Page 82 of Soft Flannel Hank

“I love stories,” Esther said resting her chin on her palm, looking so sweet that his teeth ached.

“You probably won’t like this one.”

“Is it about you?”

He nodded, chewing slowly.

“Then I know I will.”

Hank grunted as he swallowed another bite. He took a deep breath and met Esther’s gaze across the table. “Alright,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Let’s get this over with, then.”

16

“Ifell in love at eighteen,” Hank said, feeling the weight of his life.

“Didn’t we all?” Esther teased, smiling brightly.

“Did we?” Hank asked. He honestly didn’t know.

Hank tried to imagine Esther at eighteen. He wondered if she had been as stacked with strong curves back then as she was now or if she was gangly and… what was the word they’d used in his mom’s romance novels?Coltish.He could easily picturecoltishEsther, all legs and spark.

Hank imagined Esther giving her love without reservations to everyone who would have taken it on. Her love would have been pure and good and full of hope and all the optimistic exuberance of people who haven’t yet had to sing for their suppers, let alone the roof over their heads.

But young love was like soap bubbles. Iridescent and floating in the hazy light of everything that lay ahead.

Hank knew. He had fallen in love at eighteen. But it felt nothing like his love felt now.

Hank’s grown love was liquid, thick and viscous. His feelings, deep and raw and frighteninglybig,moved around within his brain and couldn’t have been separated from his body for as long as he drew breath into his lungs. And like a liquid, his love was shaped entirely by its container which, at the moment, was the rapidly beating confines of his heart.

If Esther would let him, he would pour all of that love into her and let it fill in all the cracks and scars left by a life that had been less than kind to her.

“I feel like I fell in love every other week at eighteen.” Esther sighed.

“Just… just the once for me.”

Esther swirled her spoon in her bowl of apple crumble. Hank watched her lift the spoon to her mouth and flip it over, dragging the apples over her tongue. He wanted to lean across the table and kiss her while the sugar and cinnamon still coated her tongue, to taste it on her. But he clenched his fists on his thighs and felt his body ache instead.

“I was quiet in school,” Hank said.

“But you’re such a big talker now.”

She was teasing. He huffed a laugh. But the laugh turned into a sigh as he rubbed his hands up and down his thighs, feeling that soothing friction of the denim against his palms.

“I’ve always been big. I played football in high school.”

“Did you like it?” Esther asked.

He hesitated, like he often did when deciding how much of his underbelly to show her. “I liked being on a team. I liked being a part of something. I didn’t like hitting people, though.”

“Why not?”

“You’ve seen me. You see me,” he corrected. “People would try to test me, act bigger than they were. And I had a job to do.”

Maybe he’d always had that hero complex. It started with protecting baby birds that had fallen out of nests and evolved to keeping gangly teenage quarterbacks from getting pummeled. And then to trying his very best to keep his community safe. And now, that instinct was trained on Esther.

“Anyway. I got along with my team, but I never hung out after games. Never went to parties or anything.”

“Why not?”