When We're Thirty

by Casey Dembowski

  Hannah blinked back tears. Maybe he had thought it through. Maybe he was right. If they got rid of the safety net the pact afforded—that they wouldn’t be jerks, would stay friends, and would be married for one year—they would either catch each other, or they would fall. Would their fledgling relationship survive without the pact tying them together? Were their hearts enough?

  “Okay,” she said quietly. “Let’s end the pact.”

  Chapter 51

  Hannah

  Hannah stared at the blank screen on her phone. Had that just happened? Will couldn’t have realized what day and time it was. He wouldn’t have knowingly called her during the biggest interview of her career. And yet she had picked up. Why the hell had she picked up? She forced the conversation out of her mind, straightened her shoulders, and tried to refocus her thoughts. Leonard Nulty was waiting for her. Literally.

  “Everything okay?” He was also standing behind her.

  Shit. Hannah whirled around, plastering a smile on her face. “Yes, of course. Sorry, that was my husband reminding me to get him an autograph.”

  “Ah. Big fan?”

  “We both are,” Hannah said. Maybe he hadn’t heard anything. She directed him toward a pair of couches where bottled water and wine waited on ice. “He introduced me to Wilderness, actually.”

  Leonard squinted in concentration. It was a face she’d seen plenty of times on tour, but up close, it was completely different. “Let me guess. Your wedding song is... ‘Love Acts.’”

  Hannah laughed. That would have most definitely been their song. “I wish.” She palmed her face. “It’s actually that new Ed Sheeran ballad, but I imagine under different circumstances, it would’ve been ‘Love Acts.’”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Do tell.”

  She shook her head—she shouldn’t be telling Leonard Nulty about her love life. “That’s a long story.”

  “I love long stories.”

  “I’m sure you do, but this interview is about you, not me,” she said, pointing her pen at him.

  “Right, right. Ask away.” He sat back on the couch. His body language seemed open and relaxed.

  “You haven’t given an exclusive or any long-form interviews in over two years.” Her hands shook as she spoke—Leonard wasn’t any other celebrity. He was her celebrity. She clasped her fingers, resting them on top of her notebook. “Why now?”

  “I’m retiring.”

  Holy shit. Another album, another tour, going solo—all of these she’d been prepared for. But retiring? The fangirl in her was screaming. Outwardly, she met his gaze with as professional an expression as she could manage. “Wow,” she said, letting out a breath. “That was hard to hear.”

  He laughed softly. “I’m sure it was.”

  “Why give this to Deafening?” The question was out of her mouth before she had a chance to think about it. It was a fair question, though hardly appropriate in this setting. News like this, even with his midlist career, was worthy of much bigger venues.

  He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “When we first started, we went out to LA to hit it big. We played in God knows how many small venues and Battles of the Bands. We made no traction.” Hannah knew most of this, but she wasn’t about to stop him. “And then one night, Riley Anderson—hell, she was younger than me—interviewed us for Deafening Silence. I’d only ever seen that magazine on the windowsill of the old records store on Sunset, but Riley was the first person to interview us, and she kept at it. She found us again and again. She’s one of two journalists I trust.”

  “Who’s the other?”

  “My college roommate, Jackson Mendez.”

  No freaking way. “The editor in chief of Talented.”

  “The one and only. And I know your next question. Why not give this story to him, right?”

  Hannah nodded.

  “Well, as a fan, would you rather hear a filtered-down version of the story from an interviewer who drew the short straw over at Talented or, as Jackson put it, from ‘one of the most talented writers on the alternative music scene’?”

  Jackson Mendez knew who she was. She felt faint. That would be an interesting turn of events. She scanned her list of questions, more to give herself a moment to process the knowledge she’d just received than because she needed to. She’d memorized her list backward. None of them seemed relevant now.

  “Why are you retiring?” Simple but effective.

  He shook his head. “Before I answer that, Riley said you’d do right by me. That’s why I agreed to the exclusive even though it wasn’t with her. But if I’m going to bare my soul, I want something in return.”

  Had this been another artist, Hannah might have been concerned. As it was, Leonard was happily married. Nearly all his songs were about his wife. “What do you want to know?”

  “For starters, you can tell me that story about your wedding song, and then we can talk about what really happened on the phone.”

  It was a good thing acting wasn’t in Hannah’s future. There was no harm in telling him about Will, and if it got him to answer her questions, there were worse things than talking to her musical idol about her love life.

  She sat back in her chair, her notebook still resting on her lap. “On graduation night—”

  “College or high school?” He sank into the cushions, leaned his head back, and closed his eyes.

  “College. Will and I made a pact to get married if we were both still single when we turned thirty. About four months ago, he showed up at my door with an engagement ring. Five days later, we had a ceremony.” The memory came back to her, the fear mixed with excitement. It felt like another lifetime, not four months ago. “We went on a honeymoon and crashed a wedding. Then we danced to that Ed Sheeran song.”

  He gave her an appraising look. “That’s pretty badass.”

  She’d never thought of it like that. The pact had been a weighty secret that they’d kept. A truth—her truth—that she hadn’t told. In a way, the secret had led to a sort of shame. Even if it worked out, they’d been stupid and reckless, and they’d hurt their families. But telling the story, out loud to an outside party, she felt exhilarated by that risk she’d taken.

  “Why are you retiring?” she asked again.

  “We started this band when we were nineteen—college freshmen at a school about as far away from the punk scene as you could get. You hope, but you never really expect to make anything out of a college rock band. But we went out to LA, and then we were signed. We had a hit here and there that broke mainstream. We toured all the time, and my wife, Veronica, had been there from the beginning. She traveled with us when she could. We made it work for a long time, but then we had Alicia.”

  He pulled up a photo on his phone of his daughter—all dark-brown hair and hazel eyes, wispy like so many kids that age. She sat with a guitar in her lap, her fingers splayed over an E chord. “She’s four now, and every time I drag out the suitcases, she runs into her room and cries. She flops down on that little bed of hers and kicks her feet in such anger. This last time, she clung to my leg the entire time I packed. She tried to throw away my plane tickets. After that, it was an easy choice.”

  Hannah’s heart swelled. This was why she loved Leonard Nulty and Wilderness Weekend. His love for his wife, his daughter, and his music came through in every line of every song. They were his inspiration, in the music and in ending it.

  “You could stop touring,” she said, the journalist in her knowing this was a good follow-up question and the fan in her dying at the thought of the end of Wilderness Weekend.

  “Making the music without the tour would be a half-life,” he said after a moment of hesitation. “That wouldn’t be fair to anyone. Fans would miss it, I would miss it, and my family would feel that tug-of-war in me. That’s not to say I’m done writing music. I’ll write and produce. I’m sure a tune or two will find its way into the universe. But I’m tired of missing recitals and sleeping alone on tour buses. It took me a long time t
o decide this, but now that I have... there’s no longer a place for Wilderness Weekend.”

  His words rendered her speechless with their weight and truth and the responsibility that was placed on her. She imagined reading those words in an article or on his blog—there’s no longer a place for Wilderness Weekend. Tears would stream down her face while the angsty first Wilderness album played, followed by every album—with B-sides—in order. She would purge herself of the grief of never hearing those melancholic melodies again by hearing only them for a few hours. And Hannah had to be the messenger—her writing the channel to break hearts across the country.

  “Will you do last shows in select cities?” It was a self-serving question, but she needed to say something, and all journalistic merit had left for the moment.

  Leonard was sitting back and drinking his wine, but he was also taking her measure. He nodded. “They’ll be in April—one in LA, one in New York, and the final show will be right here in Boston. I’ll get you and—Will, was it?—on the list.”

  “We’d love that. We missed you in New York last month.” Had it only been last month? Everything had gone entirely wrong so quickly. The pact was gone, leaving their relationship fraying at the seams, even if their marriage was still legally binding. She swiped at her eyes, relieved to find them dry. Crying in front of Leonard Nulty was unacceptable.

  “Your turn,” he said, repositioning himself on the couch. “I’m dying to hear how this pact played out.”

  She wasn’t sure how much she would tell him. It would be easy to hit the highlights reel and move on. But as she started telling their story, it all spilled out. She walked him through Jonathan’s disapproval and their laundromat date, through to Madison and Boston, ending at the phone conversation he had partially overheard.

  “I’m worried that maybe I broke him,” she said. “I promised myself when we got married that I’d be so careful with his heart, and I wasn’t careful at all.” She looked up at Leonard, who had been listening intently to the whole story. “What if I broke us?”

  “Maybe you did. Maybe you both did. Love and careful rarely go together.” He glanced around the room, but it was only them. The photography crew had long since left, and Leonard hadn’t arrived with an entourage. “Six years ago, things with Veronica and I were the worst they’d ever been. We’d moved to a new part of town after Lollipop Dreams broke through to the mainstream. She’d made some really great friends, had a life and a career—traveling with the band on a smelly tour bus wasn’t appealing anymore. I came home less often, and she flew out to fewer shows. One night after too many drinks and too many unanswered calls, there was this groupie—I hate to use that term—there was a woman, and I cheated on my wife.”

  Wow. Hannah sucked in a breath. She hadn’t been expecting any of this. Leonard Nulty stuck to the music in a very dry and rigid way despite that his entire discography was autobiographical.

  “I told Veronica right away, and I thought that was the end of things,” he said without pausing, barely noticing Hannah’s strife. “Could I have forgiven her for the same thing? I’m still not sure to this day. But my wife is a warrior and a goddess. It took a while—a lot of screaming and truth-telling and hard conversations. Our half-truths and omissions had led to resentment we didn’t even know was building. But we worked it out. We had Alicia.”

  Hannah knew the time he spoke of—fans called it “the Blackout.” Leonard had gone silent—no tours, no music, nothing for nearly a year. Then Alicia appeared on his social media accounts—a small, squished-up version of her father—and they’d thought it all made sense. They’d been wrong. Hearing the story from Leonard colored all the music that came after. The album that followed the Blackout had been one of his best. It had left behind the mainstream sound of Lollipop Dreams and returned to his punk and emo roots. It had felt like a love letter to the fans. It was a memoir.

  “Who we are now together is so much stronger than who we were all those years before,” he said. “Sometimes the way you fit back together after you’ve been broken is better than the way it used to be. Maybe that’s how it will be for you and Will too.”

  “I hope so.” Hannah laid her pen down on top of her notebook. “Do

  you want that off the record?”

  A small smile played across his face. “Riley was right about you.”

  Chapter 52

  Hannah

  The Final Love Act: A Deafening Silence Exclusive with Wilderness Weekend’s Leonard Nulty by Hannah Abbott-Thorne.

  Hannah reread the headline. Her eyes stopped on what she hoped would still be her name after this was all over. Hannah Abbott-Thorne. It was a suitable byline for Leonard Nulty’s goodbye and one of the few ways she had of letting Will know she wasn’t going anywhere.

  She scanned the article, already edited and partially laid out. Leonard had agreed to a second round of photos with his family. Once those were in, the layout would be adjusted, and in a few more weeks, this baby would go live, setting off a whirlwind of response in Boston and hopefully throughout his fanbase. Hannah could use a bit of fame by association. It had been a while since she’d had a story this big.

  Riley sniffled from across the room. Hannah nudged her with her foot.

  “Hannah, this is amazing. It’s the perfect big headline piece we need to kick off Boston. When Leo told me he wanted to give us an exclusive, I never expected this. He gave me no warning. How did you keep it together? How did you get so much out of him?”

  How indeed. Hannah hadn’t told Riley that he’d agreed to swap one of his truths for hers. It wasn’t that she had revealed anything scandalous, but it had been ingrained in Hannah since high school that reporters shouldn’t insert themselves into the narrative. They were the storytellers, not the story. Riley would understand. Hannah had been around for the Robbie Cooper and Riley Anderson show. It had ended with Robbie in rehab and Riley engaged to Danny. Okay, maybe the rehab had been a few years later, but Riley had had a personal hand in launching Robbie’s career with her in-depth interviews—in-depth because she’d had insights from the bedroom.

  “We just talked,” Hannah said. “He knew I was a fan, so that was an in. Plus, since this is his farewell, he wanted to get it all out there.”

  Riley sniffled again. The printout she was reading crinkled in her grip.

  “Riles, why are you crying?” Hannah placed her hand lightly on Riley’s knee.

  “It’s just—you don’t understand! This story, your work here. It’s like watching my baby grow up. I mean, you were my first intern in New York, and now you led the upstart of the Boston edition. And with an exclusive like this! Nate’s already agreed to run it on the cover in both New York and LA.”

  “Are you serious?” Hannah had had plenty of covers before, but none of them ran nationally. A coast-to-coast cover was a rare gem in a pile of costume jewelry.

  “So serious that Nate wants you to run the Boston edition.”

  Hannah sucked in a breath. Run the Boston edition—be Riley. Riley had given everything to the magazine. Hell, she was spending three days in Boston away from her three-month-old daughter. Hannah hadn’t understood why she was coming up, but she didn’t mind the company. She’d spent the whole last week working on her article, going to concerts, and worrying over Will—nothing more, nothing less. But then Riley’s decision to make the trip to Boston sans baby made sense. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that she got to offer to the intern she’d brought up through the ranks. Six months ago, Hannah wouldn’t even have hesitated. She would’ve left Brian, hugged Kate, and headed to Boston full-time. But life had taken an unexpected turn. Hannah Abbott-Thorne.

  The last few weeks in Boston were everything she had ever dreamed of professionally. The assignment had taken everything she’d had. It had tested her abilities and proved to her that she deserved all the faith Riley had in her. But it had strained her relationships and pulled her away from the people who mattered. Hannah couldn’t give everything foreve
r. She couldn’t be Riley. More importantly, she didn’t want to be.

  Hannah wanted to go home. She wanted to kiss Will and work on her marriage. Talking to Leonard had given her perspective. As she told her and Will’s love story for the first time, she had realized exactly how she felt. She loved him forever. Maybe they had broken things—both of them in their own ways—but they could fix it if they were together.

  “Did you hear me?” Riley asked, putting her hand on Hannah’s shoulder.

  Hannah blinked, refocusing her gaze on her mentor. “Sorry. Yes, I heard you. And I’m honored. It means more than I can articulate at the moment that you and Nate trust me to do this, but—” Hannah paused, a part of her still unable to believe what she was about to say and what it would mean. “I’m going to have to pass.”

  Riley smiled, tears gleaming in her eyes. She shook her head and pulled Hannah into a hug. “That’s what I told Nate you’d say.”

  Chapter 53

  Will

  Will placed their wedding picture down on the corner of his new desk. This was the third place he’d set it, but it didn’t seem right. He moved it to the other corner. That was better. His eyes would fall on it whenever he looked up. He’d officially joined Flannigan O’Hare Mahon as their new junior partner yesterday. The day had been full of meetings, paperwork, lunches, and drinks. If only all junior partners got this reception. He knew that his move to the firm felt like a coup, even though Will would never work a case against Wellington Thorne.

  Brady had given him his first case that morning, and he couldn’t wait to dig in. For once, he wasn’t fighting to build a hotel that would displace the local flora and fauna. There’d be a learning curve, but he would master it. He was living the dream—he wouldn’t forget that. Next, he just needed Hannah to come home—come home and choose him. He still couldn’t believe he had dissolved the pact and given her an ultimatum. They hadn’t spoken much since then, both agreeing that it was best to ride out her time in Boston. It would give them each the chance to consider what they wanted and how ending the pact had changed things. Yes, they were still legally married, but that was probably the easiest thing to fix about their situation.