Chapter 28
TWENTY-EIGHT
“Hi, wedding buddy,” Hanna said, clapping her hand over Logan’s shoulder.
He stood on the porch, overlooking an endless sea of fluffy green grapevines as Marcia and Cami issued marching orders to the rest of the groomsmen. She tried not to stare at Milo as he helped Brendon—Brandon—move a table, the ink on his arms flexing in the glittering string lights overhead.
“Did you get everything you needed in town?” Logan asked, arching his brows.
“Almost,” Hanna said. “What about you? What are we doing these days? Apps?”
He laughed, sipping sparkling water. “No. We’re doing nothing, at least for now.”
Milo set the table down and turned his head, catching her eyes. He lingered, a slight smile forcing its way through his brooding.
“Goddamn,” Logan sighed. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t know that I’ve ever looked at someone like that.”
“I know,” Hanna laughed.
“You know how I know we’re fine?”
Hanna twisted toward him, adjusting the cap sleeve of her dress.
“How?”
“I think I’m jealous of you, not him.”
Her lips folded into a gentle smile as she touched his arm.
“You’re a catch, Logan. Someone will look at you like that one day.” She paused, a thought occurring to her. “And if you’re into redheads…”
“Chloe?” Logan asked, cocking his head to the side.
Hanna shrugged. “I bored you. Chloe is anything but.”
“Huh,” he said, sipping his water. “I’m going to think on that.”
He threw an arm around her shoulders, squeezing her gently before fading off into the vineyard, finding some way to be useful.
Hanna turned back toward the house, ready to face the gauntlet she’d avoided the entire day.
The DeBrunes.
Marcia had greeted her warmly enough, but she hadn’t been able to look her in the eye. Tom was worse. Every look he gave Hanna was filled with the kind of silence that deafened. They had flown into Phoenix for Lisa’s funeral, which Hanna had appreciated, but they hadn’t spoken since.
They’d practically raised her over her decade-long relationship, and now she was standing in their home, pining after another man, trying not to sob.
But Hanna knew she could handle them. She could handle anything, even if it hurt.
“Anything I can help with, Marcia?” Hanna lingered at the edge of the kitchen, holding her breath.
“Oh Hanna, honey, yes! Would you mind helping Tom take those extra pillows and blankets out to the guest house? We’re shoving the boys out there tonight.”
Tom’s head snapped away from his conversation with an uncle, the dread palpable between both of them.
Hanna grabbed a stack of pillows and Tom slung the blankets over his shoulder, holding the door for her as they silently made their way across the vineyard and to the guest house.
She nudged the door open with her hip and tried not to tally up all the times she’d fooled around with Logan in the shack at the edge of the vines.
“You look healthy, Hanny,” Tom said, dropping the blankets onto the couch. “Happy.”
Her lips twisted, the tears nearly instant. When Logan had called her Hanny in the spring, she’d wanted to kill him. But there, after so many months of building up a tolerance, it was a nice reminder of who she’d been to her mother.
“Oh, sweetheart,” Tom said, blushing a deep shade of red. He’d never been a man of many words, but they’d always gotten along. He pulled her into a hug, the kind she’d rarely gotten in her life, and she held herself together as best she could.
“You know, we were so disappointed in Logan—”
“No,” Hanna said. “No, it’s okay. Logan made a choice I was too afraid to make, I think. We just… we had some growing up to do.”
“Marcia will never forgive him,” he said. “But we’re proud of you. I hope you know that.”
“Thanks,” she whispered.
“Your mom—” Tom’s voice tightened. “Your mom would be proud of you, too.”
He squeezed her once more and then ran off before she could well and truly unleash, but the tidal wave didn’t come.
She would have been angry a few months before, resentful that someone would have the audacity to presume to know what her mother might think of her.
But in the peaceful dark, she believed him.
She wiped at her eyes, shaking off the strings that bound her chest as she breathed slowly.
“Hanna?” Milo poked his head into the guest house. “You okay?”
“Yeah!” She rolled her eyes, as if she could fool him. “Tom was just being really nice.”
“Bastard,” Milo said, closing the door behind him.
Hanna laughed, the tears still slipping despite the control she finally felt over them.
“Can I?” Milo held his arms out. She folded herself into them, the relief so instant she almost laughed. He held her face in the dim light, a hint of gold on his shirt cuff catching her eye.
“Are those—”
“I got them before,” Milo explained, turning his wrist so she could see the tiny sunflowers better. “I guess I’d just kind of hoped we’d figured shit out by now.”
“Maybe we have?” She circled the couch, flopping onto the floral cushions, several decades outdated. Milo sat on the coffee table across from her.
“I’ve made amends with a lot of pieces of my life over the last few months, Milo. There’s really only one loose end I haven’t tied up.”
“You don’t have to make amends with me, Arizona.”
“I do,” she said, leaning toward him. “You were nothing but clear about what you wanted, even when that started to change—”
“I lied to myself for years and then to you, Hanna. I would hardly say I was clear.”
She huffed a sigh. “I just mean that whatever happened or didn't happen between us, it wasn't your fault. If I’d been taking care of myself, I think I would have been better to you.”
A silence fell between them. She counted the tattoos on his forearm, following every twist and curve like a map to the melancholic frown on his lips.
“Logan was telling his mom earlier about spreading Lisa’s ashes with you.”
Hanna smiled. “Yeah. I fucked up so big with all of that, but I thought including him in something would give us both the closure we needed.”
“And?”
“And I can very confidently say that Logan and Hanna are a finished book.”
Milo nodded as he thought, wrestling with something he didn’t want to say.
“I don’t know how to be a relationship guy, Hanna.”
“Well,” she said, resting her hand on his knee. “This version of me has never been in a relationship either, so we could figure it out together.”
“You’ve figured a lot of shit out, but do you really think you’re ready for another long-distance relationship?”
“No,” she snorted. “Never again. Which is why,” she mumbled, scrolling through her phone. She held the screen toward him. “I sold my house.”
“You sold your house?”
She nodded. “I sold my house. I close right before Thanksgiving.”
Milo folded his arms. “So you fixed things with Logan. You sold your house. You’re over the whole dead mom thing—”
She flinched. “What? Absolutely not.”
Milo leaned forward, his fingers lingering over hers.
"That was a test. You passed," he whispered. "So, you're like, super in love with me, or what?"
Hanna waited in the quiet for a moment, enjoying the way it sounded on his lips. She was in love with him. She’d known it for a while, but she’d never let the feeling rise to her tongue, never gave the air it deserved.
“Don’t freak out,” she said.
A slow smile crawled over his lips.
She grabbed his neck, pulling at the base of his curls and snagging his mouth in the kind of kiss she’d been thinking about for months.
He nipped at her ear and pushed forward, wrapping her in his arms and driving her backward onto the couch, his hands sliding everywhere.
“God, I forgot how good you tasted,” he murmured between kisses, pushing the hem of her dress over her thighs.
Hanna sighed, all of those locked-up pieces of her stretching and moving, shaking off the dust as she snapped right back into the version of her who got to be Milo’s girl.
He simmered like a tea kettle under her touch, bubbling and begging to pour into something new, something porcelain and precious, but still resilient enough to take the sear of him.
The simple comfort of his touch was so much more than she ever dreamed she’d have again.
He trailed her entire body with molten kisses, never once losing contact with as much of her as possible.
“Milo,” she gasped when his fingers found her, needy as ever for him. He pulled her on top of him in the dark of the guest house.
“You missed me,” he laughed.
“Desperately,” she breathed.
“Ay! Milo!” Matty boomed from the deck outside the guest house.
Hanna groaned. “No!”
“Jesus Christ,” Milo hissed, his hands jumping to his pants.
Hanna jolted off of him, pulling at her dress as Matty barged in and flipped the lights on.
“Ah come on, not this shit again,” he whined.
“It’s fine—” Milo started.
“I can’t do another round of this with you two! I refuse! I need you to look me in the eye and tell me right fucking now that this is happening for real, and not just another mess!”
Matty’s blue eyes flickered between them, wide with the unhinged combination of several bottles of wine and pre-wedding jitters.
“Matty, relax,” Milo said.
“I gotta find Sara—”
“No,” Hanna said. “No, we’re not bothering the bride. Milo and I are figuring shit out, okay?”
“Not good enough.”
He crossed his arms. Milo looked around and grabbed Hanna’s phone, flicking through to the screen she’d shown him and holding it up.
“Good enough?”
Matty’s eyes bounced from the phone to Hanna’s face.
“I was going to tell you guys after the wedding.”
“And you’re not just fucking around?”
“Well, not anymore,” Milo said, grinning against Matty’s groan. “I love her, okay? I love her, she loves me, we’re going to make a run at this. Logan is cool, everything is fine.”
Milo clapped his hands on Matty’s shoulders and pushed him out of the guest house.
“You like, love love her?”
“Yep,” Milo mumbled.
“Sara owes me fifty bucks,” Matty said, laughing.