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She was introspective and bookish but never shy. Nope, we always knew where we stood with Hazel. She was known for outsmarting teachers and once, during the Christmas Eve Vigil, corrected Father Marcel’s Latin pronunciation in front of the congregation.
Didn’t matter that she was tiny or that she was dirt poor. Hazel was a force to be reckoned with in her own observant, brilliant way.
And now I was here, asking her to marry me.
“Hey,” she said, holding open the door and waving me in. “Dylan’s at the gym, and then I think he’s headed to Bangor to hit the Target.”
Just inside the doorway, I stopped. I couldn’t keep my eyes from wandering. This was Hazel. I’d never looked at her body. But tonight felt different. She was wearing yoga pants and the smallest, tightest tank top I had ever seen. My eyes roamed hungrily over her neck, her collarbones, and her full breasts. Distracting. And bad. Some switch had been flipped in my brain, and suddenly, she wasn’t Pip, Dylan’s kid sister and my old friend, but Hazel, a woman who was smart and beautiful and needed my help.
Hazel was right. I did need therapy.
Stuffing my hands in my pockets, I blew out a breath as subtly as I could, trying to get control over my hormones. I needed to get these words out. I had spent the morning rehearsing and psyching myself up for this.
It was time for me to step up. To man up. It’s what my dad would have done. She needed help, and I was going to help her. Because I hadn’t been able to think about anything else for the past few days.
“I’m not here to see Dylan,” I said softly.
She closed the door and looked up at me, head tilted, and waited.
“I, uh,” I stammered, mustering the tiny bit of courage I could find, “wanted to talk to you about getting married.”
She pushed her glasses up her nose and gaped at me, her green eyes widening. “Nope. No way. Not happening.” With that, she turned and hustled to the tiny kitchen. She busied herself with filling the kettle and putting it on the stove, going about it like I wasn’t here.
I stood still, watching her as she busied herself. This conversation wasn’t over. If she wanted to freeze me out, I’d wait.
“If that’s the only reason you came here, you can go now. I’m not discussing this lunacy any further.” She popped up on her tiptoes and reached for a mug in the cabinet.
I stalked toward her, angry and frustrated and feeling a strange tension in my chest. The patience I’d felt moments ago had disappeared in a cloud of smoke. Hazel was on the quiet side but had a bossy streak a mile wide. With anyone else, it would be hot. But with her, it was more of an annoyance.
“Think about it,” I growled, splaying my hands on the countertop across from her.
“You laughed when Dylan suggested it. And yes,” she brought a hand to her heart, “that hurt a little. But you were right. I’m sorry he pressured you to help me. I promise I’ll be fine.”
Dammit, the urge to help her, to protect her, had intensified more every day since then. I couldn’t live with the thought of her not receiving the medical care she needed. Yes, getting married was extreme, but we certainly wouldn’t be the first couple to do it for this reason.
And I needed to help her understand that this could really work. Of course it was crazy. Totally bananas, really. But my good sense had gone out the window the minute I heard she needed help. Or maybe it had left me that night at the bar when I watched her bust her ass with a smile on her face. Or maybe that tiny tank top had driven me over the edge, and these were the last gasps of my sanity. Didn’t matter.
“Then let me help you pay for the surgery. Between Dylan and me, we can swing it.”
She narrowed her eyes, her dark irises flickering with heated anger. “I don’t want your charity.”
I tried to open my mouth to calm her or backtrack or to defend myself—something—but her low growl and the death stare had me frozen in place.
“My brother has been taking care of me my entire life. Every choice he’s ever made has been in service of my needs. I will not let him drain his savings. He has dreams, and I won’t stand in his way.”
“I know you wouldn’t. But your health is precious.”
She slapped a tiny hand on the countertop. “You think I don’t know that? You think I want to be doubled over in pain every day?”
She angled forward, giving me a tantalizing view down her tank top that I triedso hardnot to home in on. “The last thing I need is another overprotective man telling me what to do with my body.”
I took a step back, hands up. Shit, I should have known my usual charm would never work on Hazel. She was too smart and too tough to be easily talked into anything. And she was right. I couldn’t come in here and demand she fake marry me, even if it was for her own good. This was Hazel Markey, the smartest and most determined person I had ever met.
But maybe she would agree… if it was formyown good? I changed tactics, wandered over to a tower of small moving boxes stacked in the corner of the room. Lazily, I tugged on one flap of the top box. Neatly stacked books, large and small. So Hazel.
She couldn’t sleep on Dylan’s couch long term, and I could help her. I just had to get her to accept it. She couldn’t let something so easily fixable derail her dreams. And I would know, as someone struggling to reach my dreams too.
So I shuffled back into the kitchen wordlessly and poured myself a mug of tea. I plopped onto the couch and sipped it quietly, letting my silence communicate how serious I was.
