For once this year, she’d actually wanted to stay upstairs, if for no other reason than to just be with Hannah, even if she couldn’t be with her. She’d made the rounds with Hannah, introducing her to relatives here and there, but eventually they’d been separated. And the third time they’d made eye contact, she realized that perhaps she was staring a bit too much.

There’s an intense game of Pictionary going on with the kids, though, and she’s cracking up as Melissa and Sammy, one of their second cousins, are shouting at each other, trying to get the answer before time runs out.

Abbie is laughing, too, as she’s curled up against her side – Caroline is the unofficial judge – and Hannah appears on the stairs to announce, “Dinner’s about to be ready! Everyone go wash your hands.”

It’s an immediate clatter of the kids dropping what they’re doing and hustling to go upstairs for the food, as Caroline stretches and watches them go.

Abbie is at the back of the pack, and she watches as she stops and excitedly tells Hannah, “This is the best Thanksgiving ever! It’s so much better than grandma and grandpa’s!”

When they can hear the horde of footsteps running on the first floor, Caroline finally pushes herself up. Hannah is still on the steps and she watches Caroline approach with a look that’s thoughtful and amused and something else, indecipherable, all at once.

“I wondered where you’d gone to and I didn’t realize when your mom told me that you’d escaped down here to play games that you were the life of the party.” There’s the amusement.

Caroline smiles at her as she reaches the stairs. “What can I say?”

Hannah’s gaze gets more contemplative as Caroline slowly ascends the steps. “Abbie’s right. Thanksgiving with your family is the best one we’ve had in a long, long time.”

“Good…?” She comes to a pause on the same step as Hannah, unable to keep her distance. That’s a big reason why she’d come downstairs today in the first place.

It brings them so close, their bodies brushing, and she feels it all over.

“It is good. And it’s scary,” Hannah admits in a whisper, her jaw clenching with a tension Caroline just doesn’t understand.

She frowns, searching Hannah’s eyes, until Hannah squeezes them closed. “You gave us something here that I don’t want to lose. And I’m so…” She blows out a breath, gray eyes opening again, boring into Caroline’s. “I just feel like this is a tightrope and I’m scared of falling.”