Chapter 8 #3
‘No,’ she said, with cast-iron certainty. ‘I’m in. All the way in.’
She watched her brother’s shoulders descend by a couple of centimetres as the tension in them dissolved.
‘Thank god,’ he said. ‘Because I need you, Han. You’re the tougher, smarter half of me and I am bricking it about this wedding.
I can’t get married if you’re not with me every step of the way – and someone with sense is going to have to deal with Joe’s agent.
She’s already got some mad idea to get HELLO!
magazine involved . . .’ He let go a shaky laugh, and Hannah realised how worried he’d been that she might not stay close to this. To him.
She stepped towards him, pulling him into her arms like he was still a little boy, and she his stronger, more streetwise older sister.
As kids, her extra five and a half minutes of life had endowed her with an unquestioned seniority – but her fierce protectiveness of Ed had taken on a comedic quality during their teens, when he shot up to six foot two, a full eight inches taller than her.
‘I’m here for you,’ she said, meaning it. ‘I’ll always be here.’ She felt a stab of regret that anything could ever have made him doubt it.
As they sat at the kitchen island and finished their sandwiches, Hannah marvelled at the curative power of caffeine, carbs and the two Nurofen tablets Ed had fished from her medicine cabinet. Her hangover wasn’t gone, but it was definitely receding.
‘You know, Joe seems to think that you and Jude being pushed back together will do you good,’ Ed said as Hannah stacked her tiny, somewhat temperamental dishwasher.
She felt herself blanch at the phrase pushed back together. ‘Joe has an opinion on this? Imagine my surprise,’ she griped, hoping sarcasm would cover her unease.
‘Granted, the man is a gob on a stick,’ Ed said, eyerolling fondly, ‘but he might have a point. You meant so much to each other for so long, Han. You were always friends first, and that doesn’t just disappear.’
‘You wouldn’t think so,’ Hannah said, ‘but that’s what happened.’ Worry creased her brother’s forehead, and she felt the immediate urge to smooth it away.
‘I’ll sort it with Jude,’ she heard herself promise, though she had no idea what that really meant or how she might achieve it.
‘I can’t speak to how he feels about most things these days,’ she went on, ‘but I know he won’t want to hurt Joe, or ruin his wedding, any more than I’d want to do those things to you.
We’ll learn to coexist again. To work together, even.
’ This was big talk based on absolutely nothing, and she couldn’t help feeling pissed off that it was needed.
She’d just sworn to forgive and forget – at least outwardly – while Jude had never even explained his past behaviour, much less found it in himself to say sorry.
It did no good to dwell on it now, but the more she thought about that, the angrier she seemed to become.
She’d told Charlie on Friday night that Jude had cast her as the villain of their story.
Had it truly never occurred to him that she’d smashed her own heart that day as well as his – and that he’d handed her the hammer?
Baseless big talk was good enough for Ed, however. He grinned happily and asked: ‘We’ll get together soon, then, to chat about venues and such?’
‘We’ll have to,’ Hannah said, her tone brusque.
‘The time frame you two have given me to work with is going to pose a lot of challenges. You’re going to have to make quick decisions and be ready to compromise on pretty much everything if you want to stick to the date you’ve picked. Which, I assume, there’s no changing?’
‘Don’t think so,’ Ed told her. ‘According to Joe, Jude’s told his boss he’ll be back in Oz by October.
The whirlwind nature of this is very much about Joe wanting him at the wedding .
. . as well as how desperate he is to lock this down, of course.
’ He pointed at his well-defined torso, which Hannah knew featured the sort of muscles it took years of dedicated training – plus many, many grilled chicken breasts – to hone.
‘Well, who wouldn’t want to be legally bound to a living, breathing Ken doll?’ Hannah said affectionately. She kissed her brother goodbye and saw him out, assuring him she’d call to arrange a meet-up as soon as possible.
Alone again, under the jet of a hot shower, she tried to unpick the tangled knot of feelings that had lodged behind her ribcage. It was laced with frustration. Shot through with mild fury. After a moment, Hannah decided she didn’t care to investigate the nature of its deeper, finer threads.
She could cope with this, she told herself.
Jude would be back on the other side of the planet by the time autumn arrived, and whatever rapprochement she had to broker with him until then could be shallow.
Temporary. She’d do it for Ed, and after the wedding, everything would go back to how it was before.
The thought was . . . comforting, she decided. And the clock was already ticking.