Page 101 of Soft Flannel Hank

Hank slipped off the edge of the bed and landed with a thud on his ass on the floor. He grunted on impact. He read that last paragraph again.

She loved him.She loved him.And because she knew him, she had found a way to make him sit on the sidelines and let her go. He was devastated. He was furious. He was painfully in love with her.

A tear dropped from Hank’s chin and onto the paper, where it swirled with the ink from the ballpoint pen. He held the letter out a little farther so that it wouldn’t get ruined.

Don’t do anything stupid because of me. I mean it, Hank. I can deal with anything Callum throws at me as long as I know that you’re safe. So don’t be a hero. It’s not that I don’t think you are one. Because you are. You’re my hero. But I can’t have you being my hero this time.

Please be safe, Hank. I love you to the moon and back.

Yours,

Esther

Hank sat on the floor and stared at Esther’s cramped, blue handwriting crowded onto the page. His vision swam with tears. He felt numb. “Goddammit, Esther,” he muttered under his breath.

“Well, are we going to rescue the princess, or are we going to sit in this drafty damn cabin all day?” he heard Niamh call from the main room in her own tear-filled voice. But it sounded stronger than he’d heard it before.

Hank stood and shoved all of his clothes into the duffle bag, folding the note and tucking it into the side pocket.

Before he walked out of the bedroom, he took one last look at the unmade bed. The flannel sheets were rumpled and wadded in the middle, the quilt half discarded on the floor. It looked like it had every other morning that week, a bed where he’d slept with Esther in his arms after falling asleep soon after using his body to give her every feeling he couldn’t express any other way.

He felt that familiar ache behind his sternum and rubbed it with his knuckles, certain that he would never be rid of that pain.

Niamh was waiting by the door, bags surrounding her.

“Ready?” she asked, stooping to pick them up.

Hank grunted and picked up the rest. It would be dark when they got to World’s End. Esther would either be gone or in Callum’s clutches.

But maybe not.

Hank and Niamh got into the SUV, and she pulled out her satellite phone. She waited while it rang, and Hank fought down his impatience.

“Hello, Nathaniel. I’ve got Hank. By the time you get this, we’ll be halfway back to World’s End. Esther’s about to do something colossally stupid, and we need to do something about it.”

With every word, Hank heard her voice getting stronger and stronger.

She continued, “I’m going to bring Hank straight to your house. So maybe pick up a bit?”

She hung up without another word, and not for the first time, Hank wondered about what Niamh was to Nat. Or what Nat was to her.

Niamh didn’t speak as she pulled off the cabin’s access drive and onto the road. It seemed she wasn’t any more of a talker than he was. As she drove, tears glided down her cheeks and fell onto her black jeans. She barely bothered wiping them away.

Finally, however, Hank’s honor got the best of him. “Are you okay, Niamh?”

She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, keeping her attention mostly on the winding road ahead. “Perfectly fine, why do you ask?” She sniffed.

Hank cleared his throat, wishing he was good at subtlety. “You’re just—you’ve been crying every time I’ve seen you.”

Niamh sniffed. “It beats screaming any day.”

She didn’t offer anything else, and Hank sensed that she wasn’t going to.

“I’m sure,” he replied and turned to look out the window.

* * *

Esther ranher hands over the piles of soft, worn denim that were folded on a long, antique dining table in Jory’s shop. To the ignorant eye, her shop looked like a high-end boutique with brand-new items that cost an extra premium to be made to look ten years old. The more holes in the knees, the more dollars out of your pocket.