“We just got our hands on a few of their bottles last week. I’m heading out to Kentucky next month to tour their distillery, and a few dozen more if I have it my way,” Milo smirked. They both knew he always had it his way.
She took another sip and tried once again to think of something that wasn’t kiss him, kiss him, kiss him.
“Hey, Milo, I just?—“
“Hanna!”
Her head whipped around as Chloe’s arms wrapped around her shoulders, squeezing tightly and undoing three months of healing.
“Oh my god, it’s so good to see you!” Chloe chirped.
Hanna couldn’t decide which was worse—the tightening in her chest, or the rage that followed the realization that it was, indeed, good to see Chloe.
“Uhhhh yeah! You too!”
Chloe spun Hanna in a twirl, admiring her silk dress that fluttered in the evening air.
“You look so gorgeous in that dress. Milo, doesn’t she look incredible?”
Milo looked about as dead inside as Hanna felt.
“Yep,” he mumbled as she grew redder by the second. Sara and Logan clocked the pixie at the same time, but Sara beat him to her.
“Hey, all the girls are going to take a photo together!”
“Oh, I can take the photo,” Chloe chimed. Sara glanced at Hanna, defeated by Chloe’s inability to stop being the perfect girl’s girl. She lined up the bridesmaids at the far side of the roof, gracefully recommending poses as she snapped away.
There was not enough slow breathing—or whiskey for that matter—that could get Hanna back into her body, but she did a fine job of avoiding Milo for the rest of the evening.
Not that he sought her out.
“I am so fucking sorry,” Sara whispered as they tumbled back into her apartment, the door sealing off Milo and Chloe as he fumbled for his keys.
“Milo asked if he could bring a date, like, a year ago and at the time, it was no problem! I just assumed he would have uninvited her.”
“It’s fine,” Hanna said, flicking her hands as she pulled her heels off. “It’s honestly my fault for assuming he’d just wait for me to get my shit together, you know?” She dropped the shoes in the hallway, pacing in the kitchen as Sara watched. “Safe to bet she’ll be in attendance the rest of the weekend?”
Sara’s lips fell into a crooked frown. “I’m not sure. She’s still in the seating chart. I can move her to the shitty table!”
“No, no.” Hanna pulled her hair into a ponytail, sweating. “Chloe is not the enemy. You know, she sent me flowers while I was back in Phoenix.”
She'd called Hanna a few times too, never mentioning Milo, and Hanna was far too stubborn to ask, but appreciated the gesture all the same.
“Fucking Milo,” Sara growled. “You spend all this time breaking your own heart open for him, but he’s too afraid, so he calls in Cockblock Chloe?—”
“She’s not the enemy,” Hanna repeated.
“I know,” Sara hissed. “I know. Ugh. What can I do to make this suck less?”
“You,” Hanna said, pulling Sara into her arms and stroking her perfectly smooth hair. “Can stop worrying about me. I’m a grown woman, Sara. This weekend is not about me, or Milo, or Cockblock Chloe—solid, by the way—it is about two of my favorite people in the world getting married. I promise you that I can handle this.”
Sara grabbed Hanna’s face between her palms, squeezing her cheeks together.
“I am just so proud of you, and also a teensy bit nervous!”
Hanna laughed, a genuine thing, not one of the forced responses she’d honed.
“Thank you for your candor, but I swear, Sara. I’m fine.”
