The sound of my name on her lips was hands down the best sound my ears had ever heard. She could have invited me to go over the edge of the rooftop, and I would have followed her down to the pavement with a smile.
“I would love to.” I tipped my head to the bar. “Let me buy you a drink.”
“I’m married,” she said, and I swear to God I was about to go over the edge by myself right then.
I was sure I was going to marry her. I didn’t know how, but there was only one way to figure that out.
“Then we can buy our own drinks,” I told her.
In a single evening, I went from giving up on any sort of real love to meeting the most goddamn beautiful person I had ever seen. She talked about her daughter, Winnie, and never once mentioned her husband. She told me how she was a beer drinker in a family of wine connoisseurs. Her nose scrunched when I teased her, and she smiled with every inch of her face.
“You know,” she said at one point, pointing over at Rhett and Lauren. “We need to get those two together.”
“How do you suggest we do that?”
“Let’s find a karaoke bar.” She reached over and sipped the rest of my beer.
“Rhett would never do karaoke.”
“Neither would Lauren,” she shrugged. “This place is too formal. There’s no excuse to get close in a place like this. But in a loud karaoke bar youhaveto get close. Maybe we can play fate in a shitty hole in the wall bar. Everyone falls in love in a shitty bar at least once in their life.”
“This bar isn’t shitty,” I said to her, and there was no missing the understanding in her raised eyebrows.
Then we were standing on a janky stage in a smoke-filled karaoke bar singing “Smooth” by Santana, and this girl spun around like the entire world was spinning on her axis. I nearly fell at her feet and begged her to leave whatever idiot husband she had. Even if she wouldn’t choose me, I wanted her to choose someone other than a man who doesn’t worship the ground she walked on. We were moments from kissing when she pulled back and dashed off to her sister. She threw me a wink over her shoulder before leaving me in her wake.
We stayed in touch after that night. It was under the guise of getting my best friend and her sister together, but we became friends. Even when Rhett’s mom died and he and Lauren called things off, I didn’t lose hope. For them, or for Hannah and I. I just needed to be patient.
I worked my ass off at the auto shop so I could afford the piece of land and house Dollie was offering me. Then when I did buy it, I took the place from unlivable, to something I was proud of. Really damn proud. But proud and lonely seemed to have similar fits.
No matter what I did, no matter how much our friendship grew over the months, I was still no closer to standing a realchance with her. Though I had hope, I also had the fear that maybe I was destined to always admire Hannah from afar.
So, when Taylor told me that Vesta Miller was back in town and asking around Morton’s about me, I caved. I met up with her at the bar, and I regretted it the moment I walked in. She had blonde hair and huge eyes. She never ran out of things to talk about, and her hands never ran out of excuses to touch me. I fended off her prodding questions and hands all night.
The guilt sat heavy in my chest the entire time too. Vesta was excited and eager, but it didn’t matter. She wasn’t Hannah. She didn’t bite her cheek the way Hannah did. She didn’t watch me with intense curiosity. There were no smile lines around her lips. Her eyelashes didn’t flutter when she took a shot and she definitely didn’t blush when I slipped in a compliment because with Vesta, there were none to be had.
She invited me back to her place for the night and I could have. I could have gone home with her, had some quick unsatisfying sex and left with extensive regret. And maybe I should have wanted to, but meaningless sex went out the window the moment a pair of brown eyes looked at me across a rooftop in Chicago. So, I wished Vesta a kiss-less goodnight and went home and called Hannah for the first time.
The next night, when I popped by the Atwoods’ farmhouse for a beer, I found Hannah sitting on their living room floor. I looked at her, and it took my brain a second for it to register that she was even real. That she was actually here. The entire time Lauren had been in town, I had hoped Hannah would show up. And finally, here she was.
“Long time no see,” I said like an idiot.
At that point I hadn’t told a soul that we had still been talking, and I assumed she hadn’t either. It felt like we had some insider trading information.
“It has been a long time.” She bit the inside of her cheek and blushed.
I had glanced down at her hand, and that diamond ring had been replaced by the mother’s ring she told me all about it. The one Lauren had custom made for her.
“Can I get you a beer? Or are we still getting our own drinks?” I asked.
She thought for a moment before her teeth released the inside of her cheek. “How about I get you one?”
And that was it. Something had changed. I didn’t ask what, instead, I just accepted the offer and prayed she was done with him.
After that trip, our weekly phone calls became nightly ones. I could, and I did, spend hours at night listening to her talk. About her childhood, about her sister and Rhett. About her love of dance as a girl and her disdain for reading because of her dyslexia.
It took a while, but eventually she told me a bit about Ethan. The only reason I didn’t drive to Illinois to kill the guy was because I would be in jail, and I never would have stood a chance if I was in prison.
Hannah opened up, little by little. Disclosing little pieces of herself and I was pulled deeper with every detail. Every boring thing about her day, the silly things Winnie said, an exciting episode ofDatelineshe pretended to hate. It got to the point where our conversations never really ended. When we fell asleep, we would just continue on with the same conversation the next morning.
