Chapter 37
Hannah’s rich, clear voice rings in my ears as I push on the door to the recording studio control room and hold it open for Dylan.
Trev, the producer, stops the playback. “Sounding great,” he says into the intercom to Hannah, who’s on the other side of the glass.
Her face lights up with the beaming smile that I love with all my heart, as she waves at me and Dylan.
“Looks like it’s your quittin’ time,” Trev says to her.
“We can wait if you need to do more,” I tell him.
“I don’t mind waiting.” Dylan hops up on the chair next to Trev.
Trev winks at me behind his back.
Dylan has become quite the student of the mixing desk. His obsession with learning what every fader and knob does has virtually overtaken Overlord Hybrids. I’ve set up a digital version on a tablet for him to tinker with at home.
“Home” being the rented beachfront house in Santa Monica we’ve been staying in for the four months since I moved over full time. Living here is much nicer than I’d expected. Of course, I’d live in a landfill if I got to wake up next to Hannah every morning. But there is something to be said for watching the ocean as you drink your morning coffee in bed. And Dylan is certainly in his element. Being at the beach is especially great while he’s home for the summer, but it’s really too far from his school.
We wanted to keep him where he was, at the one near Rachel’s house in the Hollywood Hills, so that is a bit of a trek. And it’s where his good friends live. I just picked him up from one of their houses before we headed here to collect his mom—the love of my life—from my old pal’s recording studio nearby.
“Nope, it’s okay. We’re done,” Trev says. He presses the intercom to Hannah. “We’ll pick this up again tomorrow. Get out of here and spend the evening with your beautiful family.”
My heart swells and glows with his use of the word “family.” I do feel like we’re a family, but to know that’s how people see us warms my heart.
“Hey.” Hannah appears through the studio door. She gives me a quick peck on the lips and Dylan on the head. “Let’s go home.”
“Actually, we’re not going straight back.” My stomach flips. “We need to stop off somewhere on the way.”
And it had better go well.
“Are we visiting Rachel?” Hannah asks as we head farther into the hills.
“Nope.”
“Are we going to the observatory?” Dylan asks. He went there on a school trip right before summer break and decided if he can’t be a music producer, he’ll be an astronomer.
“Nope.”
We make three more turns.
“It really looks like we’re going to Rachel’s house,” Hannah says.
“It does, doesn’t it?” I tease her.
“Can we go for hot dogs on the way home?” Dylan asks.
“If you like the surprise, we can do whatever you like,” I tell him.
Two more turns.
“This is Rachel’s street.” Hannah is more stumped than ever now.
When I stop two houses beyond Rachel’s, she looks back over her shoulder. “Are we really not visiting Rachel? Because it looks very much like we are.”
I point at the house we’re sitting outside. “What do you think of that?”
Whereas Rachel and Dev’s house is all sleek glass and concrete, this house is older, more welcoming, with whitewashed walls and a red tile roof. More like a home.
“Of what?” Hannah asks.
Dylan’s head appears between our seats. “Yeah, of what?”
“That house.”
“It’s nice,” she says.
“Yeah.” Dylan flops back on the seat. Clearly he was hoping I was pointing out something more exciting than a 1930s Spanish-style home.
“Is it for sale?” Hannah asks. “Do you want to go look at it?”
We’ve talked about buying a place and putting down roots but have been so occupied with organizing our new lives we haven’t had time to even think about looking yet. Hannah’s been absorbed with getting her backing singer career off the ground—she’s already regularly picking up sessions for two producers and has an agent negotiating a contract to be part of a Holiday Spectacular show at the Hollywood Bowl.
I’ve been to London three times since I moved. It’s a bit exhausting, but I’ve now hired a new staff member over here, and she’s in the process of setting up an LA office for us.
Dylan’s also been busy. He was a trooper with all the appointments and treatments he had for the clinical trial over the summer. That’s still ongoing, and will be for some time, but the appointments will be less frequent. The doctors say it’s early days, but the signs are promising.
He has the same gamer friends he made when he and Hannah first moved here, and I’m still teaching him guitar. He plays my old one—the one I first taught him to strum that morning in Blythewell—and he’s getting good. We’ll soon have to get him a real tutor. I’m so proud of him but sad he won’t need me for much longer. But then we can just switch our lessons to jam sessions instead. It’s been as good for my skills as for his.
He enjoyed school and is looking forward to starting back in a couple weeks. And to cap it all, he got an A on his final chemistry test in June—without setting fire to anything.
So, yeah, we haven’t had time to look for a new home. At least, Hannah thinks we haven’t.
“Open the glove box,” I tell her.
“Why are you being so mysterious?” she asks but opens it anyway.
“Are these to your new office?” She pulls out a set of keys and holds them up.
“Nope.” I open my door. “Everybody out.”
As I climb out, their two doors slowly open.
“What’s going on?” Hannah asks.
“I’m starving,” Dylan adds.
I practically skip around to the other side of the car, take Hannah’s hand, and lead her up the brick path that’s lined on both sides by beautiful plants, including two lemon trees, and usher her toward the yellow, ivy-framed front door. “Come on, Dylan.”
“So, is it for sale?” Hannah asks again. “Don’t we need a Realtor with us?”
I point from the keys in her hand to the lock. “Go on.”
She shakes her head and shrugs. “I wish you’d tell me what we’re doing.” But she unlocks the door anyway, then pushes it open. “Now what?”
“Now this.” I scoop one arm behind her knees, the other behind her back, and lift her into my arms.
“Whoa.” Hooking a hand over my shoulder, she looks at me with a surprised smile. “What on earth are you doing?”
“Please don’t start making out.” Dylan sticks two fingers in his mouth.
I look into the eyes of the person I love and want to spend the rest of my life with, and step inside. “I need to carry the woman of my dreams over the threshold. Welcome home.”
Her eyes widen. “You bought it?” There’s a flash of disapproval across her face. “Already? Without talking about it? Without us choosing it together?”
“I wanted it to be a surprise. And it needed work. There’s been a construction crew here for three months.”
Hannah kicks her legs for me to set her free. “You’ve been doing this for three months?” Her smile has gone. “Behind my back?”
This is not how I was hoping this would go.
“Wow.” Dylan steps in behind us, looking up at the ceiling of the double height entryway. “This is cool.”
“Not exactly behind your back,” I tell Hannah. “More as a special surprise.”
“But I wanted us to choose our first place together.” The disappointment on her face is the opposite of what I was going for.
I’m suddenly racked with the feeling I’ve done it all completely wrong and ruined the whole thing. “Maybe take a look around and see how you feel about it.”
But she’s already headed off toward the living room.
“I can always sell it,” I say to her back. “And we can pick somewhere else together if you?—”
Something between a long gasp and a sigh escapes from Hannah.
“What, Mom?” Dylan asks, trotting past me toward her.
“Oh, wow,” he says when he reaches her.
When I catch up, I step between them and drape an arm around each of their shoulders. All three of us gaze through the windows that line the wide living room, and look out over the patio and the infinity pool with its view toward the city and the glimpse of the ocean beyond.
It’s almost the same view as Rachel’s, the one I was searching for that night at Maggie and Jim’s kitchen counter when I thought I might never find Hannah again.
She wraps her arm around my waist and tips her head against my shoulder as she gazes from the white-beamed ceiling down to the giant fireplace at the end of the room, over the beach-toned furniture that looks perfect for Sunday afternoon napping, until her eyes rest on mine. “It’s beautiful. I would have picked it too.”
I pull them both tight to my sides. “And you’ve barely seen it yet.” I pat Dylan on the back. “Three of the bedrooms upstairs are empty. Go pick which one you want, and we’ll furnish it however you like.”
“Cool!” He trots back to the foyer and bounds up the stairs with their wrought iron railing.
“There’s something important I want to show you out here.” I lead her toward the glass doors and down the steps to the landscaped patio. A green hill rises away from us on one side, and the world falls away in front to the city below.
“This is ridiculous,” Hannah says with a flabbergasted smile, shaking her head as she looks around and takes it all in, like she can’t grasp that it’s real. Or hers. “Truly unbelievable.”
I walk her to the side of the shimmering pool and stop beside the glass railing that looks out on our new world.
“You like it then? You’re not mad?”
“Well, I need to see the kitchen first.” She gives me a mischievous smirk and wraps her arms around my neck. “But it’s probably going to be okay.”
Half my insides relax. The other half remains focused on the second, and most important, part of the day.
“You can look at the kitchen in a minute. But before we go back inside there’s something I need to ask you.”
I never expected to be this nervous. For my stomach to tremble, for my hands to be sweaty and yet also cold despite the beating August sun.
And no matter how many times I’ve run this scenario through my head, I never expected to actually drop down on one knee. Yet somehow, instinctively, that’s what I’m doing.
“Oh my God, Tom.” Hannah grabs both sides of her face. “Really? Seriously?”
I take her hands away from her cheeks and hold them tight. “Don’t jump the gun. I have a whole speech and everything.”
She digs her teeth into her lower lip. It’s hard to tell if that’s to stop herself from talking, laughing, crying, or some combination of all three.
The beautiful blue eyes looking down at me, the ones I want to lose myself in forever, glisten in the California sun.
“Hannah.” My voice cracks, so I clear my throat. “I love you. I’ve always loved you. Looking back, I can see now that we were always connected. Even when there was a giant ocean between us.”
My mind goes blank for a second. Shit. There’s a panicky pounding in my chest that I’ve forgotten what to say next.
“I never stopped loving you either,” she says and squeezes my hands.
Her words, her touch, her reassurance bring me back on track. “Even when we were thousands of miles apart, we were still connected. Because there’s this force field that pulls us together. An inescapable force. It’s like a third thing that exists outside of us. It’s not you, it’s not me—it’s a whole separate entity that pulls us together and refuses to let either of us go.”
Her chest heaves, and a single silent tear slips out and trickles down her smooth cheek.
“It’s like the universe insists we’re together,” I continue. “Like anything else would be going against what nature intends.”
She sniffs as another tear falls from her other eye.
I kiss the back of each hand. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you and Dylan.”
There’s a lump in my throat now, but I plow on. These are the most important words I will ever say in my life, and I’ll get them out if it kills me.
“I want to watch you blossom into the music career you always deserved, and cheer for you along the way. I want to watch Dylan grow into a remarkable young man who designs video games, or produces records, or stargazes, or fights fires, or whatever the hell he wants to do as long as it fulfills him and makes him happy. And I want to still be jamming with him when I’m too old and frail to get up and he has to pass me my guitar.”
Hannah flushes the pinkest pink, her brow furrowed, tears now a constant trickle.
She squeezes my hands. “You are already the greatest father figure he could have. And when I see you with him, it breaks my heart that you never got to have that with your dad.”
The lump in my throat swells to ten times the size. “And I wish they were going to be here for Walker’s wedding. And I wish they’d get to come to ours too.”
I reach into my pocket and take out the box that I’ve checked is still there approximately every ten seconds since I left home to pick up Dylan.
“Hannah Hepburn. You were my first kiss, my first love. And you’ll be my last. Will you marry me?”
I pop the lid, and she grabs onto the glass rail as if her legs are about to give out.
“Oh my God.” She looks from the box to me and back to the box. “It’s amazing. Incredible. Gorgeous. You had this made?”
“I did.” I pull out the star-shaped diamond ring and place the box on the ground.
Taking her hand, I slide the ring onto her finger.
“The same shape,” I say, resting the tattoo in the crook of my thumb and forefinger next to it.
Her chest heaves as she moves the ring from side to side, the sunlight glinting off it at all angles. “It’s so beautiful.”
“Is that a yes?” I get to my feet and cup her face.
She nods. “Yes. I want to be in your force field forever.”
I drop my lips to hers. They are soft and warm and salty and right where mine belong.
My fiancée wraps her arms around my neck as I circle her waist and draw her to me, wallowing in the long, slow, deep kiss, full of love and life and our futures.
“Oh, yuck.” Dylan’s hanging out of an upstairs window. “I asked you not to make out.”
Hannah shields her eyes from the sun as she looks up at him. “Come down here. We have some news.”
Thirty seconds later, Dylan steps out onto the patio, carrying a guitar.
Shit.
Now the order I’d planned to do things in is shot to pieces. But with a teenager around, I guess I’m going to have to learn to go with the flow.
“I found this.” He holds up the guitar. “In the closet of the room I want. Did someone leave it behind?”
I dip my mouth to Hannah’s ear. “You’re not the only person I need to propose to.”
She clutches her heart and gives me puppy dog eyes.
Turning back to Dylan, I say, “Bring it over. I’ll tell you about it.”
And this part might be even more nerve-racking than proposing to Hannah.
“Let’s sit down here.” I take the guitar from him as we park ourselves on the bench that looks out at the view, and rest it across my lap. “I need to talk to you about something serious for a minute.”
He looks horrified, wounded. “Am I in trouble?” Then drops into a sulk. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“I know. We’re so proud of you. I just need to ask you something.”
I rest my hands on the guitar and take a deep breath. If this goes wrong, Hannah will have that ring off her finger in a flash.
“I love your mom very much. And I want to spend the rest of my life with her. But that means I’ll be inflicting myself on you too. So, just like I needed to propose to your mom and ask her if she’d be my wife, I need to propose to you and ask you if you’ll be my stepson. Will you?”
There’s a gasp and a sob and a sniff from the spot just over my shoulder where Hannah’s standing. I have to force myself to keep looking at Dylan. If I make eye contact with Hannah right now, I’ll be as much of a blubbering mess as she undoubtedly is.
“Hell, yes,” Dylan says, like it’s the most absurd question in the world. “You’re the coolest, with the studios and everything.”
Well, that’s a relief.
“Except.” He holds up a finger. “Your bike helmet obsession. Not that cool.”
Hannah’s hand lands on my shoulder. Warmth radiates from her touch to every corner of my body. A warmth that will last forever. “Let’s not criticize Tom for wanting to keep your skull in one piece.”
“Anyway.” I run my fingers over the guitar strings. “I gave your mom an engagement ring. And I’d like to give you an engagement…guitar.” Saying those words aloud sounds so incredibly cheesy. Rehearsing it in my head, it sounded cute. But now I feel like a super-awkward dork.
Rather than risk more embarrassing words, I hand the guitar back to Dylan.
“Seriously?” He takes it from me and looks at it like he’s just opened a suitcase packed with hundred-dollar bills. “This is mine? A new one? Of my own? To keep?”
“Yup. And maybe one day, years from now, you’ll use it to teach your kid how to play.”
“I don’t know about that, but this is awesome.” He takes hold of it like a natural and strums a perfect C chord. He’s come a long way since that thunky first sound he made in the study at Maggie and Jim’s house.
But then, haven’t we all.
Hannah sits on the other side of Dylan, and we link arms on the back of the seat behind his head.
Perfect.
And we sit here, together on the bench. On the patio of our first home. Looking out over the city.
Our city. Our home.
Where we all belong. Because we all belong together.