Chapter Twenty-Eight
Hannah pulled the baseball cap low over her forehead and adjusted her sunglasses before climbing out of the taxi with a murmured ‘thank you’ to the driver. There were no photographers outside the diner that she could see, but she wasn’t risking it. She was in no mood to have her unwashed hair and dark undereye circles splashed across the internet. The chime over the diner door announced her arrival, the tinkling sound cutting through the low buzz of early morning activity.
She’d barely taken two steps into the diner before she was blindsided by Liv and Jennifer barreling into her, wrapping her into giant hugs that made her feel both safe and completely exposed. “It’s good to see you too,”
Hannah laughed with false brightness.
“Good to have you back, Han,”
Liv said, squeezing her one last time before releasing her.
Three mimosas waited for them at their usual table in the back. Hannah set aside her sunglasses, but opted to leave the baseball cap on as she took a sip, the bubbles tickling her nose.
“Before we go any further, tell us—do we hate him?”
Jennifer asked.
Hannah fingered the stem of her champagne flute and shook her head. “We don’t hate him.”
“You two seemed really happy at the premiere. What happened?”
Liv asked.
So she told them the whole messy story—milkshakes and kissing in the bookstore, trivia matches and game nights, volunteering at the high school, dates under the stars and lazy mornings in bed. And the end, when she was ready to choose him, but he wouldn’t choose her.
“It was a lot for him, you know?”
she said, blinking back tears. “That kind of attention from the press would be a lot for anyone, but especially for him. I think he really loved me—”
She broke off as her words caught in her throat. “But it was too much. I was asking too much.”
Jennifer reached across the table, wrapping her hand around Hannah’s. “You were not asking too much. You are beautiful and brilliant and fucking fantastic and if he couldn’t see that you were worth fighting for, it’s his loss.”
“People always say that. ‘It’s his loss.’ But it’s mine too,”
Hannah said, shaking her head.
“It sounds like he has some things he needs to work through, and that has nothing to do with you,” Liv said.
The server dropped their food at the table, three plates piled high with golden brown French toast topped with strawberries and creamy pats of butter, a dusting of powdered sugar around the rim of the plate.
“Is this our order?”
Hannah asked, confused.
“We figured this called for a change to the usual routine to welcome you home,” Liv said.
Jennifer cut into a slice of French toast and popped it in her mouth, moaning around the bite. “Besides, carbs are incredible. All this time, why did no one remind me carbs are incredible?”
Hannah smiled as she cut into her own French toast. “It’s nice to see you eating all the food groups again.”
Jennifer shook her head, shoveling another bite into her mouth. “I’m off dairy.”
She glanced at the plate in front of her. “Except for today.”
“So, what’s next?”
Liv asked.
Hannah dragged a strawberry through a pool of maple syrup. “First, I need to buy thicker curtains for the living room.”
“And then?”
Jennifer prompted.
“I don’t know. Micah has some auditions he wants me to go on, but I’ve been thinking…”
She glanced at her friends, at their open expressions and kind eyes. Together they’d braved the open cattle calls and taken countless dance classes, cheered each other on through callbacks that went nowhere and opening nights that felt like a triumph. “I loved so much of my time in Aster Bay. Not just because of Ethan—”
“And the multiple orgasms,”
Jennifer offered. Liv’s eyes flared, her lips pursed in a look of censure. “What?”
“Yeah, not just because of the amazing sex, either,”
Hannah said, a wistful melancholy creeping in. “The people were great, and there’s something kind of fantastic about waking up to a rooster instead of a car horn. And I really loved working with the kids at the high school. I felt like I was making theatre and making a difference, you know?”
“Are you thinking about teaching?”
Liv asked.
“Maybe.”
She shrugged, popping the strawberry into her mouth and chewing slowly to give herself time to think. “I’m not saying I’m going to give it all up and move to the suburbs and start teaching—”
“Are you sure? Because it sounds like that’s what you’re saying,”
Jennifer said.
“And if you are, that would be fine,”
Liv added. “We’d support you.”
“Obviously,”
Jennifer added.
“I don’t even know how I would go about doing that, but I think maybe it’s time to consider all my options.”
“For what it’s worth, I think you’d be an incredible teacher,” Liv said.
“But, to be fair, we think you’d be pretty kick ass at whatever you decide you want to do,”
Jennifer said.
Hannah smiled, affection overwhelming her. “For now, I want to eat this entire plate of French toast and hear all about what you two have been up to.”
“Jennifer banged her yoga instructor,”
Liv said with a grin over the top of her champagne flute.
“I did not!”
Jennifer protested with a laugh. “We made out against the wall of mirrors once.”
“And?”
Liv prompted.
“And there may have been some tongue action below the belt,”
Jennifer hedged.
“Twice,”
Liv said, flashing two fingers as Hannah.
“Are you going to see him again?”
Hannah asked.
Jennifer shrugged. “He’s not really my type.”
“He asked her out for this Friday,” Liv said.
“To some kombucha bar opening.”
Jennifer wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know if he gives good enough head to pretend I like kombucha.”
Hannah laughed, settling in as Jennifer told them all about her yoga instructor and the many ways he was not her type, except, of course, when they were hooking up. With each laugh shared, each moment of playful teasing, she felt more and more at home, sinking back into the life she’d left behind when her world had imploded. It should be easy to pick up where she left off, to fall back into the familiar routine.
But something was missing.
Or someone.
A painful pang tugged at her heart, and she flagged down the server to order another round of mimosas. She loved her friends and the diner and being a part of the theatre community, but it wasn’t enough anymore. Not now she was keenly aware of the things she’d left behind in Aster Bay.
∞∞∞
Ethan swung the sledgehammer harder this time, the thwack of it colliding with drywall echoing off the walls. He brushed the sweat out of his eyes with his forearm and lifted the heavy tool, rearing back and lodging it in the wall.
“Ethan?”
Jamie’s voice rang out through the empty house upstairs.
“Down here,”
Ethan grunted as he swung again.
A few moments later, Jamie descended the stairs into Ethan’s basement, ducking under the beam halfway down the stairwell. “What are you doing?”
“What does it look like?”
Another swing, another thwack, and the hole widened.
“Any particular reason you’re demolishing your house today?”
Ethan shot a glance at Jamie over his shoulder and set the sledgehammer down, reaching for his bottle of water. “Needed a change.”
Jamie’s eyebrows shot up his forehead. “Hannah moving out wasn’t enough?”
Ethan scowled. “Did you need something?”
“Tessa wanted me to remind you about family dinner.”
The sledgehammer dislodged a chunk of drywall, the misshapen piece falling onto the tarp Ethan had spread on the ground beneath the wall. “I haven’t forgotten one yet.”
He could feel Jamie standing behind him, watching him swing the hammer over and over, slowly widening the opening in the wall, his attention like a sticky syrup coating his skin.
“Did you need something else?”
Ethan grunted.
“What happened?”
“I’ve always wanted to open it up down here.”
“Not with the wall. With Hannah.”
Ethan faltered in his swing, the hammer landing off center and not making as big of an impact as he’d intended. He frowned at the hole, setting the hammer down again. Raising the hem of his t-shirt to wipe the sweat from his face, he turned to his friend. “Nothing happened. It just didn’t work out.”
Jamie arched an eyebrow that made it clear exactly how much he believed that story. “You’ve been completely gone for this woman since the moment she showed up in town—”
“I have not.”
“—and you’re trying to tell me it just didn’t work out?”
Jamie scoffed. “What did you do?”
“Nobody did anything. Our lives are too different. It was never going to work long term anyway.”
“Says who?”
Ethan shook his head, reaching for the sledgehammer again. “I did what I had to do. It’s best for everybody.”
“Doesn’t look like it’s best for you.”
Ethan ignored him, putting all his energy into swinging the sledgehammer harder. Maybe if he could hit hard enough, exhaust his muscles enough, make a big enough hole in the wall, maybe then he wouldn’t have time to think about all the destruction he’d caused elsewhere in his life.
Behind him, Jamie sighed. “Don’t be late for dinner.”
He wouldn’t be. Ethan was never late. That was his whole schtick, after all, wasn’t it? He did what he said he would do. He solved problems. He fixed things.
The way you’re fixing this wall?
He was never disruptive or inconvenient or unreliable in any way.
Except for Hannah. She trusted you and you were completely unreliable.
Another swing, another thwack. This time the hit reverberated up his arm. How many swings would it take to forget the look on her face when she told him not to follow her? How many swings to stop wondering if she was right about him, if he was hiding?
As he suspected, he didn’t have enough swings left in him for that. When his arms felt like Jello and his chest was heaving with the exertion of it, the wall stripped down to the studs and providing a clear view all the way across the basement, he dragged himself back upstairs and took a scalding hot shower, washing away the sweat and the grime, bits of plaster dust and drywall. But not the ache making his chest feel heavy. Not the emptiness opening inside his ribcage and threatening to pull him under. No amount of hot water could ease those things.
He was seven minutes early for family dinner, but he was still the last to arrive. From the moment he stepped into Lemon and Thyme, he knew something was different. Instead of the laughter and chatter that usually greeted him at a family dinner, the room was quiet, his friends and family talking in hushed tones, already seated at the tables Jamie had pushed together to make one giant table. The hair on the back of his neck prickled as he moved into the room, all eyes turning in his direction.
“Where’s Julie?”
he asked, scanning the group for his granddaughter.
“With Cheryl and Ricky,”
Tessa said, coming around the table to greet him with a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Adults only tonight.”
“What’s going on?”
Uneasiness rippled over his skin, raising goosebumps as his senses kicked into overdrive, looking for the threat.
“Come sit down, Dad. Dinner will be ready in a few minutes.”
Tessa led him to a seat at the table, taking the chair beside him. Gavin’s eyes shone with pity and Baz wouldn’t even make eye contact. “Someone needs to tell me what’s going on right now,”
he demanded.
Caleb glanced around the table before locking eyes with Ethan, as though he’d come to some sort of decision. He wore his priest’s collar—he rarely wore his collar to family dinner—and somehow that fact sent dread sinking into Ethan’s gut more than anything else.
“We’re all here because we care about you,”
Caleb began.
“And because it’s family dinner,”
Ethan said uncertainly.
Caleb nodded. “And because families need to be honest with each other, even when it’s hard.”
“What, is this an intervention?”
he scoffed. Jamie and Tessa exchanged a nervous glance and Ethan barked out a laugh. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me? An intervention for what?”
“For you,”
Tessa said gently. “Because we’re all worried about you.”
“You’re knocking down walls in your house,”
Caleb said.
Ethan shot Jamie an accusatory glare. “I’m renovating.”
“You didn’t tell us about the audiobooks,”
Gavin said.
“I like my privacy,”
he shot back.
“There’s privacy, and then there’s shutting people out,”
Jamie said. The wounded edge to his voice caught Ethan by surprise, made him hesitate.
“The fewer people that knew, the better.”
He huffed an incredulous laugh. “Look what’s happened since people found out? I was trying to protect the vineyard.”
He turned to Tessa. “To protect you, and Julie, and—”
“Shutting us out isn’t protecting us,”
Tessa said.
“I’m your father. I’m never going to stop trying to protect you.”
“You’re missing the point,”
Jamie said.
“Then what’s the point?”
At the other end of the table, Baz raised his head and skewered him with a look. “Where’s Hannah?”
The sound of her name here, in a room full of the people he loved, a room she belonged in where her absence was so noticeable it was a physical thing, rocked him. “She left.”
“You sent her away,”
Kyla corrected.
He shook his head. “No. It wasn’t like that.”
“You didn’t tell her you couldn’t be with her anymore?”
Molly asked, shooting him a challenging look.
“I think we’re getting off track,”
Caleb said. “The point is, we’re concerned about you, Ethan.”
“Oh, are you concerned, Father West?”
Ethan spat.
Caleb flinched, but Gavin picked up where his brother left off. “We think you should talk to someone.”
“We’re talking right now,”
Ethan said.
“What you’ve been through, with the press and your life coming under public scrutiny, it would be a lot for anyone. Having someone to help you process it could be helpful,”
Caleb continued.
Ethan shook his head in disbelief. “I’m being ambushed.”
Tessa scooted closer to him. “You were so happy these last few weeks. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you like that. It was nice.”
He swallowed down the lump forming in his throat, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and tugging her into his side. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “I’m fine, T.”
“You could be better than fine. You were better than fine.”
She didn’t say the last part, but she didn’t need to. He heard it anyway.
With Hannah.
You were happy with Hannah.
And you fucked it up.
“Now you’re so…”
Tessa trailed off.
“What?”
“Angry.”
The word knocked the wind out of him, all his bluster and indignation dying. She was right. He was angry. He was fucking furious. But only with himself.
“I was protecting you,”
he repeated lamely.
“I’d rather you were happy,”
Tessa said.
“We all would,”
Gavin added.
Tessa squeezed his arm. “Just think about it, okay?”
He nodded, the crushing weight of exhaustion making his limbs heavy and slow. “Sure, kid. I’ll think about it.”
From The Lady’s Knights by A K Wild, narrated by Slade Hardcastle
The night air was cold as it whipped around Sir Llewellyn, the ends of his black cloak flying out around him on the ramparts. In the distance, his men had lit a bonfire, their raucous laughter carrying on the wind through the trees circling their camp.
Peace.
Sir Llewellyn had not known a time of peace in all his many years as a knight of the realm. He should have been celebrating with his men, toasting to their victory and a future without war. The treaty signed that morning would ensure a generation of prosperity. Serenity.
But Sir Llewellyn felt anything but serene. His insides were twisted and knotted, tormented. Peace meant Lord Havenbrook would have no need to travel quite so often, to entrust his wife to his faithful knight’s care. But she could be safe, now, the threat of the warring families neutralized, not through Sir Llewellyn’s care and military might, but with a stroke of her husband’s pen. He wanted to rejoice in a peace brokered without any more bloodshed, but when peace came at such a great personal cost… Instead, he mourned.
“Do you know what I have often wished?”
Sir Llewellyn spun around to find he was no longer alone. “My lord,”
he said, dipping his head in deference.
“Nights when I could not sleep, I would climb these ramparts and look out into the darkness. And I would pray.”
“We have all prayed for peace,”
Sir Llewellyn said.
“Not for peace.”
Lord Havenbrook shot him a sidelong glance before turning his attention back to the distant glow of the bonfire flickering through the trees. “I would pray that when I woke, you would be gone.”
“My lord?”
“Both of you.”
Sir Llewellyn’s breath burned in his lungs, shock stealing his words. “My lord—”
“What is it that has kept you here, Sir?”
“Duty,”
the knight answered instantly.
“What of your duty to her?”
“My lord, we would never be free of the stain of having betrayed you.”
“And so instead you shall live with the stain of betraying your love for each other.”