Chapter 48
Chapter Forty-Eight
Hadley
Honor is already seated when I push through the door, both hands wrapped around a coffee. She looks up and the smile she gives me is real but doesn’t quite reach her eyes.
She rises up, but I shush her back down with my hand, hugging her from behind. “How are you?”
I slide into the chair across from her and see she’s already ordered our faves.
“I ordered you the iced one,” she says. “And an everything bagel with cream cheese because I figured you’d say you weren’t hungry and then eat half of mine.”
We laugh. “Thanks. Next time it’s on me.”
She looks terrible, and I love her too much not to say so. “You look…”
“Like shit. Thanks.”
“I was going to say exhausted.”
“That’s just a kinder way of saying like shit.
You look incredible, as always. It’s very annoying.
” She sips her coffee. “Sorry. It’s been a week.
Hospice is so unpredictable. She’s on oxygen now, and nobody told me what that meant, so I Googled it at two in the morning like an idiot, which I do not recommend. ”
“Honor—”
“I’m okay.” She puts her hand up. “I promise. Her friends have been incredible. Mrs. Papadopoulos has basically moved in, and between her and the hospice nurse, Mary, I feel useless.” The corner of her mouth tips up.
“And she keeps calling me by my mother’s name, which Mary says is normal, but it’s—” She shakes her head.
“Anyway. I didn’t come all the way into the city to talk about that. ”
“We will absolutely talk about that.”
“No.” She points at me. “We can’t, because if I start, I’m going to cry, and I already did the whole way on the train. The barista gave me a free muffin out of pity.” She nods to the pastry bag in the middle of the table. “Take it home to Easton.” She wraps both hands around her mug. “Speaking of…”
“There’s nothing to talk about.” The last thing I’m going to tell her is how things are changing. How my life is going great while she’s about to lose her grandma who was more of a mother to her.
She stares at me.
“What?”
Without a word, she reaches into her bag and pulls out her phone, turning the screen toward me.
It’s a picture taken from a distance, grainy the way fan pictures always are.
Easton and me on the Riverwalk, our ice cream cups abandoned on the bench beside us, his arm around my shoulders and my head tipped back, laughing at something he said.
“Here we thought we dodged the pictures?”
“It was on three different baseball fan accounts.” She sets the phone face down on the table.
“I’ve been watching your life unfold on my phone screen like some kind of hit reality show for months.
So tell me what is going on? Because from out here”—she gestures at the phone—“it doesn’t look like swapping favors anymore. ”
I pull off a piece of bagel, and the seeds go everywhere on the table.
“It’s complicated.”
“It doesn’t look that complicated. It looks the opposite of complicated.”
I stare at her, unsure how to tell her.
She waits. I’ve never once been able to outlast Honor’s silences, and she’s playing it to her advantage right now. She just looks at me with that unhurried expression she’s had since the third grade, waiting for me to crack.
And of course I feel like an egg that’s just been tapped to the edge of a bowl.
“It’s going well,” I say. “Better than I thought it would.”
“Better how?”
I shrug. “We get along. I mean, we always did, but it’s different now.
Living with someone is different. You learn things about one another.
” I pick at the bagel. “He makes coffee before I’m even up.
He knows I don’t eat breakfast, but he always puts something on the counter anyway.
Just in case.” I glance up. “He makes me laugh and…” I can’t even put it all into words.
Honor’s expression doesn’t change. “And the baby?”
“What about him?”
“How is he doing?”
“He’s so happy.” I feel the smile before I can stop it, which does not go unnoticed by Honor since a small smile forms on her lips.
“He’s at this stage right now where everything is funny to him.
Like he thinks the word no is hilarious.
You say no, and he just laughs. Easton thinks it’s adorable, and I keep telling him that’s going to be a problem in about six months when he’s getting into everything and the word no needs to mean something.
” I shake my head. “He threw half his lunch at me yesterday and then looked so pleased with himself.”
“He sounds like a handful?”
She poses it as a question, and that familiar wound gets pressed on that she, too, believes I’m going to have enough and leave.
“He kind of is.” I pause. “He kind of isn’t, though. He sleeps well and he’s not a crier, not really. He just—” I look at the table. “He’s very easy to love.”
Honor turns her coffee mug in a slow circle on the table. “Who does he see you as?”
The question catches me off guard. “He—” I stop. Look at her. “Why?”
“In the videos people post, he’s always reaching for you or sleeping on you. With no mom in the picture, I just wondered.”
“I’m his nanny.”
Honor nods.
“Does it freak you out? How dependent he is on you?” she asks.
She must notice something cross my face, because she’s quick to continue, “I don’t mean to poke at you, it’s just things from this end”—she lifts her phone—“say either things have shifted or someone is getting hurt at the end of this, and I just want to make sure it’s not you. ”
“No, it doesn’t freak me out.” And the truth of that still surprises me every time I’m alone with my thoughts.
She studies me for a second, and I wait for more interrogation. Here I thought I was coming here to comfort her, but she’s being the best friend right now.
“I just want to check in because I know first hand what it’s like when someone depends solely on you. And it can be draining.”
“That’s the thing. It isn’t.”
“In all the pictures,” she says, “you look different.”
“Different how?” I ask, finally popping a piece of bagel into my mouth.
“Just—” She tilts her head. “Like… happy being settled?”
“You say that word like you expect me to start itching.”
She doesn’t let me deflect with humor but continues to wait on me to say more. “We agreed to see where things go. We’re… dating?”
“Is that a question?” Her first smile of the day barely touches her lips.
“No. It’s just new, and I don’t know. You know me.”
“I wondered if it was real or you two were just good actors. Glad I still know you like a book.”
I look at my coffee for a long moment.
“Had.” Her voice is quiet. “I’m your person. You can always tell me what you’re feeling.”
I listen to the sounds of the café. The hushed conversations, the espresso machine running, the dings of phones, trying to figure out how to word exactly what I’m feeling.
“I think I’m falling for him,” I say. Quiet, like not saying it loud changes anything. “I didn’t plan to, and I know that probably sounds insane given the whole situation, but I—” I shake my head. “I’m falling for both of them.”
Honor doesn’t say anything for a moment. She picks up her bagel and takes a big bite of it.
“I knew it,” she says. Her voice is warm and careful at the same time, as if she worries I’m going to run. “I saw it in every single picture.”
“Don’t make it a thing.”
“I’m not making it a thing.”
“You have your making-it-a-thing face on.”
“I don’t have a face.” She picks up her mug. “I’m just sitting here…relishing that I was right.”
“Honor.”
“I’m happy for you.” She sets the mug down. Looks at the table for just a beat before she looks back at me. “I really am. You know that, right?”
“I know you’re happy, but now do your best friend thing and tell me that I’m living on a cloud and not in reality.”
“I so will not. Who says this can’t work out?”
I eye her phone. “Other than all the people online.”
She waves off my concern. “So after the year,” she says. “What happens then?”
“What do you mean?”
“The arrangement. The timeline your grandmother put in place.” She keeps her voice even. “After the year, what do you do?”
I open my mouth to give her the answer I’ve been giving everyone—that we’ll figure it out, that it’s too early to say, that we’ll cross that bridge—and then I stop.
Because sitting here with her in this moment, having just said out loud for the first time that I’m falling for him, the old answer doesn’t fit anymore.
“I think I’m staying,” I admit, and saying it out loud makes it feel more real than it was ten seconds ago. Because if we’re actually doing this—if Easton and I are actually trying—then the year was never the point.
Honor stills.
“I’m staying in Chicago.” I watch her face. “The bookstore will be mine. Tanner is—” I shake my head, not wanting to go there. “I’m not going anywhere.”
She holds my gaze for a long moment. Something moves through her expression that I can’t fully name. Relief, maybe. She probably wants me back here, and I get it now that her life will take on a whole new prospect when her grandma passes.
“That’s awesome, Had.” She squeezes my hand. “My god, smile. You’ve found your place.”
I take a big piece of my bagel, my admission shocking me a little.
“I’m glad you found it.”
“Found what?” I laugh, mumbling over my chewing.
She lifts her eyes to mine. “Your reason to stay.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I just look at her, and my heart feels tender that she believes in me, that I am fulfilled here with Easton and Tanner. But I need to change the subject, a break from me second-guessing if Easton feels the same as me.
“How are you doing?” I ask. “Really.”
“Really?” She exhales. “I don’t know. I think I’ve been in this holding period for so much of my life, I’m scared of what will happen.
Then I feel guilty for thinking that way.
” She glances toward the window. “But it’s almost over, you know?
And I hate that I’m relieved by that. I hate feeling that way. I love her.”
“Don’t.” I reach across and take her hand. “You’re not relieved she’s dying. You’re relieved she won’t be suffering anymore. Those are completely different things.”
Her eyes fill. She blinks the tears back.
“She keeps saying she had a good life,” Honor says.
“Every single day she says it. That she had a good life.” Her voice drops.
“She says we only get one and to make it a good one.” She squeezes my hand and lets go, sitting back.
“Okay.” She takes a breath. “Enough of that.” She picks up the last of her bagel. “Tell me something good.”
“I already told you something good.”
“Tell me something with the bookstore good.”
I think for a second. “Felix has started doing different character voices for each book at storytime, and Monroe came in last week specifically to request he do the one from The Pigeon Has Feelings Too, and he performed it like he was accepting an award. One of the moms filmed it, asked me if she could post it, and our followers went up. I’m thinking about doing live tidbits on our socials to drive in more people. ”
“Felix is like sitting on a pile of gold. He should be your spotlight.”
“I know, it’s slowly coming, but we have a long way to go.”
“You’ll get there.”
I wish I had her belief. I can’t help but think, if I have Easton and Tanner, can I really have the bookstore be a success too? Isn’t that asking too much for this life?
We finish our coffees, and she wraps her bagel in a napkin to take with her. Outside the window, the morning is bright, and the street is starting to fill with the lunch crowd arriving early.
We stand outside on the sidewalk, and she pulls me into a hug. Holds on a little longer than usual. When she pulls back, her hands go to my face, which feels slightly foolish on the streets of Chicago with the Colts’ foot traffic overflowing the sidewalks.
“You’re exactly where you’re supposed to be,” she whispers.
Something in her voice makes me look at her more carefully. Her eyes are bright and she’s smiling, but there’s a gravity underneath it that doesn’t quite match the warmth. I hate that things are so great for me and so difficult for her right now.
“Honor—”
“It’s all going to work out.” She hugs me one more time before pulling away.
“Call me tonight,” I say. “Even just to check in.”
“I will.” She squeezes my arm once and turns, heading toward the train.
Then I turn and pull up the Uber app. My phone shows the car three minutes away.
I step to the curb and wait, thinking about what she said.
You’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.
I think she might be right.
The car pulls up. I get in to go back to the people I think I might love.