Jared shot up an eyebrow. “Sorry. I know it makes me a total sexist, but I’m not going to be able to let you do that. To be honest, I can’t even let you pay for your own shoes. And I don’t mean to brag, but I can spring for all the soda you want tonight.”
I pointed at the big sign next to the shoe lane rental desk. FREE SODA UNTIL MIDNIGHT.
He shrugged. “See? I told you I could afford it.”
Jay shook his head. “I have a feeling this night is going to work out.”
I stuck a hand on my hip. “You should know my bowling score is going to make you feel really good about yourself. You should also know I’m losing on purpose.”
Jay gave Sophie a “Really?” look. Sophie shook her head. “It’s sad how low her score will be for as hard as she tries. But she’s right that you’ll feel good about your own game.”
“That’s what I’m here for,” I muttered.
The rest of the night went down that way, an easy rapport among the four of us, jokes and Cokes flowing freely. By the time we all separated in the parking lot, I realized that while I hadn’t forgotten Will for more than two minutes at any given moment, he was a dull ache and not a sharp pain. It was a start. I only needed to find and deliver the right self-talk, and eventually I could shove the ache into a box and hide it somewhere in a mental file cabinet. Locked. Abandoned. Forgotten as often as possible.
When Sophie and I were in the car, she started the ignition, put the car in gear, and was halfway out of the parking lot before I couldn’t stand her silence anymore. “So? What did you think? He’s great, right?”
“Yeah. You and Jay have a nice chemistry.”
I smacked her arm. “That’s not who I’m talking about, and you know it!”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Jerk. You don’t have to tell me anyway. I know. You guys so clicked. You have to name your first baby after me.”
“Very funny.”
“Whatever. Don’t try to deny it. Total chemistry.”
“No, I meant Hannah would be a funny name for a boy. Because we’re definitely having a boy first.”
I whooped. “Dibs on maid of honor!”
“But speaking of chemistry, it looked like it was there with Jay too. He’s the perfect distraction for you.”
“He’s pretty all right.”
“Pretty all right? Does that mean ‘hot guy with a great sense of humor?’ Because if so, he’s totally all right. And he was digging on you. Hard.”
We giggled all the way back to her place, repeating jokes Jared or Jay had made, analyzing their body language. Just their bodies, really. They’d each obviously worked hard on them. They deserved a little commentary. A lot. So much commentary.
When we got up to her place, I stooped to pick up my bag of stuff, but I paused and straightened empty-handed. I didn’t want to go home tonight. I didn’t want to walk past Will’s door and fight the urge to step through it. I didn’t want to pass it up either and wonder if he was even in there. Or if he was out on a date too. Or worse, if he was home but not alone. I wanted to stay in a different head space. And that meant a different physical space.
Actually, I probably needed to call the leasing office soon to find out when my apartment contract expired. It would be a little obvious to move out of the complex completely, but maybe I could move to a different building, ease the psychic scars I got every time I passed his place and tortured myself with wondering.
“Soph? Can I stay here tonight?”
She glanced over the fridge door she’d opened in search of a post-bowling snack. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah. I’m tired all of a sudden. And I realized I have a change of clothes, so it seems like a good solution.”
“Mi sofa es su sofa, sister.”
“Thanks.”
I moved the decorative cushions over to the love seat and made myself a sleeping space.
“Hannah?” Sophie called, her voice soft. I looked up. “It’ll get better. It will.”
“Don’t say Will.”
She grinned.
I knelt on the cushion in front of me and propped my elbows on the back of her sofa, dropping my head down between them, the weight of Will inside of it suddenly too heavy. “You think I’ll be okay?”
“I know so. You’ve got nothing but good things coming your way. It’ll just take time.”
“You’re the best.”
“Yeah.”
I grabbed the last throw pillow and lobbed it at her without looking.
“You missed.”
“It was a warning shot.”
“I’m going to bed now. Right after I write in my diary about my crush on Jared. And when we get up in the morning, let’s paint our nails and make paper fortune tellers. Spoiler alert: all of the fortunes I write in yours will end up with you marrying a hot guy named Jay.”
“I know you’re joking, but that really does take me back ten years to when I did all of those things about Will. When will I outgrow him?”
She climbed onto the couch beside me, propping her chin in her hands along the back of the couch too. “When you understand that you deserve to.”
“Wow,” I said, turning to stare at her. “That kind of shocks me. He’s a good guy. You know that.”
“I do know that,” she said, her nod slow and thoughtful. “I do. But I also know that he’s not good enough for you. If he were, not only would your plan to get him to see you have worked, but you also never would have needed it in the first place. But he’s not able to recognize quality. I like him, but there’s no denying that’s a big character flaw. Chew on that, Hannah-girl. It deserves some thought. Now. Go to sleep. And remember, fortune tellers in the morning. We’re sorting out your future.”
I thought about what she said until I fell asleep, but the giggling and bowling had worn me out enough that I nodded off quickly. And despite her threats to solve all my problems with first-grade origami, the only thing we made in the morning was breakfast, veggie omelets that were the grown-up versions of the unhealthy cheese-and-bacon-filled omelets we’d had every Saturday morning as teenagers.
I gathered my stuff and headed home around eight, eager to change and take a long run to clear my head. Will’s door opened, and I stopped, clutching my overnight bag against my chest.
“Whoa,” Will said. “Hey.”
I swallowed, willing my heartbeat to slow down.
“What are you . . . ?” He trailed off, his eyes fixed on my overnight bag, his face tight.
“I was at—” I broke off, realizing what he had inferred. His expression said he didn’t think I’d been at Sophie’s house. And it also said very clearly that he didn’t like his conclusion. Well, forget him. How dare he assume? He knew me better than that. If he was going to imply something so ridiculous, then I didn’t owe him anything. Where I went and who I was with were none of his business. “I was at a friend’s.”
He waited like I was going to tell him more. I lifted an eyebrow at him.
“Oh.” He stood halfway through his doorway like he wasn’t sure which direction he was supposed to go. After a long pause, he leaned against the doorframe. “So. How have you been?”
Subtext: Since you told me you loved me and I just blinked at you.
My cheeks heated, and I hated it. “Fine.” I shrugged and hefted the overnight bag, drawing his attention to it and his bone-headed conclusions. “Great, actually,” I said, forcing a small smile that was supposed to be knowing and mysterious all at once. I hoped it looked real.
“Good,” he said, but his tone didn’t match the word. “So as much as I hate running, I think I need to get out there again.”
“Keep at it. It gets all right after a while.”
“You think we could—”
I cut him off with a shake of my head. I was absolutely not ready.
“Right,” he said quietly.
“I’m tired. I need to go,” I said, crooking my head toward my apartment door. “See you around.” Bu
t not for long. I really needed to talk to the leasing office. I put it on my mental to-do list.
He nodded, and I walked to my door without looking back, making sure my shoulders were straight and my chin was up. I’m good, Will. I’m great. It wasn’t until I was inside that I collapsed and took inventory to see if I really was.
Maybe, I decided. I didn’t want to cry. Or punch him. Or say just the right thing to charm him. It was a first step. Now I only needed a thousand more to get a fraction of the distance I still needed.
A knock on the door scared half my life out of me.
“Hannah?”
Will. Guess I wasn’t getting any distance this morning. I pressed my hand against my heart and waited for the adrenaline to settle so I could hear. Instead of his footsteps walking away, he knocked again. “Hannah?”
I hesitated for a couple more seconds before I turned and opened the door. “Hey.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Hey.” He rocked on his heels a couple of times. I didn’t need my PhD in Will Hallerman Body Language to deduce that he was wildly uncomfortable. I fought the urge to say something to smooth it over, to make it better for him. I didn’t want to punish him, but it wasn’t my job to fix all the things for him anymore. Instead I waited.
“So it feels like a long time since we talked.” He winced. “I don’t mean that talk, specifically. I mean, in general, how we usually do. And it’s strange to run into you in the hallway and not know what to say to you. A once-in-a-lifetime experience, I guess, but not the good kind.”
My heart squeezed. I hated the strangeness too, but I didn’t know how to be yet.
“I don’t know how to act,” he said, startling me with how closely his words mirrored my thoughts. “And I know that you probably need more time, but I guess I’m asking if you know how long.”
I clenched my jaw. Was he seriously standing there telling me that my emotional difficulties were an inconvenience for him? Asking me when his comfortable Hannah would be back so his life could go back to normal?
His eyes widened when he saw my expression, and his hands flew up in a warding-off gesture. “That came out wrong.” He plunged his fingers into his hair. “Take as much time as you need. I didn’t mean I want you to hurry up. I want us to be friends again, Hannah. I just hoped that you could give me an idea of how long so I can pace myself. I can wait as long as I need to for us to reset. But I guess I’m wondering if it’s going to be this hard for a month or for a year.”
It was my turn to lean against the doorframe so I could rest my too-heavy head against it. “I’d tell you if I knew. I don’t. It takes as long as it takes.”
He stared down at the ground and nodded. Again the urge to make him feel better bubbled up, and it frustrated me. I couldn’t do that anymore. It would become someone else’s job sooner than later. It had never been my job to do, anyway. I’d just claimed it.
I straightened. “I feel pretty stupid talking about this.”
“Right.” He glanced up but looked somewhere past my shoulder. “Right. Sorry.” He paused for a second before he nodded and walked back down the hallway.
I stayed where I was and watched him go.
Chapter 16
Work was too busy for a few days for me to see Jay again, but not too busy to keep me from wondering every other minute what Will was up to. Every time I reached for the phone to text him and see, I snatched my hand back. Wednesday morning, like a dieter who padlocks their fridge at night, I handed my phone to my administrative assistant and asked her to keep it in her desk until the end of the day. It helped. Thursday, I didn’t even need her to hold it because I knew I wasn’t going to pick it up unless it was to coordinate dinner plans with Jay for the night.
It felt good to climb the stairs to my apartment and be looking forward to something besides Will for once. I hadn’t seen Jay since our bowling date, and he’d invited me to the Dallas art walk. It sounded kind of awesome, both the date and the conversations I predicted we’d have about the art. And since not one thing about him had activated my “predator” radar, he was picking me up from home. It was funny that in the age of online dating, picking someone up at their own house felt like a relationship step.
I couldn’t decide if I hoped Will would see us together or not. I decided that it was not a great sign that I was even thinking about it. When Jay knocked on my door at seven, I managed to think about him marginally more than Will, a both massive and pathetic victory. “Hey,” I said, opening the door and stepping out to lock it behind me. We weren’t at “come in and judge the way I keep my house” yet.
“Hey,” he said, reaching out to hug me. That was when I heard Will’s door open. When I stepped back from returning Jay’s hello, Will was standing frozen in front of his place.
I wished him away so I wouldn’t be awkward with him watching me interact with Jay, but he didn’t dissolve into atoms and disperse, so I hitched my purse over my shoulder, slid my arm through Jay’s, and gave Will a smile as we passed him on the way to the stairs. He nodded, his eyes hooded, his forehead a mess of wrinkles.
“Have you ever done an art walk?” Jay asked as he opened the door of his Range Rover for me.
“No. I’m excited to check it out.”
“Cool. So you won’t have any idea if I’m blowing smoke when I comment on the artists’ use of line and color?”
“No,” I said, giving him the side eye.
He caught it and grinned. “This is going to be a fun night.”
He was right. It was. It was a different kind of night. I was still nervous, worried I’d check out on him and my mind would wander back to Will, but I stayed focused, mainly because Jay took a lot of opportunities to touch me. A hand on my back to guide me through a door, grazing his finger against my arm to draw my attention to something, a soft bump of the shoulder if I teased him about something. It was nice. No, it was good.
And he kept making me laugh. Anytime a gallery employee would approach us, he would refuse to break character as he pondered the art he was facing. At one point, he was pondering the meaning of a collage depicting three grasshoppers sitting on the bank of a creek. I was pretty sure the meaning was clear in the title, “A Summer Day,” but when an employee wandered over, maybe hoping to make a sale, Jay furrowed his brow and murmured, “It’s a moving meditation on the nature of time, isn’t it?” And I probably would have kept a straight face if the employee hadn’t looked startled and said, “Yes, deeply moving.”
As it was, I had to excuse myself and wait until Jay followed me out to the sidewalk a minute later to grin at me. “Are you up for ice cream?”
“I don’t know. Is it deeply moving? Will I need to meditate on it?”
“Definitely. You have to approach the work of the masters, Baskin and Robbins, with a certain reverence and really give yourself up to the experience.”
“I was going to tap out until you said Baskin Robbins. I’m in.”
After dawdling over ice cream for another hour, we walked back to his car, and his hand brushed against mine. I could have turned my wrist, a tiny rotation, and we’d be holding hands. But I was funny about hand-holding. It felt more committed to me than kissing. But hand-holding wouldn’t be too far off because I had no doubt that when Jay walked me to my door, he was going to lean in and wait for me to cross the last 10 percent. And I was going to.
Nerves tickled my stomach on the short drive back to my place. And when he walked me to my door and waited for me to dig my keys from my purse, I fumbled them when I caught a smile playing around his lips. “Stop,” I said when he scooped them up before I could.
“Stop what?” he asked, still grinning.
“Stop making me nervous.”
“Okay. How do I do that?”
I blew out an exasperated sigh and reached up to catch hold of his collar. Forget the lean. I brought him the whole way down to meet me, pressing a kiss against his lips before I stepped back. “There. Problem solved. Now I’m not nervous
.” I shot him a sassy grin.
His return grin was lazy with a touch of mischief as he slid his hands around the lapel of the denim jacket I’d thrown on over my knit dress. He tugged, drawing me back to him slowly. “I kind of love that you’re so tall,” he said. He brushed another kiss against my lips and said quietly, “I dig it. A lot.”
“It’s nice being almost eye level with you,” I said as he slid his arms around my waist. I hooked my hands around his neck. “Maybe I’ll always wear heels.”
“Whatever you want.” He kissed me again and straightened. “Because this is pretty awesome.”
“We won’t know unless we compare,” I said, letting go with one hand and balancing myself on his shoulder with the other while I slid off my shoes and threaded my fingers through the straps. “We should try it this way.”
This time his eyes darkened, and he dipped his head to kiss me, taking his time. I swayed and curled my fingers around a handful of his shirt to stay upright. I disappeared into a haze, and when he finally lifted his head to mumble “Door,” I blinked up at him, dazed and unfocused before patting the door I suddenly realized I was leaning against.
He gave a soft laugh. “No, I heard a door.”
I hadn’t heard anything, but my stomach clenched before I even glanced down the hallway and saw Will standing with his hand on his doorknob, keys and wallet in his hand like he was headed out somewhere. A split second of jealousy flashed through me as I wondered where he’d be going at almost ten at night, but a realization followed it and distracted me: I hadn’t thought of Will once in the last few minutes. I’d been wrapped up in a pretty good kiss, and that was the only thing that had been on my mind. Since I’d never kissed Will, this was the one area where Jay or any other guy wouldn’t—couldn’t—fall short by comparison. For the first time in a long time, longer than I could remember, I’d had a whole fistful of Will-free minutes.
I looked away from him and smiled up at Jay, relieved that I’d found the first chink in the Will spell. I planned on hoarding a lot more of these minutes. If the gleam in Jay’s eye was a hint, he’d be happy to help me.
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