Chapter 86
T here was almost no reason for me to stay any longer; my name never once appeared in Edwin’s will.
Like most of his life, I was invisible to Edwin. I suppose part of me should have suspected that this would happen, but I would have thought that our encounter in his office would have changed his mind. Should’ve known. Once a coward and an asshole, always a coward and an asshole.
Still, I stayed behind, if for no other reason than that I didn’t want to spend any time at that moment away from my mother and my brother.
Even if the topic was stressful and it was spent discussing less than pleasant subjects, being in their presence made me feel a lot better about myself in comparison to being alone.
We went and got lunch after the hour-long meeting, at which time we spent trading jokes about the lawyer, the day, and other lighthearted things. We didn’t discuss much the will, because there was not much else to say.
It was just as well, anyways. Though the funeral was Sunday, I had to now turn my attention to the one thing that had the potential to derail what I had with Layla.
I had to follow through and see the person that had started much of this and see if I could placate the yearning 12 year old within me.
I had to see Sarah Hill.
The next morning, at eleven, I went down to Joe’s Latte and ordered my drink, nervously anticipating what would happen.
I had already braced myself for the possibility that the Sarah Hill who would appear before me would look very different than the woman I had spent much of my youth idolizing; I also had accepted the strong possibility that this was another catfishing moment and that she wouldn’t actually show up.
But if either of those things happened, so what?
Once I got on the other side of Sunday afternoon, I was going to ask Layla to be my girlfriend.
If Sarah showed up, wonderful; I’d get the chance to sooth my younger, needy side with the promise that I could move on and be fine.
And if she didn’t show up, or she did show up and she looked nothing like I expected, that was just a process that was that much easier.
Just as I got my drink, though, my phone buzzed. Thinking it was Sarah, I quickly pulled it out and unlocked it.
Instead, I found Layla had messaged me.
“Hey, just wanted to check in. How are you feeling this morning?”
Guilty as hell that I’m seeing someone now?
I didn’t really have a reason per se to feel guilty. I was a single man, Layla was a single woman, and Sarah was just here for the weekend—if she even was here. I just had to do this for myself, for my story, just to make sure I wouldn’t be looking over my shoulder all the time.
“I’m fine,” I wrote back. “Morgan’s taking it tough. But we’ll be OK :-)”
I was about to write something else when I looked up and saw her.
Sarah Hill.
She didn’t see me yet, but I saw her, and she looked absolutely, unbelievably stunning.
She had long, wavy blonde hair, nice red lipstick, perfectly pale white skin, red slippers, a white top with a light jacket over it, and a blue skirt.
She was the picture-perfect model of the All-American girl, and I gulped nervously.
This might, ironically, have been the worst case scenario for me. If she had not shown up at all or had shown up looking unattractive, I could have just dismissed her in my mind and moved forward. But seeing her look like this, every bit the part of the model that she was…
“Chance!”
And the fact that she seems very enthused to see me… this is going to be a problem.
“Hey, Sarah!” I said, rising from my outdoor seat, trying not to make it obvious that I found her incredibly attractive as she walked over to me.
“You look great!” she said as she embraced me in a tight hug that definitely lasted much longer than just a quick second. “How have you been? Wow, you’ve grown!”
“It has been a few years,” I said with a chuckle.
“No, I mean like… you’re a man now.”
Uh oh. And she’s flirting? Oh Lord.
“Well, let’s not go too far, I certainly know how to act like a boy,” I said with a chuckle. “Can I get you anything to drink?”
“Oh, no, I’ll get it, I’ll be right back outside.”
I smiled as she walked by, my eyes following her. There were cute women, they were attractive women, and then there were the women that anyone just fell for on the spot. Sarah was one such woman, and given that every other person within viewing distance also had their eyes on her…
My inner 12-year-old was jumping for joy, practically threatening to jump out of my body. Even the present-day Chance was having problems not thinking about what could be. Just keep it light. Remember you’ve got someone that is real and ready to date.
Don’t think what if. It’s only going to lead to more problems.
Not that you haven’t given yourself one already by showing up to this… uhh, meetup. But goddamn is she beautiful.
“So,” she said as she emerged just a couple of minutes later, somehow with an even more radiant and joyful smile than what I had seen on her when she first approached. “Tell me what you’ve been up to! You were at Columbia, right?”
“Yep, graduated from there, obviously,” I said.
I hesitated for just a second on if I would tell her about Edwin’s death before deciding it wasn’t worth it.
She had to have known from the news, and even if she did, she knew that I didn’t have the greatest relationship with him.
It wasn’t something that impacted my life that much, at least emotionally, and so I had no problems not mentioning it.
“Morgan and I actually started our own investing company, MCH, for Morgan he told me that if I stopped, I’d be doing a disservice to the Hill name.
I told him that I was tired of servicing the Hill name and that I wanted to make myself happy.
He called me selfish, the fight got worse, and I hung up by saying that I would probably drop out of Oxford. ”
“Holy shit,” I exclaimed. “Sorry, I just… you were always the good student. You should definitely do what makes you happy, don’t get me wrong; I just never would have expected that.”
“And to be clear, I haven’t yet,” she said with a gentle smile. “But my father has always put a lot of pressure on me, and at some point, everyone cracks under pressure or slides out from it. I’m doing my best to slide out of it before it cracks me.”
It was at that moment, hearing Sarah say that, that I began to see the first signs of what she was talking about.
Crow’s feet that were a little more evident than before.
Forehead wrinkles. Eyes that didn’t seem to open quite as much as they had before.
She was still beautiful, model-esque beautiful, but now that I was looking more closely, I could see the signs of her having experienced a little bit of burn out.
“Damn, sorry to hear that,” I said.
“Nah, don’t worry about it,” she said. “I’m starting to embrace my future goals and take the steps to realize those. It’s actually partially why I’m here.”
“Hmm?” I said. “And why is that?”
“Well,” she said, a nervous smile coming over her face. “Don’t laugh at this. But I’m thinking of becoming an actress here in Manhattan.”
“Sarah!” I said with a huge smile.
But that reaction was to mask a very different feeling—extreme nervousness. That thought that I’d had about dealing with Sarah if she lived here? That suddenly seemed very real.
“That’s amazing,” I said. “How sure are you about launching forward on this?”
“Pretty sure,” she said, causing me to smile more and feel more nervous inside.
“I want to take my time to make sure it’s the right choice.
I’ll probably finish out Oxford, to be honest, and see what kind of jobs I can get.
Maybe I’ll get something here in New York City that’ll allow me time to act in the evening and on weekends. But the goal is to push for that.”
“Wow.”
We spent the next hour trading on much lighter subjects.
We reminisced over our middle and high school days, discussing mutual friends and people of interest. I told her about how Morgan was about to take over as CEO of Hunt Industries—the kind of half-truth that didn’t say everything but was, in itself, a true statement.
As the hour wrapped up, I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to pull myself away so easily. I was really enjoying my time with Sarah, and even if this led nowhere, she was a radiant person I wanted to spend more time with. It was a risk, but it was Sarah.
No, it wasn’t just Sarah. It was the person I’d hoped would walk back into my life for over a decade now. It was the person I’d hoped I’d get a second chance at. It was the person that I considered one of the, if not the, most beautiful and kind women I’d ever dated.
Even as my rational brain shouted at me to go somewhere else and to detach from Sarah… the preteen Chance was winning the battle right now.
“So what have you got going on the rest of today?” she said with a smile, leaning forward, her chin on her hand.
“Nothing, really,” I said. “I’ve got things to do tomorrow, but today is pretty wide open.”
“Funny enough, that’s how it is for me too,” Sarah said. “Let’s say we hang for the next little bit?”
I knew if I said yes, I was only opening myself up to more risk. If Layla saw us, that would be the end of us forever. If I said yes… I wasn’t sure I’d be able to say no.
But I didn’t see how I could say no. The last hour had been pleasant.
I was getting a chance to redeem my younger self.
I was getting the chance to prove the name “Hunt” really wasn’t a curse, but just a fact of mine.
I was getting the chance to prove prior abandonments didn’t make me any less attractive.
It was deep, but that just made it all the harder to pull away.
“Let’s do it,” I said with a smile, rising and offering my hand to help her up.