Chapter 4
FOUR
Hanna sank further under the water with each buzz of her phone.
The bath water had gone cold an hour earlier, but she couldn’t find it within herself to climb out. She leaned forward, flipping her phone over on the counter.
It was Logan. Again.
DO NOT ANSWER
Palomar at 10?
Hanna. Come on.
I really want to talk. Sloane told me what happened.
Okay. Well, I’ll be here all night. Hopefully I’ll see you.
Only Logan could think that talking about her dead mom at a trendy rooftop bar would appeal to her. She’d spent six hours making terrible small talk with Sara’s family and avoiding his sad-boy eyes from across the yard. She couldn’t devote any more energy to him.
Besides, she’d embarrassed herself enough for one day. She didn’t need to add crying in public to the list.
She did, however, find the idea of crying in her bathtub with a glass of wine appealing—if only the tears would come. They seemed quick to threaten her with an appearance whenever she was around others, but the moment she was alone, it was like she was stuck.
Her phone buzzed again.
SARA
We’re all at The Palomar. Come be my friend!
Ugh.
Logan was easy to ignore. But Sara? It was hard to pass up the temptation to get time with her without family members hovering and inquiring about wedding plans.
She sat up.
She’d hate herself in the morning if she didn’t go. The guilt always ate her alive when she passed on something for no reason other than “ugh.”
Hanna slipped out of the tub and toweled off, chugging water as her head began to tighten. A pair of well-worn black jeans and a tank top with a messy bun, and she didn’t look half bad—at least not for a half-drunk, pathetic mess.
She downed a third glass of water before venturing from her little bungalow, rotting just like she was, and took the light rail downtown.
The hotel rose above the hot streets, teeming with post-Suns game-goers. Sara waited beneath the hotel awning, eyes glued to her phone, likely watching Hanna's location as she weaved through the city.
“Hanna!” Sara wrapped her arms around her friend, her sweet vanilla honey scent warming Hanna. “I’m so sorry I barely got to see you at the party! Thanks for coming back out.”
Hanna shrugged. “I’ll put pants on for very few people in this life, but you’re one of ‘em, babe.”
Sara laughed, the sound soothing Hanna’s aching ribs, and she held the door open to the hotel lobby, scanning a key at the elevator. The doors had hardly closed before she attacked.
“Mom saw you getting ice with Milo.”
“Is that what the kids are calling it these days?” Hanna muttered. Sara pulled her eyes away from the rows of elevator buttons and arched her brows. “I’m kidding. He asked for a hand.”
“Because Milo can’t lift two bags of ice?”
Hanna sighed. “It was nothing.”
“Right.” Sara rocked forward on her heels. “He’s hot, though. I wasn’t lying.”
“You were not,” Hanna allowed. “But nothing is going to happen.”
“Okay!” Sara chirped. The sing-songy quality implied she didn’t buy Hanna’s resolve. She was much too confident.
The elevator doors scrolled back, depositing them into the chic bar in the middle of the city, surrounded by glassy buildings and the distant mountain ranges. The bar buzzed with a late-night crowd scattered between lush white lounge chairs and billowing curtains.
“Logan told me about Sloane,” Sara said quietly as they weaved between patrons toward the bar.
“Yeah. That was… something,” Hanna said, sliding onto a barstool. Sara ordered without having to ask. One whiskey ginger, one gin and tonic. Two limes.
“She felt bad,” Sara said and pushed her card across the bar. “She thought she was being a girl’s girl or whatever.”
Hanna snorted. “Uh huh.”
“Logan was pissed.”
Hanna nodded.
“They had a huge fight after.”
“Bummer, I missed it,” Hanna said as a cocktail landed in front of her. She lifted the glass to cheers her best friend who watched her face with careful eyes.
“You’re a good friend to put up with them for all of these stupid wedding events.”
Dammit, there were those public tears again.
The thought that Hanna had been a good anything to anyone over that last year struck her in the chest. Sara—who had been on the first flight out when her mother got sick, who sent flowers weekly while she was in treatment, who cooked meals and held hands and wiped tears—thought Hanna, who hadn’t returned a single call to anyone except Sara, was a good friend?
“I owe you,” Hanna said. It was all she could say.
“Shit,” Sara mumbled over her straw and pointed to Hanna’s phone as it lit up with DO NOT ANSWER once again.
“Logan’s been blowing me up for hours.”
Sara closed her eyes and sighed. “He has a lot of feelings about your mom. Matty and I tried to tell him repeatedly not to involve you in them… but you know how he is.”
She did. She knew how he was about everything.
Sara gave her a wicked grin, her eyes narrowing as a bit of gossip bubbled to her lips. They’d done their best to maintain the separation of church and state when it came to Logan, but Hanna had earned it.
“You should see how Marcia looks at her. Like she has two heads.”
Hanna chuckled. “Ah, yes, Milo mentioned she doesn’t eat gluten.”
“Did he?” Sara asked without any attempt to hide her interest in pulling at the thread.
“He was trying to make me feel better.”
“I’ve heard he’s particularly talented at making women feel better,” Sara cooed.
“Stop that. He was being nice. It was when Logan showed up with Sloane.”
“Speak of the devil,” Sara said, wincing. Logan appeared over Hanna’s shoulder and slid onto the stool beside them. He’d changed into one of his old, faded college tees, and it clung to his biceps as he ordered a beer.
“Mind if I borrow Hanna?” he asked Sara, which only made Hanna even less interested in speaking with him.
“That’s probably a question for her, no?” Sara returned. His jaw clenched, but Hanna felt no interest in making things easy on him. “I don’t think she’s up for talking tonight, Lo.”
“She isn’t!” Hanna chimed in, not that anyone had asked.
“Hanna,” he pleaded. The tone was familiar—the same one he’d use to pacify her during arguments. “Just one conversation, and then I’ll drop it.”
Hanna hung her head forward and sipped her drink.
Just one. It felt like a DM from a girl she knew in high school trying to get her into their MLM. Hey, boss babe! You have a few minutes to catch up?
“One chance?” he begged again.
A chance at what? Crack a rib instead of just breaking her heart? Cut her kidney out and sell it on the black market to buy Sloane an engagement ring? God, the thought of him marrying her—
“Go find Matty, Lo,” Sara said again.
“But—”
“I said no!” Hanna barked.
He swallowed, his hand reaching for her arm.
“Hanny—”
She slammed her glass down on the bar and stood, jerking her elbow from his grasp. She saw his mouth move, but she only heard her mother’s voice. Hanny! Hanny! Hanny!
“I think I should go,” she whispered to Sara, who frowned but understood. She patted Hanna’s shoulder and kissed her cheek.
“Call me tomorrow?”
She nodded, pushing through the crowd and heading for the elevator, her eyes stinging as she mashed on the lobby floor. The doors moved inward, but a hand caught them before they could close.
A hand attached to a bevy of tattoos.
Fuck, she thought, wiping at her eyes as Milo stepped onto the elevator. He took in the scene before him, seeing her at her most deranged for what, the third time in one day?
“Hey.”
“We have to stop meeting like this,” she deadpanned, sniffling with her arms cradled around her body.
“Logan find you?”
She nodded. “I’m fine. It’s fine. Everything is fine.”
“You know, the third one really sold it,” Milo said, shoving his hands into his pockets.
Hanna laughed, not hard enough to shift the tide inside her, but enough to take the edge off.
“I really will be okay. I just needed a minute away from… all of it. Usually I only have one breakdown per twenty-four-hour period.”
Milo smiled. “Caught you on a hot streak.”
“Something like that.”
“I’m heading to the corner store to grab a few things, wanna come?”
The elevator hit the ground floor and opened to the quiet lobby. Maybe it was that she’d already put hard pants on and hadn’t gotten the return on her effort, or maybe it was the ridiculous way he smirked, but a walk didn’t sound terrible.
Hanna followed him around the corner, the late spring night perfectly warm now that the sun had set. She trailed wordlessly behind him as he plucked things off the shelves—gum, two energy drinks, Advil, and a travel bottle of Tums.
He held the bottle up and shook it. “None of us are twenty-one anymore, but these assholes still drink like it. The heartburn is killing me.”
Hanna smiled, her mind starting to quiet.
He asked the cashier for a pack of Marlboro Reds and a lighter, surprising her.
“What?”
“You don’t smell like a smoker,” she said.
He leaned toward her. “Paying attention, are we?”
She rolled her eyes.
“One of those, too,” Milo said, pointing at a bucket of flowers on the back of the counter. The cashier plucked a bright yellow sunflower out of the water, beads dropping across the counter as Milo handed it to her. “Consider it an apology on Logan’s behalf.”
Hanna stared at the flower, twirling it in her hands, the ache in her chest opening up once again.
She followed him from the store on autopilot, stroking the soft silk of the petals, the light perfume bringing her back to weekly deliveries on her mother’s bedside table.
Back at the hotel, they walked onto the elevator and Milo tapped the panel. Hanna breathed slowly as it lurched to life. She realized halfway down the hall of the seventeenth floor they were heading to his room. He swiped his key card, tossing his bag onto the bed and pulling off his shirt.