As he went into the literally gory details, a storm of affection and envy wrecked Will’s mood. Daniel was exhausted but exhilarated as he went on about human anatomy. That excitement was something Will hadn’t felt in all his time at Wellington Thorne. Will didn’t see that changing anytime soon. Every day under the ever-present gaze of his father’s spies, the proverbial noose tightened. Fresh air became harder to come by. But Daniel had gotten out of the family business and of being a perpetual letdown. Will and Jon had each taken the deal—MBA, JD, or MD in exchange for time in the family business. Daniel had refused and had funded his own way through medical school. Even though he was on the path to becoming a great doctor, Daniel was the black sheep when he should’ve been the golden child. But that was Jonathan Thorne for you, in love first and foremost with his company. Anyone who turned their back on the company turned their back on him.
During his four years of medical school, Daniel hadn’t come home once—he’d wanted to, but he hadn’t been welcome. It was only upon his return to New York, with Jon and Will threatening to walk away from the company, that their father had granted him reprieve. The price for their betrayal had been the mandatory family weekends. If they so wanted to be a family, then dammit, they would act like one.
In the almost eleven years since his mother’s passing, his father hadn’t softened. There’d been that first month, where they’d traveled to several hotel openings as a family, but if anything, without their mother to temper him, Jonathan had become colder and less forgiving. Will had been nineteen when his mother died, in the middle of his freshman year of college at Columbia. Her death had sent him spiraling out of New York. His father had at least given Will his pick of far-off schools where he could find his head and not make too much of a spectacle of himself—or at least far enough away that no one would notice or care. U of I had been perfect for that. And his father had been right—outside of New York, no one cared.
He didn’t remember ever talking about his father with Hannah, at least not in a specific way. He had whined about the weight of expectation. She had countered with stories of suburbia and parents who were involved but not orchestrating. But he couldn’t tell her what her parents did for a living or even their first names. He should probably find that out if they were going to be his in-laws, though he suspected Hannah’s parents weren’t quite as googleable as Jonathan Thorne.
“Uh-oh.”
Daniel’s voice pulled Will’s focus back to the conversation. He only hoped the goriest of details had passed. But Daniel’s story was long over, and his gaze was fixed on Will.
“What?” Will asked, grabbing a fry out of the to-go container Daniel had his food delivered in. It was easier for a quick exit, he’d said.
“You have that ‘I’m going to do something incredibly stupid, and yes, it definitely involves a woman’ look.”
Will trained his expression back to neutral. “Whether it is incredibly stupid is yet to be seen, but there is a woman.”
“Do I even want to know?” His voice was grim, but one corner of his mouth kept quirking up as he fought back a grin. Daniel was always one for the underdog.
“Probably not, though all will be revealed at our next family weekend.” The weight of that sentence hit Will as he said it. The next family weekend was in two weeks—barely enough time to be settled into a routine, nonetheless proficient in love. Not that pretending to be in love with Hannah would be hard, but his family would know all the right questions to pick apart the situation.
Daniel stared at his phone as a series of large bells sounded. It was obnoxious, which was probably why Daniel had picked it. There was no way to miss those bells.
“Well, great. Something to look forward to then,” Daniel said, pocketing his phone. The determined look in his eyes made it clear his mind was already back in the hospital. He stood, the to-go container in hand and not even a bite out of his sandwich. “That was the ICU. See you soon, big brother... and don’t do anything too stupid.”
Will grinned up at him. “Never too stupid.”
Chapter 11
Hannah
She scrolled through Will’s profile again, double-checking their mutual friends—thirty out of fifty-two. His page was active, with most of those thirty mutual friends being fraternity brothers and other college acquaintances, and the timeline for the new account worked out based on the demise of Will’s last relationship. They’d broken up, and it had been awful. He’d regrouped. Somehow Hannah had made the cut, and she was going to be his wife. She rummaged around her desk for the last Hershey’s Kiss. She’d brought in five from the kitchen, but she couldn’t find the last one, hidden in the mess of papers. Her hand alighted instead on their freshly signed marriage license. It had been processed at 4:37 p.m.—meaning by five o’clock tomorrow evening, she could be married. She probably should’ve vetted him before signing the marriage license. Too late now.
Hannah picked up the license again. William Anderson Thorne and Hannah Grace Abbott, Expected Wedding Date: October 16.
Married. They’d have to send something to the alumni magazine.
Social media made getting a marriage license seem more romantic. Signing the license and making sure it was at the ceremony was the final step in the long process of wedding planning. No license, no wedding—no exceptions. How many times had Stephanie’s officiant said that? Couples posted the obligatory town-hall picture hashtagged with their unique wedding name, a countdown to the event, and big dopey smiles on their faces. It was actually one of the parts Hannah always thought she’d look forward to—the moment when it was all officially happening, state sanctioned and everything.
Will had made them take the cheesy picture, but they couldn’t exactly post it anywhere. And the process hadn’t been romantic at all. A bored older woman had asked them a series of monotone questions, never once bothering to inquire about their story or why they’d waited so long to get the license if the big day was tomorrow. If Hannah spent most of her days with giddy soon-to-be-married couples, she supposed the excitement would wear off too. It was probably the forced or shotgun weddings that caught that lady’s interest, where she could concoct stories about the fighting couple or the pregnant woman and her scared-shitless guy—Hannah couldn’t be the only one who did that.
Hannah’s fingers finally unearthed the last Hershey’s Kiss. She savored the slow melt of the chocolate, the sugar providing the necessary boost of energy to bolster her confidence for the final task. It was time to go see Kate.
LESS THAN TEN MINUTES later, Hannah stood outside Kate’s door. Kate hadn’t answered her call on the way over, but she’d given Kate more than enough space. She knocked, shifting her ring so it was centered on her finger. Will had gotten surprisingly close to her ring size, but it wasn’t exact.
Kate opened the door, her cell phone tucked between her ear and her shoulder. She rolled her eyes at Hannah’s presence but stood back enough to let her in.
Hannah held out her hand, engagement ring flashing. “I’m marrying Will tomorrow.”
“Patrick, I’m going to have to call you back.” Kate ended her call and took Hannah’s hand in her own. “Explain now.”
“Patrick?” Hannah said instead. “Isn’t he the Herpes?”
Kate shook her head. “Him being a Herpes wasn’t the problem. I repeat, explain now.”
Hannah ran through the last few days at lightning speed— the pact, Will’s sudden appearance with a ring, breaking up with Brian, and her decision to marry Will benefitting both of them. Three days ago, Kate would’ve tried to talk her out of it. But when Hannah held up the signed marriage license, Kate only sighed, shook her head, and declared they needed wine.
“You think I’m making a mistake,” Hannah said when Kate returned with two glasses of Malbec.
“Yes, I do,” Kate said, her eyes going from Hannah’s face to the ring on Hannah’s finger. “I also think it’s a mistake both you and Will need to make.”
Hannah took a sip
of her wine. “Meaning?”
“You and Will spent so much time talking—I mean, you two talked about everything and absolutely nothing. You never told him sophomore year when you liked him. And it was hard for you. I know it was because I was there all the nights you cried.”
Hannah couldn’t argue that point. She had fallen hard for Will when he’d transferred to U of I. She’d spent months forcing herself to bury those feelings as he went on to date Ana and Eva and Lilly and so on. So she’d dated, too, until eventually, the universe had given her her own love story.
“Will was so clueless about the whole thing. When he finally saw you—”
“When he what?”
“Twenty-two-year-old boys don’t just make marriage pacts.”
Hannah disagreed—marriage pacts were basically created by scared twenty-somethings.
“I think that maybe this marriage isn’t just about convenience for him.” Kate paused and put a hand on Hannah’s arm. “Just something to consider.”
Was she suggesting that Will was in love with her? Hannah tried to pick a memory and reframe it with that information, but it didn’t compute. Will had never looked at her as more than a friend. She would’ve noticed.
“Did he ever tell you anything about his life in New York?” Kate asked. “About his family?”
“Just that his mom died, and it really messed him up. And that his dad was kind of overbearing.” She thought of everything she knew about Will. He had two brothers and a difficult relationship with his dad, both then and now. “Nothing out of the ordinary. Is that not the truth?”
“But you know about Wellington Thorne, right? He told you?” Kate asked.
Hannah only nodded, unsure where the conversation was going. “Yes. I saw it on his social media, and he mentioned that he works for his family, and obviously, Wellington Thorne is a huge luxury-hotel developer. But I don’t see why it matters.”
“Wealth changes people. I just... I know you didn’t know about it back in college. He never spoke about his family like that, but he’s a socialite, and there are expectations—”
“He’s still Will. He had money in college. He has money now. It doesn’t change anything.” Hannah took another small sip of wine. She meant what she said. The social media roundup had been more for her curiosity than to check him out. She didn’t require the specifics beyond what she had asked and what he had willingly provided, because he was Will Thorne, the last boy she’d truly trusted.
“I know that. It’s part of why I love you.” Kate motioned for Hannah to follow her to the bedroom. Once there, Kate started pulling dresses out of her closet. “I’m not going to lie to you and say I’m completely on board, but I know when you’ve made up your mind. If you’d wanted to be talked out of this, you would’ve forced your way into my apartment sooner instead of letting me be a bitch about the Oh Timmy.”
“I am sorry,” Hannah said, sitting down on the bed.
“As you should be,” Kate said, but a smile played across her lips. “I’ll give you the details another time. All I’m going to say about this marriage of yours is that it’s going to make an amazing episode of Bitching about Boyfriends. It might even get its own arc.”
“You can’t, Kate,” Hannah said slowly. Her explanation had made it clear that the pact could not be mentioned again. “It’s a secret. In no way, shape, or form can you put me and Will in your podcast.”
Kate held up the cornflower-blue A-line dress she’d worn to Stephanie’s wedding against herself and frowned at Hannah through the mirror. “Fine, but you owe me. I have one more question.”
“Go on,” Hannah said, preparing herself for the worst.
Kate put down the A-line and picked up an eggplant high-low gown. “Have you even thought about what you are wearing?”
“Probably just one of my sundresses. Something with a hint of white?” She knew there were at least two options in her closet that should fit, though neither was appropriate bridal attire.
“That’s what I thought.” Kate pulled an off-white fit-and-flare from her closet. It was not a wedding dress but the kind of dress every bride-to-be donned at smaller events. It had lived in Kate’s closet for years—for her own eventual engagement.
Hannah shook her head. She couldn’t. But Kate only smiled and pressed the soft material into her hand with a nod.
Chapter 12
Hannah
Hannah slid the folded piece of paper out of her notebook again. The letter had been harder to write than expected. Still, she felt good about the decision, Will or not. Brian hadn’t texted, and enough time had passed that any texts would feel awkward and delayed. He’d said his piece and owned it. Something like pride swelled in her chest. He’d grown a lot from the young barista she’d known and fell for, but not enough—never enough. After their argument, Hannah couldn’t help but acknowledge that he’d probably felt the same way about her for the same amount of time. Neither of them was quite good enough for the other, their edges always jabbing each other instead of smoothly sliding together. She knew what he would think when he heard she was married—what she would assume in the reverse situation. No one deserved to think they’d been cheated on.
She raised her hand to knock but dropped it to her side for the second time, acutely aware that she was making herself late for her own wedding. She still needed to get uptown in heels and a dress. Brian wasn’t home—at least, there was no reason he would be home. On Tuesdays, he went to the gym after work and then spent an inordinate number of hours playing Call of Duty or one of those other inane shooter games with his buddies. As ridiculous as she found it, Hannah had enjoyed the predictability. Finally, she knocked. She’d wait ten seconds, tape up the note, and be done with it. Eight... nine...
A stirring behind the door, a rattle of a doorknob, and then Brian stood in front of her in his standard uniform of jeans and a graphic T-shirt, this one reading The cake is a lie. His eyes narrowed at the sight of her, but he didn’t close the door in her face.
“You weren’t kidding,” he said, his voice unusually gruff and his eyes taking in the white dress. “I always imagined you with a subtler engagement ring.”
She tucked her hand against her side. Words escaped her. No version of this scenario had involved Brian being home. Had she even considered it, she wouldn’t have worn the ring and might have tried to cover the dress. “I wasn’t expecting you to be home.”
Could she have said something more banal? What was wrong with her? At least her voice had been steady, and she was pleased to note her heart still thrummed at its regular beat.
“I took a few days off.” Brian shifted his weight between legs but didn’t move from his blockade of the doorway.
She paused. Brian usually saved all his PTO for actual vacations, particularly his annual trip to San Diego for Comic-Con, where he fanboyed for three days. Hannah chanced a real look at him—heavy five-o’clock shadow, unkempt hair, wrinkled clothes. It was nothing she hadn’t seen from him before, especially the opening weekend of a new game, but she always had advance notice about releases, and he hadn’t mentioned one. A high-pitched, badly accented “yippee” came from inside the apartment. He was playing Mario Kart. He only played Mario Kart on his darkest days.
She stuffed the letter into his hand, ignoring the flutter in her stomach. “This will... well, I hope you’ll read it.”
He opened the folded sheet, his fingers brushing against the Wilderness Weekend tickets she had taped to the lower half. “These were a gift.”
“I know, but after everything... You can resell them, probably for a lot of money,” she said, trying to calculate how late she would be. Kate knew she was coming and wouldn’t let Will think otherwise.
He skimmed the page in front of him, his countenance giving nothing away. He looked up, refolding the paper, the Wilderness tickets in his hand. “Keep them.”
“Are you—no, I can’t.” She pushed them back into his hand, regret already filling her as she did it. S
he wanted those tickets. She would have to pay triple the face value to get them after this. Her phone vibrated in her purse, not for the first time. She pulled it out, mainly as a distraction from watching Brian stare down at the tickets he had worked so hard to get. Shit. There were two messages from Kate already and one from Will.
She gripped her phone. “I really have to go.”
Brian nodded, a funny look spreading across his face, somewhere between nostalgic and forlorn. His mouth quirked at the corners, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Good luck, Hannah.”
She stepped back from the doorway. “Goodbye, Brian.”
Chapter 13
Will
She was here. In white. For their wedding. Sweat beaded at Will’s temple. Kate’s reassurances that Hannah was just running a little late had done nothing to quell the terror that she’d changed her mind, that he’d lost her before he ever had her. Hannah hated to be late, often chastising him for what she called “Will-time”—plus or minus thirty minutes to any arrival time, on a good day. She appeared calm—a bit harried from rushing, but he couldn’t sense any doubt in her. Her smile brightened as she listened to Eddie’s story of how he came to be a registered minister during pledging freshmen year and how that had earned him “Rev” as his pledge name. Hannah slipped her hand into Will’s, squeezing lightly, and Eddie straightened his shoulders. Kate graciously accepted Hannah’s small bouquet of paper flowers—a surprise gift from Hannah’s sister. Will looked between his friends, once the most important pieces of his life. Maybe life really was cyclical.
“Are you okay?” Hannah asked, leaning into him.
He brought their entwined hands up to his lips, kissing her left hand where shortly a wedding band would rest. Her gaze remained sharp and tinted with concern.
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