When We're Thirty

by Casey Dembowski

  Will had already planned to spend the day on the golf course with one of their mutual college friends, Eddie. He had invited her along and even offered to cancel, but Hannah had wanted the day to decompress. And if Will saw how awful she was at golf, he might rescind his proposal.

  Sitting alone in her apartment, she wondered if it would’ve been better to stay in the moment. And if she should’ve asked him to stay the night, considering they couldn’t date other people. Will had been pretty clear that the marriage had to appear as real as possible in public, but she’d been the one to push for exclusivity. Hannah didn’t want anyone to see her husband out with another woman. Marriage of convenience or not, there needed to be some sanctity—particularly if they evoked the clause about dating each other. Will had written it down in his clunky handwriting without hesitation. Because sex. Who wanted to not have sex for a year when they were sharing a bed? At least, she assumed they were sharing a bed. It would be too obvious otherwise, and in the city’s closet-sized spaces, having a second bedroom was unlikely. Though Will clearly had money.

  She opened the memo app on her phone and added a note: Where do I sleep? Under it, she wrote a second question: Do I want to sleep with Will?

  It was a valid question. The glimpses of him she’d gotten at the various toga parties over the years had been pleasing, and there’d been that one time she’d seen his butt. And it was a nice butt—it could be his main selling point when it came to appearance, especially with the jeans from yesterday. Thank God for slim-fit, straight-leg jeans. Brian always wore relaxed fit. Brian. Her heart rejected the casual reference. Had it only been two days? It wasn’t that she hadn’t thought about him—she had. But whenever the thought popped into her mind, she banished it or let it bounce away. She needed to figure things out with Will first. That was all her brain could handle at the moment. Mission accomplished. Checklist checked. But now, she couldn’t ignore the Brian in the room, even as much as she wanted to.

  She wasn’t callous enough to feel nothing. Things hadn’t been great for a while, but she did love Brian. A fight, a night, and an engagement weren’t going to suddenly change her feelings. That didn’t mean she wanted to get back together, but she couldn’t help checking her phone for an apology or, at the very least, an I’m coming to get my stuff text. Emotions whirled around inside her, and she let them grow. They extended to the tips of her fingers and burrowed deep in her gut. Each emotion demanded to be felt and experienced. Sorrow, loss, relief, fear, and clarity trickled down her cheeks. It had been time to end things—she knew that, had known it for months—but Will’s arrival had pushed the issue. Anger flashed in her chest, and for a moment, she hated Will and his stupid smile and his beautiful engagement ring and his perfectly shaped ass.

  But this wasn’t Will’s fault—yes, it definitely was. Though she had let things with Brian settle into comfortable dissatisfaction. Long-term, their life together would have been an unhappy one, filled with the differences they refused to either acknowledge or reconcile. She didn’t know why she was wasting time on these thoughts. A real future with Brian had always been a moot point. Binx was only three, and she wasn’t getting rid of him, and Brian would never have moved in with them. That didn’t make it hurt less.

  Her hand trembled as she wiped away stray tears. Her heart was bruised, but she could already feel it rebounding. The decision to marry Will—though crazy—was a good one. She believed that. She longed to talk with Kate, her fingers hovering over her phone, but Kate hadn’t answered a single one of Hannah’s calls in the last three days. Kate had posted the latest podcast episode, so Hannah knew she was alive and well. And tonight, Hannah wanted to share her news with someone, not explain it. She swiped around until she found her text conversation with her sister. She glanced up at the time in the corner of her phone—nine forty-five. Not too late, but Stephanie was an old twenty-six.

  I’m getting married in two days, she typed, the words unbelievable even to herself.

  Stephanie’s response was fast, which usually meant she’d caught her scrolling in bed. Ruh-roh—preggo?

  She’d have to get used to that reaction. It would be the norm, and no one was going to believe she wasn’t pregnant until her belly remained flat—well, flattish. But knowing didn’t help the flip-flop in her stomach as she reread Stephanie’s words.

  Another text came in before she could come up with a proper response. Charli says she didn’t think Brian had it in him.

  Well, if there was ever an opening, that was it. Not pregnant, and not to Brian.

  Hannah didn’t have to wait long. She’d only counted to twenty before her sister’s picture popped up on the screen. She wondered if it would be Stephanie or the hybrid, “Charlanie”—Charlotte and Stephanie. The static of speakerphone came through on the other line. Charlanie it was. Hannah pushed the thought away. She liked Charlotte. But Charlotte and Stephanie had been hard to handle from the beginning, always attached at the hip, talking in that royal relationship “we.” Time and marriage hadn’t made it any better.

  “Explain,” Stephanie said in response to Hannah’s greeting.

  Hannah chewed on her thumbnail, regret settling deep inside of her. There was no way she could tell her the truth. Lying wasn’t Stephanie’s specialty, and one wrong look from their mother and Stephanie would spill every one of Hannah’s secrets—she had in the past. But Hannah had to say something. “Do you remember Will Thorne?”

  “Your friend from college? Yes.”

  Last night, she and Will had briefly discussed the need for a backstory, something along the lines of having reconnected a few months prior. But having to formulate it on the spot and have it be less than scandalous—Brian had been present at a family event on Labor Day—left Hannah at a loss.

  “What’s going on?” Stephanie asked.

  It took Hannah a moment to realize she’d been taken off speakerphone, which meant for once, she just had her sister. She wished that changed anything.

  “Will and I reconnected a few months ago. It was totally platonic, but then things with Brian took a wrong turn... and I’m getting married in two days,” she said, the weight of the lie lessening with each word.

  “How are you getting married in two days? Does Mom know?” Stephanie was getting worked up now. Hannah heard it building with each syllable.

  “No, and you can’t tell her, Stephanie. It’s just going to be a really small thing. I thought maybe it would be better to let Mom think we were just engaged for a while. Ease her into it.” Calling Stephanie had been a mistake. She should’ve just manned up and apologized to Kate. This news was never going to stay quiet.

  “She’s going to kill you.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have involved you.” Hannah hoped she sounded remorseful and not regretful, but at this point, she couldn’t tell the difference. The lies and the truth were too meshed together.

  “Of course you should involve me. I’m your sister.” Hannah could feel the depth of Stephanie’s eye roll through the airwaves. “That’s like the whole point of my existence.”

  There had been a time when that was the unequivocal truth. A time before houses in the suburbs and model domesticity. Before midweek concerts, two a.m. deadlines, and a city had stolen Hannah’s heart. Back then, it had been cute that Stephanie couldn’t keep a secret instead of being a fatal flaw. Not that they weren’t close, because they were, but slowly, their disparate styles had caused their lives to diverge.

  “You know Mom will be mad at you simply for knowing the truth,” Hannah said, shifting her phone to her other ear.

  “So I won’t tell her.” For the first time, Hannah sensed a hint of frustration in her sister. Stephanie had definitely picked up on Hannah’s subtle attempts at backpedaling. “When you show up with Will and a wedding band, I’ll act appropriately shocked. And I’ll barely have to fake it.”

  “You are going to lie? To Mom?”

  “Trust me, Mom’s not going to be mad at me fo
r, like, the next nine months and probably for the next few years after that.”

  “Wh—” No way. “You’re pregnant?”

  “Surprise, Auntie Hannah!”

  “Way to bury the lede!”

  “Um, where in the conversation that started with ‘I’m getting married to some random guy in two days’ was I supposed to slip that in?” Stephanie giggled. The lightness of her laugh carried through to Hannah, calming her head and heart. “It’s still really early. I don’t want to tell Mom until I’m further along. So... I’ll keep your secret, and you’ll keep mine. Deal?”

  If they had been together, Stephanie would have had her pinky out. Without a pinky swear, everything was hearsay and words. Without a pinky swear, all bets were off.

  Hannah linked her own pinkies together. “Deal.”

  Chapter 10

  Will

  Tahiti, Maui, Turks. Will scanned the Wellington Thorne database for honeymoon destinations—and there were plenty—but he couldn’t decide. None of them screamed “Hannah,” and all of them had been on his list of proposal vacations for Madison. Maybe Europe. Hannah had gone before. Perhaps there was somewhere she wanted to see again. There was only one way to find out. He dialed her number on his office phone.

  She picked up on the fourth ring. “Hello?”

  “Hello, my darling fiancée,” he said, cluing her in. He hadn’t considered that she wouldn’t recognize his office number. “Do you have a second?”

  “Not really, but what’s up?” She sounded distant. Wherever she was, it was crowded and loud. He imagined her sitting in a restaurant in SoHo, waiting for some musician only heard on Alt Nation.

  “Where would you like to honeymoon?”

  She laughed but quieted when he didn’t join in. “Oh, you’re serious.”

  Muffled background static came across the line, followed by garbled speech, but it sounded more professional than secretive. Maybe his imagination was spot-on.

  “Listen, I gotta go—impatient singer and all. But beaches are always nice,” she said at lightning speed before hanging up.

  A beach. Well, that narrowed it down and put him right back where he started. Turks, Maui, Tahiti. He pulled up the list of luxury hotels again—Hilton Head or Antigua? He opened the weather app on his phone. There didn’t appear to be any hurricane warnings for the next week as of yet. Antigua. It was quiet and one of their nicest resorts. Hannah would love it. Assuming she had a passport still. He wrote himself a note to ask before he bought the tickets.

  The unmistakable clearing of his older brother’s throat caught Will’s attention. Jon stood in the doorway in a perfectly pressed suit. It fit better than any suit he’d ever worn before. The Madison effect. It had happened to Will too.

  “Everything okay?” Jon asked, stepping into the office. He stood with his hands in his pants pockets, looking heartily uncomfortable. Will almost enjoyed it, but Jon never stopped in without reason anymore.

  “Yes,” he said more tersely than intended.

  “Well, good. Why the sudden vacation?” Jon took a seat.

  Fuck. They were tracking his vacation requests. The request had been sudden, but it shouldn’t have been cause for alarm. Will had more than enough time built up, and he’d been working his ass off for the last six weeks. “Dad sent you?”

  “Do you think it’s a good idea to be taking vacation right now? After everything?” Jon’s voice was strained, but his expression remained stoic.

  You mean after everything that you caused? He wanted to say it perhaps more than anything he’d ever wanted to say before, but that would be going backward. All the angry words had been said. There was no reason to rehash them, or so his father reminded him at every opportunity. But there was so much left to say that sometimes it made Will sick. His marriage to Hannah was a new path, one in which his father didn’t see him as a proverbial screwup who couldn’t even keep his girlfriend from sleeping with his brother. Yeah, that had been a Jonathan line for the books, as if his father hadn’t set the bar impossibly high from birth.

  “It’s just a vacation. I’m not having a breakdown or doing anything that will embarrass Dad or the company.” He held up two fingers. “Scout’s honor.”

  “That would mean more if you were actually a Boy Scout.” Jon laughed and unbuttoned his jacket, a sure sign that this conversation wasn’t over. “Lunch then? I’d love to talk—”

  “Actually,” Will said, turning off his monitor and pocketing his cell phone, “I have lunch plans. Thanks for stopping in—totally saved me from being late.”

  “How is it that I see you eat the same salad from Susanna’s every day except for the days when I ask you to have lunch?” Sarcasm clung to every word. Underneath it, Will sensed loneliness, but Jon had done this to himself.

  “Just unlucky, I guess.” He took his trench coat down from the rack in the corner of his office, folding it over one arm. His brother didn’t move from his chair. Will wanted to leave He didn’t owe Jon anything, but Jon was still his big brother, though he couldn’t say what that meant anymore. “We can have lunch when I’m back. I’ll see what days Daniel has off, and maybe we can make it work. We could go to that place Mom always liked.”

  “Valspino’s. We haven’t been there in ages.” The tremor in Jon’s voice was slight. Most people wouldn’t have noticed it, but Will wasn’t most people. He remembered the exact moment that tremor started—the morning she was diagnosed—and all those years later, he was still waiting for it to disappear. Of the three brothers, Jon had held on the hardest, as if retaining his grief proved he loved her the most. There was no telling Jon it wasn’t a competition. Everything was a competition when you were a Thorne.

  NOT TEN MINUTES LATER, Will found himself at 28th and Park, a handful of blocks from his younger brother’s hospital. It had become such a routine in the last few months that he didn’t even realize that’s where he was headed until he arrived aboveground. As a second-year resident, Daniel kept a busy schedule, but occasionally he could spare a few minutes or a quick cafeteria sandwich. Even when he wasn’t free, the area had enough restaurants and parks to keep Will occupied for his lunch hour. Sometimes, if he was feeling touristy, he’d head over to the Empire State Building or the Museum of Sex. Once, when he’d needed a particularly long break from the office, he’d gone to see a movie.

  Will walked the few blocks to Madison Square Park. He remembered Hannah mentioning that it was one of her city havens. How many times had they just missed each other over the years? Sat on opposite sides of the park? Or shared the same bench a handful of minutes apart? He shot Hannah a quick text about her passport status before sending another message to his brother. He couldn’t tell Daniel. He wanted to, but the less people who knew the truth about Hannah, the more likely his plan would succeed. If he could keep Hannah away from his family for the whole year, he absolutely would. But that wasn’t an option—not with Jon and Madison’s endless wedding events and the family weekends their father insisted on since he stepped down as CEO.

  As a family business, Wellington Thorne had been passed down to his father, Jonathan, and uncle, Grayson, when Will’s grandfather had passed. Per the will, the eldest Thorne—Jonathan—would act as CEO for a period of fifteen years, at which time Grayson Thorne would step into the role while Jonathan took over CFO duties. While the transition of power had been peaceful at the beginning of the year, the clout Will’s father still had over the company and the board was undeniable. It was his own father who had tried to have Will fired, and he’d almost succeeded. And even though his father worked remotely from the Hamptons most of the time, letting Jon handle much of the day-to-day work, Will felt his presence more now than when they’d shared an office. Some days, he swore his father was having him followed.

  Will’s phone vibrated, alerting him to a text from Daniel. Perfect timing. Meet me at Goodtimes.

  Goodtimes was the diner near the hospital. It reminded Will of Doc Magoo’s with its constant flow of doc
tors and nurses. Daniel hadn’t appreciated the comparison, but that didn’t deter Will from making it every time he stepped into the place. He cut down Twenty-Sixth Street to avoid the madness of Madison and Park and jogged the few blocks up Third to the diner. Daniel stood outside chatting with a man Will recognized as one of his brother’s attendings. He waited for their conversation to end before crossing the street.

  “Excuse me, Dr. Carter, is it?” he said, pulling his brother into a hug.

  “Dick,” Daniel said with a grin. “What drove you out of the office this time?” he asked as they sat down at a back booth. Daniel reclined as much as he could in the confined space.

  “It’s not a what.”

  Daniel laughed, but he didn’t open his eyes. Exhaustion etched the lines of his face, heavy bags under his eyes. His scrubs were wrinkled but thankfully clean of any questionable stains. Will wondered how long his shift had been—his brother usually put on a better showing than this.

  “You have to give him points for tenacity.” Daniel straightened up at the sound of the waitress’s sneakers against the linoleum. How often did he eat here to recognize the cadence of her steps? “Adele, my love, I need so much coffee.”

  Adele appeared to be in her late fifties. She wore the chunky plastic frames of a hipster and a bowling shirt.

  “Can’t run only on coffee, doc,” she said amiably.

  The smile Daniel gave her was affectionate—he definitely spent too much time at this diner. “I can try, Adele. I can try.”

  “All right, dearie—coffee and the usual?”

  Daniel nodded.

  Will skimmed the menu, already missing his salad from Susanna’s. Maybe he’d stop in on his way back to the office. “Just a coffee for me.”

  “Long day?” Will asked after Adele turned to the next table.

  “I’ve been on for, like, eighteen hours or something. They asked me to pick up a half shift as I was walking out the door.” He smiled. “It was worth it, though. I got to assist on this really cool surgery.”