to figure out how to say it.”

“Okay, let’s walk through it. You have to tell him you’ve changed your mind about being a drug researcher.”

My heart thuds heavily at the words. “Yeah.”

“And you want to major in…”

“That’s just it— I have no idea. I’m throwing it away for something I haven’t even figured out.”

“Well, what do you want to do?”

I curl my hand around his wrist. “Can’t we just hide in Prometheus? We’ll put the closed sign up, lock the door, camp up in the loft, and spend all day reading. Well, reading and making out.”

He makes a sound somewhere between a groan and a chuckle. “That sounds like perfection, but sadly, it’s not terribly realistic.”

“It’s a nice dream, though.”

“The best dream.”

“We could do half of it.”

It’s dark in the parking lot, but his teeth glint as he grins. “Which part did you have in mind?”

I lean into him and finally—finally—kiss him for real. His mouth opens over mine, our tongues touch, and we both moan slightly as we get what we’ve wanted for weeks. He keeps it sweet, slow, and gentle at first, but I’ve missed him so much— I reach for him, sliding my fingers into his hair, tugging him closer to me.

Sitting side-by-side in the car with the center console digging into my ribs isn’t going to cut it, so I break the kiss and scramble into his lap. Ben gasps as I straddle his thighs, and when I take his glasses off, his eyes are wide, his expression lust-struck in a way I’ve never seen before.

I’ve wanted Ben since the minute I met him, in ways I didn’t even understand at the time. Then, after waiting for so long, he was mine, and I still couldn’t get more than a few stolen moments with him.

Now we’re here, and nobody’s around to stop us.

I don’t wait for him to make the next move. I lean in and kiss him, sliding my hands around the back of his neck. He’s a little slow to kiss me back, and his hands rest tentatively on my hips, but when I stroke his tongue with mine, he finally angles his face to take it deeper. One hand comes up and tangles in my hair as we kiss endlessly.

I inch forward until he’s wedged right between my legs. We’re both wearing jeans, but it’s impossible to miss what this is doing to him. I’ve never felt this way making out with someone. I always stayed detached before, wondering if I was doing it right, nervous about how far it would go.

Tonight, none of that matters. All I want is Ben, and the way he sets my body on fire. My heart races, and every shift of his fingers sends shocks through my system. I want more of him— I need more of him. I roll my hips against his and he groans, low and guttural.

“Hannah,” he whispers before kissing me again. I take his hand, still gripping my hip, and slide it up to my breast. He groans again.

“We could get into the backseat,” I murmur, kissing down the side of his neck. He squeezes my breast once, like he’s not sure he should. I arch into him in encouragement.

“No, we can’t.”

“Why not?” I nip at his earlobe, and his head falls back onto the headrest.

“Hannah, somebody could see.”

I start to tell him he’s being ridiculous, but then a car passes us in the parking lot, its headlights briefly illuminating us, as if to underscore his point.

I sigh and slump against him. “Okay, maybe you’re right.”

He chuckles, kisses my temple, and runs his fingers through my hair and down my back. I probably should climb off his lap. Grinding on him isn’t helping to dial this back.

He hisses slightly as I slide off him and back into the passenger seat. Then he sits still for a second with his eyes closed, trying to will away his erection, I guess. And maybe we’re not doing it tonight in the cold backseat of his car on the side of the highway, but we’re doing it soon.

After a couple minutes, he restarts the car. “Come on. Your dad seems to like me so far. I don’t want to blow it by bringing you home past curfew.”

I laugh. “Are you kidding? I’m way too responsible to have ever needed a curfew. But yeah, if you don’t want me to drag you into the backseat, we’d better get out of here.”

He closes his eyes and sighs. “Stop tempting me.”

“Stop being so temping.”

He smirks. “Nobody’s ever called me ‘tempting’ before.”

I lean in and kiss his cheek, lingering for just a second, letting the heat simmer between us. “You know I can’t get enough of your big…brain.”

We erupt into laughter, because let’s be real, I’m a little ridiculous as a seductress. The laughter dispels the last of the tension and the heavy conversation that came before. Our futures are still hanging there, like black clouds over our heads. But all I want to think about is what we were doing five minutes ago in the driver’s seat. And what else we might do when we finally get back to Arlington and can get some time alone.

I’ve never been so excited for Christmas break to be over.