Chapter 10 #2
“Hanna, I am trying,” he groaned, turning to her and looking her dead in the eyes as a very early two-thousands bassline blared from the speakers. “One good big-girl cry, and I’m all yours.”
“You’re insane.”
“I’m regulated,” he scoffed. “You’re one tough talk away from shaving your head.”
“Jesus, Milo!”
“Shh, you’re going to miss the inciting incident. Very important context.”
Hanna’s lips parted. She had about a thousand other things she wanted to say, but the way he plopped onto the couch beside her and yanked half the blanket over his lap silenced her.
“What am I drinking?” she asked, the bright summery drink washing away the horror of her twisted nerves.
“I just threw some shit together.”
Hanna arched a brow.
“I never said I was a good bartender. Now pay attention. This movie is sad as fuck, but the soundtrack is easily in the top ten early aughts rom-com soundtracks. Maybe top five.”
Hanna tucked her feet beneath her as the movie rolled along, the angst a constant reminder of the conversation Milo had just so easily abandoned a moment earlier.
She tilted her head when things started to get interesting.
“God, Shane West was really something, huh?”
“Why am I not surprised you’re into sad, brooding bad boys?” Milo teased.
“Don’t flatter yourself.” She set her glass on the coffee table and readjusted the blanket. “You’re not even that good at brooding. Fire one of your therapists, and then maybe we can talk.”
“I was talking about you,” he said. “But noted.”
“I don’t brood!” she protested.
“You are actively brooding all over my couch.”
“I’ll leave,” she threatened.
“Shh! You’re going to miss a really good part. Real tear-jerker. Ugly-cry territory.”
Hanna sank down beneath the blanket, mumbling without looking at him, “Watched pot.”
He only chuckled, finally peeling his eyes off her.
He checked back in every few minutes, the disappointment that she hadn’t fallen apart visible as the movie progressed.
It wasn’t until they made it well past the twist, the arguing, and the admittedly hot kissing despite how chaste it all was that he looked over and frowned.
“Nothing?”
Hanna swallowed. “Nothing.”
“She died!”
“People die all the time, Milo!” They both winced. “I told you. I’m fine.”
“You are so far from fine it’s diagnosable,” Milo muttered, grabbing the empty popcorn bowl and glasses and taking them to the kitchen. She followed, setting her phone on the counter. “The star? The state line? The ring still on his finger at the end? Are you made of stone, woman?”
Hanna laughed, but her eyes didn’t quite catch the light.
“I can’t, okay?”
“Hanna—”
“Just, drop it, Milo.” Her phone buzzed against the counter. DO NOT ANSWER. Milo glanced at the screen and raised his brows. She sighed. As if she needed to add another grief to the plate. Milo stood in her path, dropping those green eyes to hers.
“No one is this ironclad. If you let it go now, it won’t sneak up on you later.”
She held his gaze, ignoring the second call coming in.
“What if I start and never stop?” she asked, her voice wobbling. “I feel like I’ll drown.”
Milo nodded, moving closer to her, taking up space she hadn’t filled in a year. She twisted her fingers into the hem of her shirt, trying to think of a clever way to escape him, but the burn at the back of her throat was relentless.
“Don’t they teach you how to swim out there in the desert, Arizona?”
Her phone buzzed a third time, both their eyes landing on the screen.
She ignored it, his hand hovering close to her hip.
There, in the space between his fingers and her jeans, a truth lingered she hadn’t seen before.
He didn’t just want to sleep with her. He might have told himself that, but he was genuinely concerned about her, and that was exponentially worse.
Milo leaned into her, the amber of his cologne swirling around her head. It was hypnotizing.
He smelled like coming home after a late night at work, all the lights off except for one warm bulb over the stove, the one that never burns out. Her phone vibrated again.
“You gonna get that?” he asked, just an inch from her.
“No,” Hanna whispered.
“Fucking messy,” Milo mumbled, shaking his head as he closed the distance between them. He moved slowly, likely so as not to scare her off, but she knew the moment his lips hovered an inch from hers, they’d made a very bad, very stupid choice.
But goddamn did the static in the space between their skin feel good.
“Hanna!”
The anger in Matty’s voice ripped them apart as he pounded on Milo’s door, shaking it in its frame.
“Are you in there?”
Milo nudged her to the side, her cheeks pink, and opened the door. Matty flew into the kitchen, his face much redder than either of theirs.
“You!” He pointed at Hanna, Sara trailed behind, begging him to calm down.
“Me?” Hanna asked, confused.
Matty ran a hand through his hair, taking a deep breath.
“Does my brother know you’re here?”
“I have no idea!” Hanna said.
Her phone buzzed against the counter again, and Matty snatched it.
“Who the hell is DO NOT ANSWER?”
Hanna frowned.
“Hanna!” Matty hissed.
She grabbed the phone from his hand. “You don’t get to have an opinion on how I cope with your brother, okay?”
Milo stood behind Hanna, the contact sending another blush over her cheeks.
“What’s the problem, man?”
“She never told Logan she moved!”
“I didn’t move, I just temporarily relo—”
“Whatever you want to call it,” Matty cut her off. “You didn’t tell him, and guess who decided to surprise our parents for Father’s Day and a week of job interviews in the city?”
“Shit,” Milo said under his breath.
“He’s driving down here now to stay with us and I was too much of a little bitch to tell him that my guest room is occupied by his ex-girlfriend!”
“Matty!” Hanna gasped.
Matty sighed. “You have to fix this.”
“It’s not Hanna’s fault that Logan didn’t think to ask first,” Sara said, patting Matty’s shoulder.
“I know,” he groaned. “I know. I just hate how messy all of this is.”
“Can’t he stay with your parents?” Hanna asked.
“It’s a two-hour drive into the city. He has interviews lined up all week.”
Hanna chewed on her lip. “Why is he interviewing?”
Sara leaned toward her. “He, uh, quit his job.”
“What?” Hanna and Milo said at the same time.
Sara waved her hands. “I didn’t get the details.”
Hanna’s phone buzzed again in her hand. “Why is he blowing up my phone?”
“I don’t know, but what a perfect opportunity to tell him you’re here!” Matty quipped.
“Ahhh, fuck,” Hanna grumbled. She stepped out of the kitchen and into the living room, answering the first call from Logan in over a year. “Hey?”
“Oh, Hanna, hey! Sorry, I’m used to getting your voicemail.”
She laughed awkwardly.
“Listen, I’m glad I caught you. I’m in San Francisco for the week, and I’ve been thinking a lot about how we left things in Phoenix and the Vegas trip coming up. I really just wish we could clear the air.”
“Okay,” Hanna said, pinching the bridge of her nose.
“I don’t want the entire bachelor party weekend to be us fighting. I was just thinking it could be fun if you came out for a few days and we… I don’t know… broke the ice a little.”
Hanna paced across Milo’s living room, the traffic from the street below bubbling up and adding to her anxiety.
“Um. Well. Maybe?”
Logan’s voice pitched up. “Really?”
“Yeah, I mean, I guess that’s not the worst idea.” She grimaced. It might have been the second-worst idea she’d had that day. She wasn’t sure where it fell, her belt loops still warm with the whisper of Milo’s touch.
“I can talk to Matty and Sara, I’m sure they’re cool if I crash on their couch and you take the guest room.”
“I… don’t know about that, Logan.”
“I’ll be on my best behavior,” he said, the tone of his voice a familiar velvet. “I’ll give ‘em a call, but look at flights.”
“Uhhh yeah. Okay. I will. Bye!”
Hanna hung up before he could say anything else, turning back toward her audience as they all waited.
“He… wants me to come out to San Francisco for a few days so we can hash things out before Vegas.”
Sara’s brows arched, the red returning to Matty’s face.
“He said he’ll talk to you two tonight about me staying in the guest room.”
Sara snorted. “Logan’s really making a lot of assumptions, Matthew.”
Hanna whispered, “He wants me to look at flights.”
The air in the apartment tightened as eyes bounced back and forth. Matty groaned.
“And you just… didn’t feel the need to mention you were already here?”
“I panicked!” Hanna said, throwing her hands up. “I don’t know. I can’t stay with him, Sara. You know that’s a disaster waiting to happen. Can’t he stay here?” Hanna pointed up Milo’s stairs.
“Uh,” Milo said. “Well, he could—”
“He won’t,” Matty said. A brief glance passed between them, clearly revisiting an old wound Hanna didn’t understand.
“Then he can get a hotel!” Hanna cried. “He makes big boy Wall Street money!”
“Well, he did,” Sara said.
“Okay,” Hanna sighed. “You know what? It’ll be fi—”
“You stay with me,” Milo cut her off.
They all turned toward him, Hanna’s chest tightening.
“Me?”
“Yeah, why not? We have fun together. You seem clean enough. Be my roomie, Arizona.” Milo flashed a wicked grin, sending a bead of sweat rolling down her neck.
She hadn’t even processed the fact that moments ago their mouths had been nearly tangled up in one another, and now she was going to be his roommate?
Bad, stupid, dumb fucking decisions.
“That would actually work really well,” Sara said.
A flush crawled Hanna’s spine. She knew why he offered, and it certainly wasn’t out of the goodness of his own heart.
“It would save us all a lot of Logan drama,” Matty sighed.
“God, okay. Fine. Fine!” Hanna said, throwing her hands up.
“One more fine and I’ll buy it,” Milo said quietly, smirking.
“Alright, we’ve got, like, twenty minutes to get all your shit moved,” Matty muttered, pulling Sara out of the apartment.
“You’re a problem,” Hanna hissed at him.
Milo grinned. “I’m merely benefiting from the universe’s cruel sense of humor.”
“Milo—”
“Can’t this just be fun, Hanna? Don’t you deserve that?”
She huffed. Maybe she did.
“Fine, I gotta go pack.”
“Make sure you bring those green yoga pants you had on the other day,” Milo said, laughing and smoothing his hair back.
“You’re a problem,” she said again as he followed her across the hall.
“You like it.”
And that was, without a doubt, the biggest problem on her rapidly growing list.