Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
ETHAN
I take the window seat. Pull out my laptop before the flight attendants even get through the safety spiel. Dive into Tacoon plans like they might save me. Floor layouts. Vendor lists. Permit timelines. Anything but her.
The flight attendant comes my way with a perky attitude and a smile, “Can I get you something to drink, sir?” Do they have something to erase someone from my mind? “Jack and ginger. Heavy on the Jack.” She nods and smiles.
The flight was bumpy, which I’m glad, honestly, because between having to secure my laptop every five minutes and make sure I didn’t spill my drink all over the keyboard, I didn’t have time to think about her.
By the time we land, I’ve flagged half the blueprints and built out two fake timelines I’ll probably delete and redo tomorrow. The phone buzzes as soon as airplane mode is switched off.
Hannah: You landed?
Me: Yeah, just now. I’ll be home in a bit.
No message from her. She should’ve landed a while ago. So this means we’re done talking for good.
The Uber smells like mint gum and someone’s cologne.
The city rolls past like a screensaver. It is familiar, but it feels slightly off.
Home greets me with glitter glue and chaos.
There’s a massive “WELCOME HOME DADDY!” banner taped to the wall, complete with crooked stars and two tiny handprints in neon paint.
The girls barrel into me like they haven’t seen me in months, and it surely feels like that. “Daddy! Daddy!” I drop everything, scoop them up, and bury my face in their hair.
Hannah’s watching from the stairs, arms crossed but smiling. I walk over, hug her, and kiss her. Welcome home, love,” she says. It’s warm, but I can sense she’s mad about something, and she has every right to be. “You look tired,” she adds as I set my bag down.
“Long day. Long week.” She nods and, with no time to lose, she goes right into it. “Was it hard? Seeing her?” She doesn’t say Olivia’s name, but she doesn’t need to. And I’m so tired of everything, the lying, the secrecy, so I go with it. “Yeah. It was.” She takes that in.
“How’s your dad holding up?”
“He is doing better than we expected. Maggie will be staying with him for a while.” She nods, and I’m just waiting for the next blow. “I meant what I said on the phone,” she says. “I know you’re not fully here. And I know why.” There it is.
“Hannah—” She holds up a hand. “Just let me ask you one thing. Am I waiting for this to pass again, or am I competing with her?” I lean closer to her. “You’re not competing with anyone. I’m here.” I kiss her, and I mean it. But she doesn’t feel it the way I intended her to.
“I just need the truth, Ethan. Am I a placeholder?”
“No, you never have been,”. I chose her long ago, and by the time I started with her, Olivia and I were long over. Yes, I thought of her, yes, I loved her, but I never chose Hannah to forget Olivia.
She gives a tight nod. “Okay.” The nanny heads out to grab the girls. Hannah gives her a soft thank-you, and I take my bag upstairs. “I’m going to shower. It’s been a long day.”
“I’ll come sit with you.” She perches on the edge of the tub while I strip and turn on the water. Steam curls around us. “How was the funeral?”
I sigh, “Hard as hell. But it was a very nice service.”
“And the project?”
“I didn’t know what to expect working with them, but honestly, that childish play we used to have is long gone. We’re adults, we respect each other, and our parents’ decisions weren’t our fault. So, we’re good, and they are professionals, so.”
“Do you still love her, right?” I freeze. Water pounding my back. Eyes shut. “Hannah…”
“Don’t lie to me, Ethan, please.” And I don’t want to lie. But I also don’t know how to explain this to her. So, I settle for an easy answer and hope she takes it. “It’s complicated.”
“How so?” I guess she didn’t.
“Can I be frank? No fighting, no nothing.” She nods.
“I love her, I always have loved her. She was a very important person in my life. And in a perfect world, I would have both of you with me. Because, trust me, I love you, Hannah. I chose you; I chose my life with you. And you gave me the two things I love the most in the whole world. But nothing erases what I had with her. I planned my life with her long before I knew you, and that’s not something you get over.
I don’t expect you to understand that I love two women, that I can have you both in my heart. But please know I love you.”
She doesn’t say anything. She stands there and starts undressing.
Without a word, she steps into the shower.
Her arms slide around my waist, and I hold her and kiss her.
She kisses me back like she’s been dying to do so, her hand is in my hair, my hands are all over her, she’s moaning, panting.
She is my wife, and I owe this to her. We ended up having sex right there, which is something uncommon.
Hannah isn’t the kind of woman to have sex outside of bed.
She is very non-adventurous in that area, but the sex has always been amazing. And today wasn’t the exception.
For the first time, I didn’t feel guilty about what I told her or what just happened. Because even though I didn’t tell her the whole truth, I answered her honestly.
The girls are coloring when we come downstairs. Dinner is chicken nuggets, glitter glue on the table, juice spilled, and bedtime chaos. Hannah catches my eye and smiles at me. I missed that smile. That one that says, ‘everything will be alright’.
I’m home, I should feel whole, but something is missing, and I know exactly who it is.
Being back at the office feels... off. It could be the jet lag. Could be the fact that I left half my soul somewhere between a motel bed and Olivia’s front porch.
I drop into my chair, crack open my laptop, and stare at a wall of unread emails. Project quotes. Vendor delays. Staff check-ins. Stuff I usually thrive on. But right now, it all feels like filler. Like a distraction I desperately need.
And then—ding.
Zoom Call – Audrey, Josh, Olivia.
My stomach drops. We said no contact, which means no calls, no texts, no catching more feelings. But this is business. And business doesn’t count. I hit ‘Accept’ as I keep trying to convince myself.
Kara, my assistant, pokes her head in. “Moved your eleven to Thursday. Materials for Tacoon are confirmed. Want me to hold your one o’clock?”
“No, I need that one. Investor check-in.” She disappears. I spend the next hour and a half hiding in spreadsheets. Nothing like numbers to keep you from spiraling.
At one o’clock, I log on. Audrey pops in first. Then Josh. Then—her. Hair pinned back, looking professional as hell. But something on her face is off, but she doesn’t flinch when she sees me. Maybe the fact that we are supposed to be doing contact zero or whatever the fuck that’s called.
We dive into the call, discuss budgets, and talk about permits. Audrey talks about vendor quotes. Josh mentions some changes to the timeline. Olivia talks about strategy and marketing campaigns. She and Audrey discuss a few other things, and then the call ends.
Agnes walks in, taking me off my mind for a second. “You look like shit,” she says, dropping into the chair across from me. “Wanna get lunch, or should I fake an HR complaint to force you outside?”
I push back from the desk. “Lunch sounds safer.” We hit the bar down the block.
The place is packed at this time of day.
I guess happy hour just started. It smells like whiskey and food.
Heaven basically. We slide into barstools and order.
A double for me, perks of being my own boss. I can drink in happy hour if I want to.
She narrows her eyes like she already knows why. “So, is this about your wife or the other woman you’re emotionally combusting over?” she says, looking at my drink. I snort. “Both.”
She sips her beer, waiting. She’s always been patient with me.
We met in our first year of college after a sorority party I was forced to go to.
She was the first woman I slept with after Olivia.
And let’s say that the sex was bad enough to never make us try again.
Don’t get me wrong, she is a beautiful woman, with the confidence of a pageant queen, and the attitude of a truck driver, in the best way possible.
But we quickly discovered we were better as friends.
“Hannah keeps bringing up Olivia. Asking questions, like she knows something’s off.”
“Is she wrong?” She’s staring at my soul. So, I keep drinking without looking at her. “No”
“You going to tell her?” I swirl my drink, still avoiding eye contact. “Eventually, I guess.”
“You guess?” I glare. “It’s complicated.”
“Is it? Or you just fucked it up and now don’t know how to deal with it?” I grin, because yeah, that’s more accurate. “She doesn’t know we slept together,” I say. “But she knows what I feel about her.”
“And the other one?” I catch myself smiling at the thought of her. “She’s trying to pretend we can be friends. I’m trying to pretend I agree with her.” Agnes nods, like she gets it. And maybe she does.
“I saw her the minute I got to Tacoon,” I say. “It was like getting hit by a truck.”
“Yeah, you look like that happened to you,” she says dryly. “So, is she a truck you ran into willingly until you fell between her legs?”
“Fuck you,” I mutter to her, laughing.
“Been there, done that, no thanks,” she smirks. “But in all seriousness, don’t be so hard on yourself, Ethan. You love them both, and that’s okay. What’s not okay is you cheating on your wife with your girlfriend.”
“Okay, seriously fuck off.” We laugh it out and keep talking about other things, because at this point, there’s nothing left to do.
I take a sip of my drink. “It wasn’t just sex, Agnes.
I can’t even call it cheating. I love her, I’m in love with her.
What we had never stopped, you know? I told Hannah long ago what I felt for Olivia, and I’ve always known I had love for her, but this was, is, something more.
” It just slipped out of my mouth, like I’ve been holding it for so long, because I have.
She exhales, long and low. “Jesus, Ethan.”
Then she asks the worst question ever, “Are you still in love with Hannah?”
I stare at my glass. “I… I don’t know. I know that I care about her, I respect her, I fucking love that woman. She’s the mother of my kids. But, I don’t know if I’m still in love with her. But I guess that even if I am, it’s not in the same way I am with Liv.”
Agnes leans back. “That’s the thing, Ethan. You can absolutely love two people at the same time. But you can only be in love with one.”
I stare at her and nod.
“You’ve been in love with Olivia since you were ten years old. You almost didn’t marry Hannah because of her. And now, here you are—married with kids, still looking at Olivia like she hung the damn moon for you.”
“That obvious, huh?”
“Painfully.” We laugh again, but this time it isn’t as real. I sigh. “We agreed to take space. Focus on our families.” Agnes gives me a look. “And how’s that going?” I ignore her and finish my drink. We talk about other things, like her love life, for once.
We joke around and go back to work.