Chapter 13
13
H anna avoided Tucker for the next three weeks, then headed home for the holidays.
He’d sent flowers—beautiful, purple azaleas she looked at every day when she made her coffee. But she couldn’t bring herself to text him.
She was floundering. Panicking. And she knew it.
But everything just got so real . Painfully real—the kind of real she couldn’t deal with when she already had one foot out the door of Orange Beach. And she didn’t know how to handle that.
She’d never made it this far with new people before—and she couldn’t help but feel like all of her insides were outside her body. And instead of learning how to deal with it—instead of finding whatever bravery had led her to loudly burping on a first date with a loser—she ran.
Hanna couldn’t stop replaying the day she met Tucker’s family and friends in her head. Despite her oddities, they accepted her, and maybe even because of them. She wanted to crawl out of her skin every time she thought back to meeting them.
But the biggest feeling that kept ricocheting around inside her? Unworthiness.
Tucker was everything she wasn’t. Ambitious and successful. Friendly and kind—that man never met a stranger. Gentle in all the right ways. Rough in all the right ways, too. Easy on the eyes.
And she was just… awkward. Funny, to the right person. Kind, when she could be. It’s why she worked with kids. She didn’t have to be anything around them but herself, and even with all her weirdness, they still listened to her. Still adored her, save for that pesky Bradley.
Hanna had been telling herself she’d see the school year through before deciding whether or not to call it quits. She wouldn’t leave her students in the middle of the year. Couldn’t leave her colleagues in a bad place just because she was lonely.
She sighed and rolled over on the couch, a Christmas episode of “Friends” playing while she pretended to pay attention to it.
“Are we gonna talk about it, or what?” Madi asked, crossing her arms, her feet dangling over Bella’s lap.
“I mean, we can,” Hanna responded, sitting up, brows crinkled in confusion. “But we’ve seen this episode, like, I dunno—fifty times? What’s there to discuss?”
One year, when they were in middle school, they watched all the Christmas episodes of “Friends” on Christmas Eve. It had become a tradition that had stuck. Hanna was pretty sure she could recite “The One With The Holiday Armadillo” from scratch.
“Not that, you idiot,” Madi released an exasperated sigh. “You!”
“Me?”
“You’re… sad,” Bella chimed in, frowning.
“That’s putting it lightly, Bells. Han, you’re wallowing . What the heck is going on?”
Hanna squirmed on the couch, her discomfort surely obvious to the two people who knew her best in the world.
“I’m thinking about moving home,” she said, deciding on a half-truth. That wasn’t the whole story, but at least it wouldn’t require her to cut her heart out and show it to them.
Bella’s eyes went wide and Madi’s lips pressed together.
“Why?” Bella asked, her voice dripping with concern and confusion.
Hanna laughed. “What do you mean, why? I have no friends and I’m so awkward I don’t know how I’d even make any at this point. I’m lonely.”
“Han,” her sister’s lips twisted into a frown, her eyes filling with concern.
“Okay, I guess we’re playing this good cop, bad cop style,” Madi said, fondly rolling her eyes at Bella. “Han, I’m sorry, but have you even tried? ”
“Of course I have!”
“Okay, how?”
Hanna pressed her lips together, thinking. She had tried, hadn’t she? Made awkward small talk with some of the teachers at school, been on a few disastrous dates? Gone to a handful of yoga classes and attempted to speak to some of the more bendy women even though she’d fallen on her ass trying to do a headstand? Went to a BINGO night at a local church, then realized it was her and a bunch of competitive 70-year-olds?
Fuck, now that she thought about it, she hadn’t done much to make Orange Beach feel like home. And she supposed it was because she didn’t know how, exactly. She’d always had Madi and Bella, and she felt a little lost without them. They were her safety net.
“That’s what I thought,” Madi said after Hanna’s prolonged pause.
“I mean… I tried to talk to other teachers at school,” Hanna finally said. “I probably didn’t try hard enough, though. I’m not good at that. You know I’m not!”
“Stop saying that, Han. I’m so tired of you putting yourself down like that.” Bella sighed. “Just because you’re not extroverted doesn’t mean you’re not good at talking to people.”
“It’s not that. I mean, it is. But it’s also…” Hanna bit her lip. “I just feel so awkward all the time! I can’t make sense of all the shit that happens to me. Like, whoever is coming up with this stuff needs to cool it. I had penises drawn all over my face in public, for Christ’s sake.
Bella failed in an attempt to stifle a laugh, and Madi smirked. “Who fucking cares?”
“I do!” Hanna’s cheeks burned.
“Well maybe you should put your energy toward figuring out how to care less what random people think instead of bailing when everything isn’t perfect,” Madi said, more gently this time.
“I know.” Hanna groaned. “I know . It’s just… with you guys, I feel safe. You know? Comfortable.”
“Maybe that’s the problem.” Bella chimed in, her quiet voice surprising Madi and Hanna.
“What do you mean?” Hanna said, trying to mask her hurt.
“I love you, Han. You know that. But you’ve always had us to fall back on—and maybe it’s time to get out of your comfort zone a bit.”
“I do get out of my comfort zone! I moved away from you! I tried yoga! I go on dates!”
“And do they ever turn into anything?” Madi asked dryly. “Or do you just delete your dating apps after a bad one and call it a day?”
Hanna opened her mouth and then shut it quickly as Tucker’s face came to mind. She felt her face flush, then diverted her gaze.
“Shit,” Madi whispered, then laughed. “You’re dating someone. So that’s what this is really about. You scaredy cat!”
Hanna glanced back at them, her lips turning up at Bella’s shocked expression. This was why she was dreading facing them. Madi was an even better detective than her when it came to figuring out Hanna’s secrets—even the ones she was keeping from herself.
“Well, there’s no good time to drop this news, but here it goes.” Madi took a deep breath, shared a look with Bella and nodded, a silent conversation passing between them. “We’re moving. To New York.”
Hanna’s heart sunk. She felt her eyes prick with tears. “You’re... What? When did you—Why?”
Bella grabbed Hanna’s hand and sighed. “Han, we’re the only gay people in, like, a 100-mile radius.” Her sister laughed. “Our community here has been supportive enough, but we want to go be around the other gays. Make some friends who understand us a bit more. Maybe live somewhere that has its own Pride Parade.”
“Plus,” Madi added, grabbing Hanna’s other hand, “I got my dream job as an attorney for the ACLU.”
Hanna’s jaw dropped, and tears started streaming down her face. “Holy fucking shit. Holy fucking shit! You… When… How?”
Madi laughed. “We’ve been thinking about leaving for a while now. When we went to New York last year for vacation, we started seriously considering it, and when I saw this job open up, I thought, Might as well give it a shot. ”
Madi shrugged, in that I-don’t-give-a-shit way of hers, and Hanna’s head spun.
Hanna should've known. Madi's talent was wasted here because she was always destined to make change on a macro-level, becoming a big-wig lawyer taking down bad guys.
“But you’re licensed in Alabama…” Hanna said.
Madi twisted her lips. “I passed the bar in New York last month.”
Hurt coursed through her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Madi’s eyes swam with tears. “I wanted to. Really. But I didn’t want to get you all worked up for nothing. If I didn’t pass the New York bar, it would’ve been… Well, not something I wanted to talk about. But when I did pass, I knew I wanted to tell you in person.”
Hanna nodded. “I get it.”
After all, she had been keeping secrets of her own.
“So, Han.” Bella said, squeezing her hand. “Maybe you should tell us about the guy you’re seeing. And we can help you figure out how to make Orange Beach feel more like home.”
Tugging the two of them in for a group hug, Hanna let go of the idea that she’d be moving back home and grinned. “Well, his name is Tucker. And he’s a chef.”
“Oh my god, yes. It’s like a fanfic for The Bear .” Madi’s eyes twinkled. “Tell us everything and spare no detail or so help me God, you can’t come visit us in New York.”
Tucker sipped the beer he’d opened nearly 30 minutes ago, grimacing at how warm it had become. A bowl game he was barely paying attention to was on, and Shawn was enthusiastically yelling at the TV.
Since college, they always spent the week between Christmas and New Year’s watching every bowl game they could while drinking more beer than either of them cared to admit. They’d agreed to take that information to their grave, in fact. Tucker always brought some homemade appetizers for the occasion—the kind that went best with football. His special pigs in a blanket, chips and queso, and the peanut butter cookies he’d taught Hanna to make.
This was one of his favorite times of the year. And for the first time in years, he was able to completely unplug from work. He’d promoted his best server, Sheila, to manager and trusted her to run things while he was taking some long-overdue time off. He’d been looking forward to quality time with his best friend, filled with tipsy screams at the TV and reminiscing about the good ol’ days of their childhood.
But this year, it was different.
Because he couldn’t get a tiny, brunette, tattooed kindergarten teacher off his mind.
And it was so fucking obvious, he was pretty sure Shawn was about to kick him out of his apartment.
“This is how it’s gonna be, huh?” Shawn said, tipping back the rest of his beer, a backwards baseball cap on. “You’re just gonna mope because Hanna ghosted you?”
Tucker grunted.
“At least we have New Year’s in a few days.” Shawn cracked open another beer. “You’ve got that to look forward to.”
Every year, they went to Flora-Bama and danced with tourists until their feet hurt, usually stumbling home with someone they’d met on the dance floor to start the year off with a bang. Literally.
Normally, Tucker loved partying with Shawn like they were years younger than they actually were—letting loose a bit and having fun. But thinking about it made his stomach sour, and he didn’t know if he could find it in him to do it this year.
When he said as much to Shawn, his best friend was dumbstruck.
“Dude, we do this every year. Don’t bail on me.”
Tucker’s eyes drifted to the TV, barely even registering who was playing. “I don’t think I’d be any fun anyway.”
He grabbed his phone and pulled up his texting history with Hanna. His last few texts with her went unanswered, but he found himself looking at them every day, as if by staring at the text thread, it would magically conjure a response.
He’d given her two weeks of space. She’d told him she’d text him when she was ready to talk, but when he hadn’t heard from her, he reached out.
Hey Hanna, he read it again for what had to be the five hundredth time, I’m sorry for putting you in a situation where you felt uncomfortable and alone at Thanksgiving. That wasn’t my intent, but I should’ve planned better so I could be there with you. I know you want space, but I just wanted to let you know I’m thinking about you, and I hope we can talk soon, whenever you’re ready. I like you a lot. I can’t stop thinking about you. And I don’t want to lose this. I hope you’re doing okay.
She never responded, but he’d texted her again a couple weeks after that when Christmas rolled around with a simple “Merry Christmas” text message. Still crickets.
“Shawn, I can’t do it.”
Shawn stilled.
“I’m… Don’t you get tired of it, man? Fucking tourists, coming home by yourself, and doing it all over again?”
Tucker had been Shawn’s partner in crime for years—his wingman, always ready to flirt with vacationers and find some to take home. He’d started to grow sick of it even before he met Hanna. And now, he didn’t feel like he could go back to what it was like before she came into his life.
“Honestly, no,” Shawn said, crossing his arms with a smirk. “I don’t. But it sounds like you do.”
Tucker ran his fingers through his hair and pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. “You know I love you, man. You’re like my brother. But I just can’t… I can’t do it anymore. The clubs, the tourists.”
“Because of Hanna.”
“Yeah,” Tucker responded. “And because I’m just ready to move on. Grow up a little.”
Shawn looked like he had slapped him in the face.
“I didn’t mean?—”
Shawn sighed. “It’s okay. I… get it. Well, I don’t, but I do. I liked Hanna. A lot. I can see why she’s good for you.”
A hint of vulnerability glimmered in Shawn’s eyes. The two were family—so close that they didn’t mince words, and didn't bother lying to each other. So Tucker knew Shawn was pushing through emotional discomfort for the sake of the honesty they could always count on from each other as he continued, “It’s cool that you have Hanna, but a serious relationship like that? Just seems like too much responsibility for me right now. And I wish you wouldn’t bail on me. It feels like… well, it feels like you’re going to leave me behind.
Tucker glanced at his best friend. “I don’t want to bail on you either, but?—”
“But you’ve gotta go get the girl.” Shawn smirked. “It’s alright, man. Go get her. I could use a challenge, anyway. I think I can land a tourist without my wingman.”
Tucker laughed, then grabbed his phone and looked up directions to Hanna’s hometown.
“For the record, I’ll never leave you behind, brother.” Tucker clapped a hand on Shawn’s shoulder before turning back to his phone and beginning to plan.
It was time to win his girl back.