Hold Me Close: A Cinnamon Roll Box Set

by Talia Hibbert

  “There we go!”

  Oh my God. Oh my God. She could hear her baby crying.

  Nothing had ever sounded so heavenly.

  The time between her son’s first cry and the touch of his skin against her own was interminably long. Ridiculously long. Inhumanely long. But finally, finally, after all sorts of murmurs and mumbles, and the painful, exhausted shove with which she released the afterbirth, and the loudest demands she could muster while floating in a haze of aching soreness, she had him.

  She had him. Her baby. Her Bump.

  The top of his little head smelled like dried pasta shells. It was delightful. Delicious. She hadn’t realised that pasta shells smelled so very lovely until she found the scent nestled in her baby’s thick thatch of auburn hair.

  Oh, yes, he had hair. He wouldn’t open his eyes, and they’d probably be blue anyway, but he had plenty of dark, red hair, and the splotchiest cream-and-raspberry skin, and hands too big for his skinny little body, and a head like a toothless old man’s. He was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. He fit perfectly under her chin, tucked safely away like a Russian doll, folded in her arms.

  She heard Samir’s voice, low and assured, as he spoke with a nurse or a midwife or someone. Yes, he said, they were trying to breastfeed, and yes, they had formula ready just in case, and no, Laura didn’t mind the blood, or the vernix that lingered on Bump’s skin like waxy chalk. They could wash it off later.

  Samir came back as she lowered Bump to her breast. The baby snuffled around like a piglet, and she wondered what was supposed to happen now. Some people had trouble, the midwife had told her—it wasn’t always plain sailing. But the midwife had also told her to relax and let it happen, so with astonishingly little effort, Laura chilled the fuck out. Must be the magic air.

  “Hey,” Samir said softly, his hand sliding over her hair.

  She smiled weakly up at him, her muscles loose, as if the strings that controlled them had unravelled. Her eyes felt slightly blurry. “Hey yourself.”

  “How do you feel?”

  “I’m… I can’t believe I can be so thoroughly uncomfortable in every way, and happier than ever at the same time.”

  He gave her one of those soul-shaking smiles, and somehow, impossibly, she became even happier. “You did good,” he said. “You did really fucking good. And Christ, I’m gonna have to stop swearing, aren’t I?”

  “Yes, but you can have a pass for now.”

  He chuckled even as he ran a single finger over Bump’s mucky little shoulder. “It’s amazing,” Samir whispered. “So amazing. That he was in there all this time, coming to life…”

  “I know,” she whispered back. “Look at him! Look how pretty he is!”

  Samir grinned, shaking his head. “Look how pretty you are.”

  “Oh, shut up.” She shouldn’t be blushing. She was a mother. She had never been so mature in her life as she was now. She definitely shouldn’t be blushing.

  He kissed her cheek. “I love you.”

  Oh, God, was she blushing. “And I love you.”

  “And I love Bump.”

  “But he needs a better name,” Laura admitted sadly. She quite liked Bump, to be honest. “A proper name. Like… Fire.”

  Samir rolled his eyes. “No.”

  “With a ‘y’?”

  “You say that like a ‘y’ makes it better.”

  “You can’t say no to me! I just pushed out a whole baby.”

  “True,” he admitted, his brow creasing into a frown. “Oh! Here’s an idea. Let’s call Ruth in. I’ll let her say no to you.”

  She snorted, then winced as the laughter caused all kinds of uncomfortable twinges below her waist. That did not bode well. But the midwife didn’t seem concerned about anything down there, and really, she couldn’t bring herself to care. Not about the state of her nether regions, or the fact that she might be lying in her own blood right now, or even the sleepless nights ahead of her.

  Laura couldn’t worry about a damn thing. Not with her son lying on her chest and the love of her life holding her hand.

  Not when she’d stumbled headfirst into a happiness that she’d once thought she’d never deserve.

  Epilogue

  Twenty-one Years Later

  “Phoenix Bianchi!”

  They were supposed to hold their applause ’til the end of the ceremony. Samir should’ve known the twins would ignore that rule.

  As their big brother took to the stage in his flowing, black robes, Willow and Sol gave a whoop so perfectly coordinated, it had to be pre-planned.

  “Girls!” Laura whispered sharply.

  At the iron in their mother’s grey gaze, the twins settled down. But that iron melted away like so much city snow when Samir caught his wife’s eye over their heads. She gave him a smile that showed every inch of her beaming pride, her pure, unadulterated happiness, and it hit him like an arrow to the heart.

  So beautiful. She’d always been so beautiful.

  Usually, it took him forever to look away from Laura’s smile, from her round, pink cheeks and the creases that cradled her laughing eyes. But today he managed it in record time.

  He couldn’t miss the sight of his son graduating, after all.

  Phoenix shook the presiding officer’s hand, standing a head taller than the older man, his auburn hair aflame under the hall’s harsh yellow lights. Then, the scroll that symbolised his degree firmly in hand, he strode off the stage.

  But not before taking a moment, the barest second, to look out into the crowd for his family. He caught Samir’s eye because, though Phoenix loved his mother, he was Samir’s boy first.

  Samir nodded, knowing his son would understand. I am so proud of you. Almost too proud to bear.

  Phoenix’s smile stretched wider, his cheeks plumping up like his mother’s. As if he’d never paused, he left the stage, those robes floating elegantly behind him.

  Samir studied his family, the girls in dresses for once and sitting nicely, Laura grinning so wide she might burst. Sometimes he wished he could go back in time and tell his teenage self about this. That he could reassure the Samir who’d once been so full of rage he hadn’t trusted himself to speak. That he could say, One day you’ll be surrounded by people who love you. One day you’ll have children with Laura Albright, and marry her, and watch your babies become adults, and know that you’re capable of contentment, of family.

  But he couldn’t time travel. He couldn’t tell himself that. And in the end, it didn’t matter.

  Happiness had been one hell of a surprise.

  The End.

  Next Up: back to Ravenswood and the Kabbah sisters. What’s a girl to do when her high school crush returns as a widowed, single dad? Apparently, she takes a job as his live-in nanny.

  Untouchable

  Ravenswood Book 2

  For everyone who’s ever been left.

  Content Note

  Please be aware: this book contains material that may trigger certain audiences, including:

  themes of depression and anxiety

  parental illness, chronic illness, terminal illness

  parental abandonment

  discussion of spousal death

  reference to suicidal thoughts (Chapter 10)

  a sex act that is stopped abruptly due to one participants’ discomfort (Chapter 14; there is no dubious consent or non-consent in this book).

  Prologue

  Most people didn’t like walking in the rain.

  Especially not this kind of rain, the sort of icy spray that barely seemed to fall, yet soaked everything in its path within seconds. Sly rain, Nate’s mum called it. You might look out the window and think, Oh, that’s alright to go out in—but as soon as you stepped outside, you’d realise it absolutely wasn’t.

  At least, it wasn’t unless you were Nate. Unless you needed something damp and dour to soothe your scorched bones. Only on days like this, when the sly rain fell and the sky was a sad, blue-grey and the earth smelled fres
h and clean, did he stop feeling so fucking furious. Only on days like this did his strange, empty rage—the rage he had no reason to feel—go away.

  He’d turned fourteen last week, and his mum had bought him a birthday cake. His ever-cheerful little brother had stuck fourteen candles in the round, white sponge. Nate had blown out the candles and tried to seem excited. Later that night, he’d snuck out of the house to watch the stars and wondered why he was such an ungrateful, miserable, angry motherfucker when he had no right to be. They loved him, but all he had room for was rage.

  He’d decided it was this fucking town. This tiny, suffocating town and everyone in it. Ravenswood. It wasn’t his fault; it was Ravenswood’s fault. He wouldn’t always be like this; he just had to leave. And the minute he’d made that decision, something in his chest had eased. That was all. He just had to leave.

  So, Nate was biding his time until adulthood came along, and he could fuck off out of here. He’d run away to somewhere huge and awful like Manchester or London, and… and become an artist. Or a photographer. Something that didn’t involve words or reading, since he couldn’t even do that right. His jaw still ached from the effort of clenching his teeth in Geography class that morning. That fucker Mr. Meyers had called him stupid again—and since Nate had been too angry to speak, and since he’d promised Ma he wouldn’t throw chairs at school anymore, he’d just had to sit there and take it.

  Which was why he’d decided to spend his lunch break wandering the school grounds in the rain. It calmed him. He passed by the music block to circle the mammoth obelisk of the science tower, dragging in gulps of cool, wet air. Later, he’d turn up for maths with rain dripping from his nose and the tips of his too-black hair, and some clever twat like Dan Burne would probably call him a demonic drowned rat or whatever.

  Didn’t matter. Nate felt water leak into his battered old school shoes as he stepped purposefully into puddles and relished the shock of cold. He turned his face up as he walked and let the raindrops bathe his wide eyes like someone else’s tears. Which is why it took him so bloody long to notice Hannah Kabbah walking in front of him.

  But once he saw her, he couldn’t focus on anything else. He didn’t really want to. He liked watching Hannah—he liked Hannah full stop, not that he’d ever tell her so. If he did, she’d probably just roll her eyes and turn away, which was kind of why he liked her. She was so… direct. Forceful, even. Like right now: she walked like she had somewhere to be, somewhere way more important than mere mortals could possibly imagine. She strutted, but not like a supermodel. More like that one frantic P.E. teacher who always had someone to scold.

  They’d been in the same classes all their lives—which had always struck him as odd, because the classes were split by ability, and Hannah Kabbah was a hell of a lot smarter than him. She was smarter than everyone, and a stuck-up sort of know-it-all besides. A textbook teacher’s pet, so on the nose it was almost funny. He might even think she was faking it, if it didn’t make her so unpopular. And if he weren’t naturally a textbook teenage outcast.

  Sometimes being a cliché came too easily to avoid.

  She hurried in front of him on her short little legs and rounded the corner of the science block, disappearing only seconds after he’d noticed her. By the time he turned that same corner, she should’ve been long gone.

  But she wasn’t.

  Nate pulled up short, raising a very wet hand to swipe the water from his very wet eyes. Unsurprisingly, the whole manoeuvre was largely ineffective. He squinted and wondered if he was hallucinating or something. He’d tried weed three days ago, down at the park with the older girl who lived at the end of his road. Maybe this was some kind of delayed effect. Because surely, surely, he wasn’t seeing Hannah Kabbah facing off some massive Year Eleven lads.

  Only he didn’t think weed worked like that, and his head felt just fine. So he supposed he must be seeing exactly what he thought he was.

  Just a few paces away, Hannah stood at the centre of a sparse, scattered circle of older kids. She was glaring up at Lee Beech, a boy almost a foot taller than her and a hell of a lot meaner. The people around them seemed tense and quiet, the rain whispering through the air, putting out their illicit cigarettes. Everyone’s green blazers were sodden, almost black with wet. Except Hannah’s, because she was all wrapped up in a sensible, lavender raincoat that matched the barrettes in her hair.

  Honestly, it was like she wanted to be bullied.

  But she wasn’t the only odd figure lurking at the back of the science block, he realised. There was a girl hovering behind her, a really small girl in a teal raincoat that looked like Hannah’s. The girl looked like Hannah too, like a little carbon copy, but with thick, turquoise glasses plonked on her snub nose. He wondered if she could even see through the rain-spattered lenses.

  Then his wondering was cut short as Lee stepped closer to Hannah, his posture threatening. “You better watch what you say to me, Bugs,” he growled.

  Bugs as in Bugs Bunny. Because Hannah had these teeth—well, never mind.

  Hannah frowned at Lee—she was always frowning—and Nate wanted to shout at her. Something along the lines of “Run away, you bloody idiot!”

  Because, if she didn’t, Nate would have to step in and rescue her. And he might be big for his age, and pretty used to fighting, but he didn’t really fancy his chances against a Year Eleven.

  Unfortunately for him, Hannah’s fight or flight instinct was shit. Instead of backing away from the scariest kid in school, she set her shoulders and snapped, “You watch what you say to my sister and we won’t have a problem.”

  The girl, who must be her sister, said, “Han.” That was it. Just a single syllable, not even a complete word.

  But Hannah turned around and answered as if the girl had given a full-blown speech. “Don’t start! What did I tell you about talking? Huh? Now look! Look what I have to do!”

  The sister shrugged, and the action lifted the massive rucksack on her shoulders. Its fabric was darkened by rain, but Nate was pretty sure he could make out some kind of comic book shit on the side. His little brother loved that stuff. Suddenly, he understood exactly why Hannah was being so reckless. He’d put himself in a world of trouble to protect his dorky little sibling, too.

  In fact, he was about to put himself in a world of trouble to protect hers, never mind his own. With a sigh, Nate shrugged off his rucksack and let it fall to the ground, ready to draw the boys’ attention.

  Then Lee stepped forward and pushed Hannah, spitting, “Yeah? What you gonna do, Bugs?”

  And Hannah stumbled back. No; she fell, landing square on her arse with a strangled little sound that made his heart sort of… stutter. Like when a car jolts over a pothole in the road. And suddenly, the anger Nate had managed to soothe with his rainy walk burst back to life, burning brighter than ever.

  Who the fuck would push a girl? A little girl, for that matter? Hannah Kabbah, for all her sharp glares and superior attitude, was basically a tiny ball of fluff. Like a kitten. A newborn kitten that couldn’t quite open its eyes yet.

  Nate did not like boys who stepped on kittens.

  So he marched right up to Lee Beech, who was two years older and a foot wider than him. He met those cruel, smug eyes with his own. And when Lee sneered, “What the fuck do you want?” Nate answered by punching the bastard in the face.

  For a moment, things moved as if in slow motion. Lee staggered back, clutching his nose, face slack with shock. Nate thought, for a moment, that things might end there. That he’d turn around, grab Hannah and Tinier Hannah, and they’d all leave.

  But then a savage sort of roar went up, and Lee’s friends charged. They surrounded Nate all at once, like a wall of lanky teenage violence, and he had just enough time to think Ma’s gonna throttle me for this before the fight began.

  Nate went home early that day with two black eyes, a dislocated shoulder, and a week’s worth of detentions.

  And Hannah Kabbah—unbeknownst to him and
much to her own discomfort—went home with a crush.

  1

  Ruth: Evan wants to know if you’re coming over for dinner.

  Hannah: Aren’t *you* supposed to invite me to dinner? Since you’re my sister and everything?

  Ruth: Do you want his fancy triple-fried chips or not??

  As soon as the woman said, “Excuse me,” Hannah knew there would be trouble.

  Maybe it was the way her razor-sharp bullshit-ometer shrieked like a newborn. Maybe it was her years of experience working with kids, AKA masters of pushing their luck and shirking responsibility. Whatever the reason, Hannah’s muscles tensed and her smile froze into place before she’d even turned to look at the customer. The customer who, according to her instincts, was about to try some nonsense.

  It was the four-chai-tea-lattes-thanks blonde from five minutes ago, said chai lattes sitting on the counter in front of her. She pushed her honeyed fringe out of her eyes with a hand that bore a rock the size of Gibraltar. Then she tapped the counter impatiently with one French-manicured claw, just in case the solar flare coming off that ring wasn’t enough to alert Hannah to her presence.

  “Can I help you?” Hannah asked sweetly, knowing very well that her patience was about to be tested. For the ninth time that day.

  God must be punishing me for staring at Emma Dowl’s arse in church last week.

  “I didn’t order these,” the woman said. “I wanted plain lattes. Not chai.” She spoke with such casual confidence, Hannah almost forgot that she was lying through her expensive teeth. But that blip of confidence passed quickly as Hannah’s memory whirred to life.