July 2025 #4
“It’s okay that you took Jake’s side,” I told him.
“And she is a freight train and everything else. But none of that bothers me. When she makes assumptions about what I will do for her—she’s always going to be right because she’s my girl.
I suspect that people who are successful in their fields are annoying to other people because that drive can be a lot to take.
I’m sure they’re judged as bossy and brash, just like your sister is.
And this time she overstepped and made a mistake with Jake. ”
“You don’t seem overly worried,” Kola said sulkily.
“I love Jake, and I will always know him no matter what. The fact of the matter is, even if he forgives her, this is still what she wants. She wants a baby. So who will be the one to give in? Does Hannah stop wanting a baby or does Jake say yes, let’s have one?”
“It feels like an impasse,” Sam told his son. “But maybe not. I just can’t see what the compromise looks like at the moment, but if they want to keep one another in their lives, then that’s what would have to happen.”
Kola suddenly bolted for the front door and was out of it fast, slamming it behind him, always conscious of the small dog that lived there that no one wanted to get out.
What was interesting was that I thought Hannah and George left already, but when I went to the front window, the Lincoln Town Car that Miguel used to drive—sleek, black, and loaded with extras like bulletproof glass—that his protégé was apparently driving now, had just cleared our driveway.
Kola made it to the curb, and George pulled over.
The passenger-side window came down, because of course Hannah was sitting up front beside her bodyguard, and Kola immediately crouched there.
He started talking, she was nodding and crying, no way to miss that, and Kola’s hands were holding on to the window frame.
As I watched, he stood up, stepped back, and Hannah got out of the car, dress swirling around her, and she leaped at him, arms around his neck, squeezing tight.
He held her just as tight, head turned, speaking into her ear.
Her hair had been up in a tight chignon, but as his hand went to the back of her head, it came loose. She was shuddering, and he was holding on.
“Crap,” Harper said dejectedly, and went out the front door.
“What is happening?” Wick asked me, standing beside me at the window.
“She’s a force of nature,” Sam told him. “So you have to ask yourself, is it worth it or not to have her in your life?”
“It’s worth it,” Finn answered from where he was beside Sam. “And this is coming from the guy who wasn’t crazy about her in the beginning. I remember thinking, who does this girl think she is?”
“Same,” Wick agreed. “I thought she was an entitled princess.”
“Yeah,” Finn concurred. “But then you just have to spend time with her to realize that yes, she’s bossy as hell, but a better more loyal friend you couldn’t ask for.”
“Plus she’s crazy smart,” Wick said. “I mean, things she suggests to me off the top of her head to help drum up interest in my projects—amazing. Loopholes for funding, gifts for advisors that are so simple and perfect and… I don’t want to take a break from her. I don’t need a break.”
“Maybe run and go tell her,” Finn suggested.
Once Wick was out the door, Sam and I both turned to him.
“Hey, I have no problem with Hannah,” he reminded us. “I was the only one she liked.”
“That’s true,” I said, smiling at him.
“She should’ve had a talk with Jake before she went around getting buy-in from everyone on her plan.
That was her only misstep. All the rest of it—her personality is big.
It has to be for her to have done, and continue to do, what’s asked of her.
Everyone wants what? A person who asks permission all the time? Does Aaron Sutter do that?”
“You’re saying it’s because she’s a woman?
” I asked him, watching as Kola finally released his sister so she could turn to Harper, who took her hands and told her, I was certain, that he loved both her and Jake, and he was sorry for calling her dramatic and could they please be okay.
She lunged, and he caught her and they hugged tight and then stepped back so she could accept Wick’s apology and then hug him.
In the meantime, Harper leaned into the car window and got a box of tissues from George.
“Yeah. Because if she was a man, would anyone be using the word bossy about her, or would it be more about her being direct and assertive?”
I looked at him.
“Mr. Sutter is called strategic and proactive. What would the words be for Hannah simply because she’s a woman?”
“I had no idea you were a feminist, Finn.”
He shrugged. “My mother wanted to be a lawyer, but she got no support from anyone, and the things my brothers, and even my dad, sometimes say to her… I hear it and call them on their misogyny. They don’t mean it, they love her, but still, it comes out of their mouths.”
I liked this man more and more.
“I also think it must be hard sometimes for Hannah to be the only woman in this whole sea of men. She has friends, but in her family, she’s not close to her other female cousins, so it’s good she has her aunt Aja and her grandmother, and of course both of you.”
“But we’re not women,” Sam stated.
“Yeah, but from what she’s told me, everything she ever said when she was a kid, from wanting to be a firefighter to Batman, you were both, like, sure, of course, sky’s the limit.”
I more than liked him. I was crazy about him.
“So if you don’t like Hannah, fine. Don’t like Hannah. That won’t keep her up nights, you know? And again, it took me a minute to like her, but for me, it was always Jake.”
“Jake?” I asked as Hannah turned around and Harper made a ponytail, twisted it, then turned it sideways and rolled it a bit before holding out his hand so Kola could pass him her decorative comb.
It wasn’t as polished as it had been, but was now more her and looked just as lovely.
He then had her blow her nose, then again, and checked her makeup.
“I didn’t really care for Jake at first.”
“How so?”
“I thought he was a slacker, and for crissakes, could he have his own opinion? About anything? To me, he just went with the flow, about everything, and I hated that.”
“But?” Sam prodded him.
“Well, Kola having Harper for his best buddy, I get that. They’re so much alike.
Both logical, driven, very bullet point with the facts, but Jake is…
not. He’s actually really smart, he thinks way outside the box, actually works like a dog, and he sees things in his head very clearly and very fast. But everyone rechecks his math and never thinks whatever is a good idea, and if I was him, I would call them on that.
I would be pissed at all the second-guessing.
But he’s just so chill. He never gets mad, and I get why Kola needs that and why Harper does too.
They function because Kola leads, Harper plans the journey, navigates it, and when trouble comes up, Jake offers you a beverage. ”
Sam laughed at that one.
“And holy crap, is Jake great for Hannah, because she worries, like her brother, but while his is about falling short, hers is about disappointing everyone. And I mean everyone. She doesn’t want to let down either of you or Mr. Sutter and is compelled to make the best choice, from what to have for a special engagement dinner to what projects to take on at Sutter to the precise words that will be most impactful in a speech.
She’s never not on except here with you two, with George, or at home with us.
But even with us, she’s different when it’s me, Wick, and Harper, than when it’s me, Wick, Harper, and Kola.
But the one person who makes her comfortable wherever she is, in any situation, is Jake. He is like her blanket of calm.”
“I get that,” Sam told him, gesturing at me. “Mr. Harcourt does that for me.”
I smiled at him.
Finn took a breath. “I hope, in time, I can do that for Kola, but like at the engagement dinner, because it was my family and he doesn’t want to upset me, he was on edge, and I couldn’t help because I was gonna throw up too, but suddenly I see Jake walk over to him, with his mouth stuffed with those spinach puffs––”
“Those were good,” Sam told him.
“I know, and that was all Hannah. She had all the appetizers catered, checked on food allergies, coordinated what everyone would bring to the warm family potluck, and then had the desserts catered, making sure that everyone had something they wanted. And, because my father is allergic to tomatoes, they were on the side, and since my mother is allergic to cherries, we didn’t have that, and everything was labeled. ”
“That was very thoughtful of her.”
“It was, but that’s her,” he said, chuckling.
“But anyway, Jake came over, looking like a chipmunk with his cheeks all full of puff pastry, and just looking at him, Kola starts smiling, and I can actually see him breathe out all the anxiety and stress. Like, I saw his shoulders go down. It was amazing.”
“It is,” I assured him.
“Oh,” Finn said, “she’s gesturing for me.” And he was out of the house fast, darting out the front door with Dobby in hot pursuit because he wasn’t used to thinking about a Chihuahua, and reached Hannah in time to give her a hug goodbye.
Kola scooped up Dobby, petting him as George got out of the car and shot Hannah a look like—are we going? She laughed at him, and he threw up his hands and got back in the car. Moments later, she was waving, the boys were all waving back, and she was gone.
Once they all walked back inside, I asked my son what was going on.
“You know,” he muttered. “She’s how she’s always been, since she was little, and really, we’re so similar. It just comes out in different ways.”
“For example?”
“I’m bossy as hell and everything has to be my way because it’s the best way and I know it is and I can give you data about why that is.”