Whiskey in the Jar Romance

He’d . . . helped her? An odd feeling bloomed inside his chest. He resisted pressing on his sternum to try to make it go away. “Uh, well. Good. That’s good.”

“Thank you,”she said. And then she closed the distance between them, threaded her arms around his waist and hugged him, her head settling on his chest. Beckett was so stunned that, like the fucking emotional misfit he was, he didn’t immediately react. “Sorry,”she whispered, pulling away as if embarrassed. As if she thought he didn’t want her embrace. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

“Stay,”he said, closing his arms around her back. He pulled her in tight. And as they stood in the dark holding each other, Beckett had a goddamned ridiculous realization. He could count the number of people who had hugged him before this moment on one finger—Becca, when she’d apologized to him for what they’d all thought her father had done. Before that, Beckett couldn’t ever remember being hugged. Not once.