The Perfect Shot (Book 3) ✓

13 - Change

Hannah

After the emergency exit Cleo needed to make from the park, he did everything in his power to invade all of my time and thoughts. The constant texting or calls when I was alone and sure that no one could hear me... the secret meetings at the park and other places he knew. I felt like a teenager in a movie. Like, my teenage years weren't like that at all, and now, at 23, I was living the life I was supposed to live in my youth. With every moment we shared, I got to like Cleo more and more, got to know him more, who he was, what he liked, why he was the way he was. And he was so honest. It was sometimes strange to get everything like it is, without any secret motives.

"What are you thinking about?" We were once again at the small park, sharing some sweets from Lily's bakery and talking nothing in particular.

"Nothing..."

"Really? Try again."

"Just... I feel like I'm living my teenage years right now, with all the hiding and the meetings."

"You didn't hide back then?"

"Not really. My father always knew where I was. Even if I wasn't telling him, someone would see me and tell him where I was, with whom, what I was doing. I couldn't do anything without him knowing. And that wasn't very fun for me and especially for the friends I tried to make. No one liked to party in some place just for the police to show up and end the fun. So, I quickly found out it was better to just... stay at home, study, read, anything but doing minor illegal stuff that my friends were doing."

"Sound like a thought childhood."

"It had its good sides. Like the one time someone tried to kidnap me..."

"Wait, what?" Cleo quickly looked at me, shock written all over his face.

"Yeah. I was...I think 13 years old. I was coming back home from school when a car stopped close to me. They put me inside it and drove away. The owner of the little flower shop on the corner of the street saw everything from inside her place and called directly my father and told him about the car and its registration number. I don't think I was in there for 10 minutes before we were stopped, and I was saved."

"But...why? Why would someone want to kidnap 13 years old here?"

"I think it was because of my father. He never told me. But I gathered pieces from here and there, his conversations with other cops, with my mum when they didn't know I could hear them. I think it was a man he once arrested and tried to put in jail, but they didn't have all the evidence. He managed to get away with it and decided to teach my father a lesson. But he didn't know how well known I was. The flower shop, I was walking past it every day and I was talking with the owner every time I was there. So, this day, like every other, she was waiting for me, and that's the reason she was looking out her windows. That's the reason she saw what was happening. Because I was well known..."

"Or just because you had very repetitive days. By doing all the same things every day, you make yourself a target for people who didn't want you any good."

"Yeah, I learned that the hard way. Now, I am not taking the same route two days in a row. Always changing paths, I walk around, make sure no one is following me, stuff like that."

"And you've been doing this for years? Thinking how to keep yourself safe by being unpredictable?"

"Well, it was this or to give another chance for my father's enemies to hurt him or me in any way."

"It sounds exhausting to always look over your shoulder..."

"It is. That's why I was happy to go as far away from here as I could. My latest years were heaven. I didn't stop doing this, I was still changing my routes, but I stopped waiting to be grabbed. I stopped worrying all the time and just lived my life."

"And now?"

"Now...I'm not scared someone is going to kidnap me...I'm more scared someone will tell my father what we are doing..."

"And that's a bad thing?"

"You know it is, Cleo..." I didn't want to be this pessimistic person, but I knew my father and I knew it was inevitable he'll find we were going behind his back, and he was going to explode.

"To hell with it."

"Cleo. You love your job...and your team..."

"Yeah, I do. And I'm the best at my field, so he won't fire me just because I am dating his daughter. It will be absolute madness if he does it..."

"We are not dating, Cleo..."

"You sure about that?" I knew I was sounding like a broken record with all the resistance, but I...I didn't want to be the reason he loses something he loves with all of his heart just for the chance of being with me for some time.

"Cleo..."

"No. No more of that. Be honest. All this time, there was only one thing I expected of you, and that was honesty. So, do it now, like you were doing it in the last few weeks. Tell me, do you really think we are not dating, that what we are doing, all the talks, the texts, the meetings, all of this is not dating?"

"You promised..."

"I promised I won't make you show our relationship to everyone. At least not in the beginning. But I never promised you that I don't want this thing between us to be something more. I want to be with you, Hannah. Don't you get it? I like you. I like you very much. And I like the time we are sharing, and...I want more...I don't want to hide anymore."

"It will be catastrophic, and you know it."

"Fuck it! I don't care. I'm tired of hiding, of trying to swerve around my teammates' questions what I was doing, whom I was talking to. They know something is happening and I don't like hiding it from them. It doesn't feel right." I knew I was expecting a lot of him. His team was like a family to him. And it wasn't fair. Asking him to lie to them, just because I was scared. Something had to change.

"Okay."

"Okay?" The hope in his voice was like a needle right through my heart. I was making this amazing man doubt and hide just because I was scared of the consequences.

"Okay...but...can it be in parts?"

"Like...how in parts?"

"Well, you can tell your team. I know it was unfair to ask you to hide it from them. But...can we just...wait until we...until I talk with my father? I want to tell him first, to hear it from me, not from someone who saw us in town...can...do you think you can do that? Wait a little bit longer?" His hands were instantly on my cheeks, his face so close to mine, I could feel his breath on my skin.

"You know I'll wait." 

***Well, looks like the things between these two lovebirds are going at full speed. What do you think will happen when their relationship becomes known to everyone?