Chapter 24
TWENTY-FOUR
“Okay, so this was all really bad, we’ve covered that,” Sara said about an hour into a brutally honest phone call.
Hanna had confessed multiple sins and talked her through every timeline, as well as her revelations from the previous few weeks.
“And we’ve examined the missteps. But I think you’re holding out on me.”
“Sara!”
“I know, I know. You feel like a mess and everything is sad and believe me, I respect that and get it, but you can’t tell me all of this heart-wrenching shit without telling me about the romantic parts too.
There’s no way you and Milo would be this miserable right now if you weren’t close to cracking into something real, right? ”
Sara moved dishes around off-screen. Hanna assumed she was making dinner and, for a second, her heart ached thinking about having someone to make dinner for.
Sara leaned over the camera and grabbed a bottle of something or other, gathering a few utensils and propping Hanna up on the back of her stove so she could see her while she cooked.
Hanna asked, “Is he?”
“Is he what?”
“Miserable?”
Sara frowned, “It’s not great.” She left it at that, which was fair. Hanna knew she was trying to respect their friendship, and she could understand that. “Anyway, I just feel like you didn’t even get to enjoy any of it, you never got to gush about all the flirting and flowers and shit.”
“And by ‘shit’ you mean...”
“The sex. I want to hear about the sex,” she said dryly as she twisted at knobs on the back of the stove.
“My god. You really are your mom, you know that? Fine. I’ll tell you. What do you want to know?”
“Everything, Hanna. I’ve been with the same man for, like, a decade, I need to live a little. You two were really into it when we walked in.”
Hanna flopped onto her couch and propped her phone up on the end table, hoping Sara wouldn’t notice that she’d become a hermit in Milo’s shirt.
“Yeah, what am I telling you for? You got the full show.”
“I want to hear about the bar.”
“Sara. It was crazy. I’ve never felt anything like that before. Don’t tell Logan.”
Sara’s eyes widened. “Shit.”
“Girl,” she blushed just at the thought of Milo naked. She’d effectively banned him from her brain for the month she’d been home. “There was one time—”
“Hold on, hold on, hold on,” Sara grabbed her phone and shoved Hanna in her pocket. Matty boomed in the background. It made sense that she wouldn’t want him to hear their conversation.
“Hey Sara, what’s up?” a second voice said. It was cruel how soothing his voice was to her, even from a state away and garbled through Sara’s pocket.
Hanna wished for just one moment that Sara had held up the phone, just so those green eyes could skewer her one more time.
“I told Milo and Chloe they could hang out for dinner, that cool?”
“That’s fine,” Sara said, her voice tight.
Hanna sighed. It was what she deserved to hear, really.
“Anything I can help wi—“ Sara mercifully ended the call before she had to listen to Chloe bespell everyone in the room.
SARA
Omg, I’m so sorry, I had no idea they were coming over.
HANNA
He’s seeing Chloe again?
SARA
He is. I’m sorry, Hanna, I wasn’t sure if you’d want to know.
She stared at the ceiling, tracing the drip stains in the corner that she really needed to do something about. Her ribs ached, damn near bruised from all the crying she’d done.
She rolled over and sat up.
It was time for the next stop on her apology tour.
* * *
“Hello?”
He sounded like he’d just woken up, and immediately a wave of guilt crashed over her. Just the thought of bothering him wrecked her, even after all the hurt he’d caused her.
Hanna hesitated, but finally managed a nervous, “Hey.”
“I didn’t expect to hear from you anytime soon.”
“I know, and I’m sorry for calling out of the blue. I probably should have texted first.”
She heard shuffling on his end, and it hit her that he was getting out of bed. It was nearly midnight in New York.
“Annnnnd I should have considered the time difference. God, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Logan sighed. “I’m actually glad you called. I’ve been trying not to bother you, but I feel awful about what happened. All of it, I mean, like the whole last year, but especially my bullshit in Vegas. I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with me, Hanna.”
“I’m in the same pit of self-loathing if it helps. Logan?” She was afraid to ask him, afraid to crawl out onto a ledge and get knocked off one more by those piercing blue eyes. “I have something big to ask of you, but I think it will help us both.”
“Okay, shoot.”
She tried to picture him sitting on the edge of the bed, his hair disheveled and his t-shirt clinging to his back. She wondered if he still slept on the left side.
“I need you to come home.”
“To Phoenix?”
“Yeah, I need you to help me with something. I just need you to trust me, okay? I think it’ll be worth the trip.”
He was silent for a while, but eventually replied, “I’ll think about it, Hanna.”
She released her breath. It wasn’t a rejection.
“That’s all I ask. Let me know in a day or two?”
“I will. Thanks for calling.”
“Goodnight, Lo.”
“Night, Hanna.”
* * *
It took Logan two days to answer her.
By Saturday morning, he was sitting in her living room, fresh off a red-eye, sipping coffee from a shop down the street where they used to spend their weekends. It was very strange to see him sitting in the house she’d bought specifically to forget him, but it was important.
“I always loved this neighborhood,” Logan said, reaching for a pastry from the pink box she’d snagged when his flight landed.
Hanna shrugged. “Yeah, it’s been nice here. It’s not New York, but it does the job.”
“Eh,” he took a massive bite, crumbs falling over his polo shirt. “New York is overrated.”
“Ah yes, that’s what they all say,” she teased.
“I mean it, I’m not going to miss it when I move back to the Bay. I miss being around family, you know?”
She nodded. She knew.
“Anyway, not to be so to the point, but I’d love to know why you needed me to get my ass on a cross-country flight so suddenly.”
“Yes, that.” She folded her legs beneath herself, biting at the edge of her coffee cup, trying to recall the speech she’d practiced in her head for two days. “I’ve been re-examining a lot about my life lately, and something that keeps coming up is how I treated you when Mom got sick.”
It was like she’d thrown a brick. Logan winced, the pain he’d been harboring rushing to the surface of his skin. She’d forced herself not to see it before, to believe it was unearned, but she’d been wrong.
She continued, “I really regret cutting you out like that. I had my reasons, but… they were wrong. I know I can’t go back and fix any of it, but what I can do is include you in how I want to move forward.”
His apprehension was understandable.
“I appreciate that, Hanna. Really.”
“There’s something I promised my mom I would do and I’ve been dragging my feet on it for over a year.
” Her eyes swept over the black box on her coffee table, the one she’d kept in a closet, haunting her with each passing milestone.
“I was wondering if maybe you’d come with me to spread her ashes at the Grand Canyon. ”
Logan’s eyes widened. She couldn’t tell if he was horrified or honored, maybe both. But she also knew that he understood how much it took to ask him to be part of it and, despite all the bullshit, they were always going to be two people who had been in love.
That was worth something.
If she closed her eyes, she could hear the voicemails she’d deleted—frantic, begging her to tell him what was going on with her mom and, in her anger, she forgot that Logan had that piece of him too. He might have been a major asshole when it came to Milo, but he wasn’t a monster.
A year’s worth of hurt shed from his skin in a moment. She watched as the weight of her request settled over him.
“When do we leave?”
* * *
After stopping at a gas station to stock up on snacks and caffeinated beverages, they hit the road. It was a little under a four-hour drive, which left plenty of time to dive into all the things they’d left unsaid along the way, one of the biggest appeals of taking him with her.
Hanna was done stuffing all of her feelings down. She was ready to purge them.
She let him lead, not wanting to force him to process at the same rapid pace she’d chosen to keep since getting home.
“Can I ask you about him?” Logan floated as the Phoenix skyline faded in her rear-view mirror. He gripped the steering wheel, falling into the same pattern they’d always kept. He drove, she DJ’d. “Or is that off-limits?”
She desperately wanted to keep it off-limits, but that wouldn’t help either of them move forward.
“Nothing is off-limits today. That’s the point of this.”
“Okay, good to know. Are you guys...” Logan trailed off, unsure what descriptor was appropriate to use.
“Together?”
His teeth sank together against a slow bassline as she shifted away from a playlist that reminded her a little too much of green eyes and whiskey.
“Yeah.”
“No,” she whispered, struggling to admit the next part, “I haven’t spoken to him since I left.”
Logan was shocked by this. “At all?”
She opted to fuck with the aux cord instead of looking at him.
“Not a word.”
“I find that hard to believe, I gotta say.”
“Why is that?”
She could sense his discomfort discussing Milo. He was likely trying to shove down the parts that made them both sweat.
“Hanna, there aren’t many guys who would jump in to defend a girl who they didn’t deeply care about the way Milo did for you, repeatedly.
He was willing to take a punch to the face if I hadn’t calmed down.
I’ve known Milo for years and, even though we aren’t exactly buddies, especially after what we’ve put him through, I just assumed you guys were leaving Vegas as a couple. ”
“Oh,” she sighed. For some reason, it hurt even more that Logan saw it too. “He told me about Michaela.”
Logan frowned. “I shouldn’t have brought that up, we were kids—”