Chapter 11
ELEVEN
It was easier, they decided by committee, to spring Hanna on Logan at an early dinner.
In public.
DO NOT ANSWER
Did you block me on Instagram?
Hanna twisted her lips as Milo stole a handful of her fries. She’d forgotten she’d blocked him. He clearly hadn’t checked recently.
She typed out a response in the interest of not arguing before he even arrived.
HANNA
Sorry.
DO NOT ANSWER
For blocking me or for this being the first text you’ve responded to in a year?
HANNA
Can you blame me???
DO NOT ANSWER
No, and I’ve been trying to tell you that. But you’re too stubborn to even let me apologize.
“Yikes,” Milo mumbled. She flipped her phone over and glared at him. “Sorry.”
She whispered, “This is going to go so badly.”
“I got it,” Milo said. “Gimme.” He held his hand out for her phone. Milo swiped across her screen for a moment and tapped on the keyboard. “There. He’s blocked until he gets here. And now you have a new number to text.”
She unlocked her screen, tapping on her most recent thread with a number saved as ALWAYS ANSWER.
HANNA
Thanks, Daddy.
“You’re fucking gross,” Hanna groaned.
“But you’re laughing.” He pointed at her with one of her fries. She hated herself for smiling. “A win is a win.”
Her phone buzzed again.
ALWAYS ANSWER
Look up.
Hanna glanced from her phone to Milo’s face.
ALWAYS ANSWER
Good girl.
Her face heated, annoyed that he had any effect on her, but especially that one. Milo laughed, draining his beer. He’d teased her a dozen times like that, but she was always ready for it. She’d gotten too comfortable.
She smirked as she tapped back a message.
HANNA
Want a titty pic?
Milo glanced at Sara and Matty, wrapped up in their own meals and discussing the details of Logan’s impending residency in their home.
ALWAYS ANSWER
Do you need me to beg for it?
I will.
HANNA
As hot as you probably look on your knees, the first one’s free.
Milo watched her hands intently as she swiped through her photos, searching for the one she had in mind. She fired it off, and watched his eyes as he opened the message, taking in every glorious inch of Matty’s shirtless body from their most recent beach trip.
Milo squeezed his eyes shut, laughing quietly as he pressed his hand to his chest, clutching his non-existent pearls.
“Ice cold.”
Sara’s head snapped toward them. “What did she do?”
“You’d never believe me,” Milo said, setting his phone face down on the table.
“Hey, weren’t you supposed to go to your mom’s for dinner?” Hanna asked, the chaos of the day settling.
Milo shrugged, about to say something, when Sara interrupted them.
“Look who’s here!” Sara giggled nervously, nudging Hanna in the side as a tall, lanky blonde weaved his way through the crowded restaurant. He saw Matty first, but his eyes quickly scanned the table and landed on Hanna, looking as if someone had thrown a cold bucket of water on his head.
“What the fuck?” he said before he even sat down.
“Would you believe how quick the flight is from Phoenix?” she asked, clenching her jaw.
“What are you doing here?”
Hanna chewed on her lip. “You invited me!”
Logan’s eyes narrowed. “Hanna.”
“I got you your favorite beer!” she chirped, sliding the IPA across the table to him. Logan glared at Matty, but she quickly jumped in to defend him. “Don’t be mad at him! I froze up earlier when you called. I’ve actually been out here since May—”
“May!”
“Yes. I… needed a change of scenery. But, I’m out of Matty and Sara’s for the week, so we can both have our space!”
“Where are you—”
“She’s staying with me,” Milo said, not making eye contact with Logan.
“When did you even move back into the city?” Logan asked.
“Few weeks before Hanna.” Milo reached for her Diet Coke and took a sip, holding up his hand as the waiter swept by. “Can we get another round, boss?”
“Guess I’m way out of the loop,” Logan said, his eyes fixed on Hanna’s hands as she twisted them around one another.
“Let’s just enjoy dinner and then get back home, and you two can loop one another into oblivion, okay?” Sara said, pointing between Logan and Hanna.
He huffed a sigh, but they both nodded.
What Sara didn’t know was that Hanna had a foot regularly tapping against hers under the table, completely distracting her from the pout forming on Logan’s lips.
* * *
“We’ll be up in a minute,” Hanna said to Sara, releasing her hand as they stopped in the apartment lobby.
Milo tapped her hip and slipped behind her. “See ya, roomie.”
Hanna waited for them to disappear before she turned to Logan, the nerves in her stomach tightening at a myriad of things. Sharing an apartment with Milo, being alone with Logan—it was all too much.
In the Uber home, she realized that she was actually enjoying herself in the city, and she wasn’t about to let Logan mess that up for her.
“I don’t want to fight with you,” Hanna said, folding her arms and leaning against the wall in the apartment lobby. “I’m tired of being angry with you.”
“I’m tired of you being angry with me, too,” Logan joked. He added as her eyes flared, “Not that you don’t have valid reasons.”
“Sara mentioned something about your job?” She bit back the urge to ask about Sloane.
“Yeah,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I, uh, I wasn’t doing well in New York.”
“I’m sorry.”
Logan chewed on the edge of his thumb. “I think it was too much change. You, Lisa…”
Hanna flinched.
“I just have some shit to figure out.”
She drew in a slow breath, trying to calm the storm in her chest at just hearing him say her name.
“It was really fucked up hearing about it from Matthew,” Logan whispered. She wrapped her arms around her chest, the cold shiver running over her spine stinging as it settled between her ribs. “I know I hurt you, Hanna, but that was cruel—”
“I didn’t do it to hurt you,” she said, her voice hollow.
“But you did hurt me, so where does that leave us?”
“It leaves us nowhere,” she said. “Can’t we just move on?” She knew even as it left her lips that it simply wasn’t possible, but what if just that one time the universe granted her the ability to cast spells?
“That’s not how it works. You can’t just sweep all of that under the rug and hope it doesn’t come back.”
She bit her lip. “I don’t know what you want from me.”
“You’re so fucking stubborn, Hanna, you know that?” Logan pushed off from the wall, heading for the elevator. “I can’t even talk to you when you’re like this.”
“Then don’t,” Hanna said, throwing her hands up and pressing the call button. The door slid open and she stepped on, annoyed that they had to ride up three floors of painful silence.
He didn’t want to smooth things over. He wanted to punish her for doing what she had to do to survive.
Logan would never understand the agony she went through, completely alone, and it wasn’t on her to explain.
She tapped her foot, lightning building in her muscles as she bit back the worst kind of tears—angry ones—and she gripped the edge of her shirt.
As soon as the door opened, she stomped off, leaving Logan to find his own way to Matty and Sara’s.
Milo was waiting at the kitchen counter when she got to his apartment, and he watched her chest heave with a rage she'd never given space to.
Hanna dumped her shoes and bag at the door, the strap tangling in her hair and yanking on the strands.
“Fuck,” she hissed, her skin on fire. She fussed with it for another second, only pulling the knot in her stomach into a tighter mess.
“Hanna,” Milo murmured, grabbing her purse strap and gently untangling it from her hair. She pushed him away, shaking her hands to dispel the pain building in her veins.
“Sorry,” she muttered, smoothing her hair and shirt.
“Don’t apologize.” Milo hung the bag on the hook beside the front door. “You okay?”
“No,” she laughed. She was not okay, he knew she wasn’t, everyone knew she wasn’t.
Logan’s face burned in her mind, the pain written between the lines as he levied his grievances.
The worst part about what he said was he was right.
It had been cruel of her. She’d had every opportunity to tell him what was going on, and she’d been too angry, too scared to call him.
She’d wanted him to hurt the way she did, and she knew it, which was bad enough. But the fact that he knew it?
Devastating.
“Arizona?”
Hanna’s eyes flickered to Milo’s, still too green even in the dim kitchen lighting.
He was standing exactly where she’d been mentally all night, in the space between a good decision and a bad one.
A decade earlier, she might not have even realized how stupid it was, but wisdom had no bearing on her decision in the end.
She pushed herself forward, desperate to feel anything that wasn’t her own self-loathing for just a minute. Milo caught her, his arms flexing around her waist as she crashed into him.
“Hanna—”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she rasped, her hands winding into the hem of his shirt, searching for skin. “I want a distraction.”
“Distraction?” he asked, his fingers tangling into her hair before she could even answer.
“You offered,” she whispered, her voice tight with the guilt and shame she’d been burying for too long.
“I’m not protesting, just making sure we’re clear on what this is and isn’t,” he said. His hand moved to her neck as he pushed her toward the kitchen. “For both our sakes,” he added.
Her back touched the cold granite countertop, sending her arching into his hands. She drew in a shaky breath, wrestling with herself.
“You sure you can handle it?” Milo asked.
She laughed, leaning further into his hold, slipping under the current of him.
“Of course I’m not.”
“Then we definitely shouldn’t do this,” he said. He ran his hand through her hair, bringing it back to cup her face and stroke her jaw with his thumb. His breath against her neck made it hard to form words. “Right?”