Chapter 6
HANNAH
Two weeks back in the city, and I've perfected the art of going through the motions.
Wake up. Coffee. Shower. The same black slacks, the same white blouse, the same commute on the same train with the same people who never look up from their phones. My desk, my computer, my spreadsheets that somehow multiply overnight like gremlins.
I've looked at the photos on my phone so many times I could recite the timestamps.
Logan and me at the overlook, his arm around my shoulders, both of us squinting into the camera.
Eli's photo of us at Shore Thing, Logan's hand tangled in my hair while I'm mid-laugh.
The two of us at his kitchen table, plates of pasta between us.
The last photo is Friday morning. 6:32 AM. Logan asleep in his bed, hair falling across his forehead, one arm thrown over the pillow where I'd been lying. I took it right before I got up to pack. Right before everything went to hell.
I'd rather be an idiot who tried than someone who spent the rest of his life wondering what if.
His words loop in my head during meetings, during lunch, during the endless subway rides home. Along with my own words—the ones that have been sitting in my chest like poison.
Vacation sex.
I called it vacation sex. I looked him in the eye and reduced everything we'd shared to something cheap and temporary, because I was terrified it was the opposite. Because I knew it wasn't vacation anything—it was real and huge and perfect, and I was too much of a coward to admit it.
What if Logan was right? What if we were perfect together, and I walked away because I was scared of finding out?
What if I just let my stubborn-inner-accountanty thing fuck up my whole life?
I haven't called him. He hasn't called me. The silence stretches between the city and the island like a chasm I dug with my own stupid hands.
The café around the corner from my office makes decent sandwiches, and it's close enough that I don't have to think about where to eat lunch. I'm picking at a turkey club and scrolling through emails when a waft of expensive perfume washes over me and someone slides into the chair opposite.
"Hannah Hewitt. I thought that was you."
I look up to find Rebecca Chang smiling at me.
Mid-forties, silver-streaked hair pulled back in a neat bun, wearing her signature red tailored blazer.
She was a client two years ago—owned a chain of boutique fitness studios and a line of athleisure.
Smart, demanding, and one of the few people who ever told me my company was wasting my talent.
"Rebecca. Hi." I set my phone down. "How are you?"
"Busy. Good busy." She tilts her chin to my half-eaten sandwich. "Mind if I steal a few minutes?"
"Of course."
She crosses her legs and studies me. "You look tired."
"Gee, thanks."
"I'm not being rude. You looked tired two years ago, too. Overworked and underpaid at that firm." She raises one perfect brow. "Still there?"
"Still there."
"Pity. You were the best accountant they had, and they treated you like shit."
I laugh despite myself. "Tell me how you really feel."
"I've expanded since we worked together. Three more studios, plus I bought a small restaurant group. Five locations." She leans forward, her voice dropping. "I need someone good with numbers. Someone I can trust. Someone who won't try to upsell me on services I don't need."
"Rebecca…"
"Hear me out. I don't care about your resume or your certifications. I care that you caught that vendor billing error that would've cost me fifteen grand, and you did it during a casual review because you're thorough as hell."
"I think office life isn't for me anymore."
"Good thing I'm not offering you an office. Video call once a week. Email when questions come up. Deliver the same quality of work you always do. I don't care if you work from outer space."
Something that's been locked tight for two weeks rattles. A door I didn't know existed creaked open just a crack.
"I..." My brain spins, making connections I'm not ready to name yet. "Can I think about it?"
"Of course." She stands and pulls out a business card. "My personal number's on the back. Call me when you decide."
After she leaves, I sit in the café and stare at her card. Work from anywhere. Once a week, video call. The same quality of work.
Anywhere could be a lot of places.
It could even be an island.
I'm still processing the conversation when I walk into my building lobby at six-thirty. The job offer, the possibilities, the door Rebecca just opened—it's all swirling in my head like pieces of a puzzle I'm afraid to put together.
Which is why I almost don't see him at first.
He's sitting in one of the lobby chairs, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor. Tall and tan and completely out of place. His hair is longer than I remember, more salt-textured, and he's wearing jeans and a white button-down with the sleeves rolled up.
Logan.
My Logan.
In my lobby.
In my city.
My purse slides off my shoulder and hits the floor with a thud. My keys scatter. Logan looks up at the sound, and those eyes find mine across the small space.
We stare at each other for what feels like a year. He looks the same—that jawline, that slow smile starting at the corner of his mouth—but there's something different, too. Something tired around his eyes, like the past two weeks cost him the same thing they cost me.
"Why are you here?"
Logan stands, well, more like unfolds all six-foot-five of his masculine frame in my tiny lobby, as if showing up fifteen hundred miles from home is perfectly normal. He bends down to pick up my things.
"I told you I'd follow you anywhere," he says. "I just took time to make sure the bar could run itself. Longer than I hoped, but still, here I am."
"You're crazy."
"Yes. About you."
Suddenly, I can't breathe properly. He's here. He's actually here, looking at me like two weeks of silence didn't happen. Like, I didn't walk out on him. Like, I didn't call what we had 'vacation sex', and mean it as the cruelest possible truth.
"Logan..." I don't know how to finish. How do you apologize for being a coward? How do you take back words that have been rotting in your chest? "I need to tell you something."
"Okay."
"I was wrong. Not about being scared—the fear was real. But about running. About calling it vacation sex when I knew it wasn't. About walking out instead of staying to figure it out."
He takes a step closer. "Hannah…"
"I missed you. Not the island, not the ocean, not the vacation. You. The person who makes me funnier and braver and lighter. The version of myself I forgot existed until you found her at Shore Thing."
"I missed you, too," he says quietly. "Every damn day."
"I don't have all the answers. I don't know how this works, or where we live, or what happens to my job, or your bar. But I don't want to spend the rest of my life wondering what if. I'd rather be an idiot who tried than someone who—"
"Hey." He reaches out and tucks a piece of hair behind my ear, the gesture so familiar it makes my throat tight. "Those are my words."
"I know. You were right, and I was too scared to admit it."
"I wasn't right about everything. You were right to be scared.
This is terrifying." His thumb traces along my jawline.
"But I'm not here to pressure you into anything.
I'm here because I meant what I said. I arranged things so Shore Thing can run without me for as long as it needs to.
Eli's in charge—he's been ready for years.
I didn't abandon anyone. I just made room to choose you. "
"I'm still scared."
"Good. I'd be worried if you weren't. But I'm not going anywhere, Hannah. Not unless you tell me to."
"Don't go anywhere," I whisper.
"Never."
When he kisses me, it's like coming home and starting an adventure at the same time. His hands frame my face, and I can taste two weeks of missing him, two weeks of regret, two weeks of wondering if I'd ruined the best thing that ever happened to me.
But also relief. Joy. The bone-deep certainty that this is right, this is real, this is worth every risk we're taking.
"I love you," he says against my neck. "I've been going crazy not being able to tell you that."
"I love you too. I think I have since that first night at Shore Thing," I whisper back, and the words feel like coming up for air after drowning. "I have something to tell you. I got a job offer today from an old client. I can work from anywhere—just a video call once a week."
Logan's hand stills in my hair, and one eyebrow flips up. "Anywhere?"
"Anywhere." I lift my head to look at him, see the hope starting to bloom in his eyes. "Even an island with a beach bar and the world's best bar owner."
His slow smile starts at one corner of his mouth and spreads across his face like sunrise. "I know a place like that."
"Do you think they'd have room for an accountant who's terrible at dancing but makes excellent spreadsheets?"
"I think they'd make room. I think the owner would be willing to negotiate very favorable terms."
I laugh, and the sound is bright and real and exactly like the person I was on the island. The person I am when I'm with him. "What kind of terms?"
Logan leans down and kisses me, soft and slow and full of promise. "The kind where you never have to wonder 'what if' again. The kind where we're brave enough to find out if we're perfect together."
"Deal," I say, and mean it with every cell in my body.