Fine Fine Fine, page 2
He cut off the engine, but before he could even swing his door open, Hanna was up and off, brushing quickly through the gate and reaching for the handle of the front door.
Any drunk confidence that propelled her through the yard had vanished by the time she got to the threshold, the sounds of a buzzing family gathering striking a chord somewhere in her memories.
Her fingers lingered on the bronze of the funeral home’s bathroom door, the next room over humming with thoughts and prayers.
A wave of panic gripped her throat—not just about seeing Logan, but seeing everyone. She’d spent the last year holed up in her home like a hermit, dreading the day she’d have to make her public debut again.
The universe was cruel for shoving two of her biggest heartbreaks into one calendar year.
It wasn’t Logan’s fault her mom got sick and died two months after he shattered her entire world. No one could have predicted it.
But still.
Who else was there to blame?
She hesitated for another moment, long enough for Milo to catch up to her.
“You ready for this, Arizona?”
She inhaled, holding the breath longer than necessary. He leaned around her and pushed the front door open, arching his brows.
“Fuck you,” she muttered.
“Say please,” he bit, his hand pushing against the small of her back and forcing her into the house.
TWO
The rich scent of Cami’s kitchen hit Hanna like a slap on the ass after a game well played.
“You’re heeeeeeeere!” Sara squealed, her arms capturing Hanna before she made it through the foyer and squeezing the ever-loving shit out of her.
Hanna’s ribs crunched, but the human contact wasn’t all that unwanted after months of cradling herself.
“I aaaaaam,” she mimicked, matching the energy as best she could. She could tell by the soft pity in Sara’s eyes that she wasn’t even close.
“Oh my god, I have so much to show you. Mom and I have been busy this week! Come in! Come in! Oh, hey, Milo,” Sara said, shuffling behind them to pull the front door closed. Her small frame looked practically miniature beside him, but Hanna knew Sara could take him no problem.
She was a spitfire.
Her highlighted hair glowed like a golden honey halo around her tan face, the curled ends sweeping just below her shoulders against a white lace dress. She looked like she had walked right out of the Engagement Party Pinterest board they’d curated years prior, long before Matty had even popped the question. They’d devoted hours to pinning photos and giggling in their dorm room.
“Thank you for your service,” Sara whispered to Milo.
“I’m fine,” Hanna insisted.
“I know!” Sara chirped, studying her friend. “Let’s get you some food.”
She must have looked worse than she felt.
Sara pulled her hand through the house and into the massive open kitchen where they used to talk about boys over waffles. Cami buzzed behind the island, shuffling dishes to make room for something in the oven.
“Hanna! My sweet girl,” she cooed, sinking her into a wine-soaked hug. Hanna did everything she could to not let her mind wander to how similar hugging her felt to hugging her own mother, breathing through a deep pain in her side.
She’d gotten used to it—the ache in her muscles and bones at the smallest reminders of what she’d lost. The sudden vice-grip around her heart at a laugh that was too similar, or a pair of glasses that looked like her mom’s.
“You’re not eating enough,” Cami chastised, poking at Hanna’s hips.
"I came to remedy that!" She laughed it off, but it was always the first thing people commented on. What else was she supposed to say?
Oh yeah, don't mind my ribs, I just forget to feed myself ever since I lost the two loves of my life in one fell swoop. Thanks for calling me skinny, though!
A loaded plate plopped onto the island beside her as three sets of eyes landed on it, and then swished to Milo.
“Enchilada casserole,” he said, shrugging and handing her a fork. “And I’ll take that.” He reached for the glass of wine heading Hanna’s way in the hand of one of Sara’s aunts.
She glared, but picked up the fork all the same.
Fuck, she’d forgotten how good real food tasted.
“Where’s Matty?” Hanna asked around her third bite. What she really wanted to ask was, “Is his brother here? Has he mentioned me? Has New York’s water made him uglier?”
“He’s helping Dad out back with the grill. Logan isn’t here yet,” Sara said, her tone decidedly neutral.
“I wasn’t asking—”
“Just giving you the lay of the land,” Sara said, moving a plate of burgers to the side. Her movements were identical to Cami’s, as if they’d choreographed it.
“Milo, honey, could you take Berto that plate?” Cami asked, pointing a spoon at the burgers. He'd barely gotten out of the room before she turned her amber gaze toward Hanna. "Now you listen to me, little girl. If you don't sleep with that man, I will."
“Camila!” Sara gasped as Hanna pressed her hand to her chest, instantly sober. A scarlet flush climbed her throat as she laughed through her casserole.
“Cami, oh my god!”
“I’m serious, Hanna. I know you’ve been through hell and back, sweetheart, but you deserve those arms. Those eyes! Just think about it,” Cami said.
Hanna reached for the casserole again.
“Okay, you two, I don’t want to hear it this weekend. He lives in San Francisco! You think I’d ever be tempted to do long distance again?”
Cami leaned over the island. “You don’t have to marry the man, Hanna! I just want to hear about anything you may or may not do with him, that’s all.” She raised her perfectly sculpted eyebrows as Sara’s dad, Berto, burst into the room.
"Have you seen my sunglasses, mi amor?" Berto clicked the tongs in his hand and swept through the kitchen. "Well, would you look who's here!"
He set the tongs down and squeezed Hanna as she continued eating, his cologne drowning her senses. He pulled back and beamed.
"My second daughter has finally returned!"
“Hi, Berto,” Hanna mumbled, fixing the collar on his fancy button-down—the one he wore for their college graduation, high school graduation, Lisa’s funeral…
There it was again, that simmering panic just waiting for someone to crank the heat one notch higher.
“We don’t see you enough, kiddo,” Berto said, patting her shoulder. “You know, just because my daughter abandoned us for the West Coast Elite, doesn’t mean you can’t come by any time.”
Sara glared. “Dad, Hanna doesn’t want to hang out with a bunch of boomers.”
“That’s not true!” Hanna protested around a mouthful of tortilla. “I hear you and Cami are hanging out at the casino lately. My invite get lost in the mail?” She finished another bite, finally feeling like the alcohol in her system was evaporating.
“Lone Butte next weekend!” Berto tossed over his shoulder as he grabbed another set of tongs and placed a kiss on Cami’s cheek. “You stay away from that groomsman.”
Cami laughed, resting her hand on his cheek. “No promises.”
“I used to have a jawline like that, believe it or not, girls!” Berto snapped his tongs once more and disappeared into the backyard.
A knock at the front door sent Sara and Hanna both into shades of pink. Sara started for the foyer as Hanna darted out of the kitchen and into the backyard, unwilling to see if a tall, lanky blonde stood behind the door.
She knew she couldn’t put it off forever, but she could put it off for a few more minutes, and that was enough.
Hanna cut across the yard, passing the turquoise pool, and headed toward the fire pit. Twinkling patio lights crisscrossed overhead, glowing a warm amber as the sun dipped lower behind the Ahwatukee foothills.
She smiled politely at the relatives she recognized, grateful no one seemed ready to engage her as she caught the broad shoulders of the brother she still couldn’t help but adore.
“Do my eyes deceive me, or is that Hanna Fuckin’ Stevens in the flesh?” She hardly had time to brace herself before all six-foot-six of Matty wrapped around her, his beard tickling her ear.
His bright blue eyes, so similar to his older brother’s, sparkled as he set her back on the ground.
Hanna often thought the heartbreak was worth it if it meant Matty and Sara met one another. There was no better match for Sara’s petite, feisty nature than Matty’s gentle giant ways. If it took her getting crushed by Logan to introduce them on a Thanksgiving weekend trip, so be it.
“I miss you, dude,” Matty said, fishing through the assortment of bottles on Berto’s outdoor bar. “When are you just going to give in and move up to the Bay?”
“Never. One finger on that pour. Started early.”
He pulled a plastic cup and poured no less than two fingers’ worth of something expensive for her.
Matty’s fault, not hers.
He sighed. “Can’t you work from anywhere?”
“Technically, sure.” Hanna took a sip and reached for a few ice cubes. “But one of the most expensive cities in the world? Pass. Plus, I just bought my house and I have so much work to do on it.”
“Rent it out! Be a Cali landlord, Arizonans love that shit,” Matty said. “You could live with us for free, come on.”
Hanna’s nose scrunched. It wasn’t that she hated the idea—it was that she couldn’t imagine leaving the last city her mother was alive in. If she moved to a new city, how would her mother know where to haunt her?
“Because every newlywed couple wants a sad, thirty-year-old roommate?”
“Thirty on the coast is like, twenty. You’d basically be aging backwards. And maybe a change of scenery isn’t the worst idea,” Matty said, his voice dropping on the last sentence. She followed him toward the fire pit, where Milo sat with another groomsman whose name she should have known from the group chat.
Brad. Brent?
“Milo, Brandon,” Matty said, pointing at them respectively. “This is Hanna, she’s Sara’s childhood best friend and basically a sister to me. Act accordingly.”
Brandon mumbled a greeting and went back to staring at his phone, the Suns game streaming across the screen. Hanna plopped onto the chair next to Milo, sipping her drink and trying to think of anything to say that would keep her from having to make conversation with Brandon.
“Sorry about earlier,” Milo said.
She fought the urge to tell him he was flattering himself by thinking she would even remember any of the day, but she’d promised Sara to at least try being nice to their bridal party.
“Same,” she offered.
“I mean it, I should have read the room. This probably isn’t exactly a good time for you,” Milo said softly.
Hanna turned, her eyebrow raised. “How do you mean?”
“I’ve known Matty since we were kids and, therefore, Logan,” Milo explained. She resented the undercurrent in his tone that sounded like pity.
“Ah,” she sighed.
One day, she was going to move to a city where no one knew her or looked at her like that. Somewhere new, where there were simply no ghosts at all.
Milo scanned the scene in the backyard. “How long’s it been?”
“Hmm,” Hanna pretended to mentally tally the months since their breakup, despite knowing exactly how long—nearly to the minute—it had been since she’d taken a full breath. “We’re just hitting the one-year mark.”
“Does it help knowing their mom hates the new girl?”
Hanna snorted. She couldn’t help it. Marcia DeBrune was one of the nicest people on the planet. It was impossible to imagine her disliking anyone.
“No way.”
“It’s true.” He grinned, leaning forward in his chair. “Sloane doesn’t like game night or eat gluten.”
“Oof,” Hanna sighed. “Yeah, not the way to Midwestern Marcia’s heart.”
“And,” he lowered his voice. “I heard Tucker growled at her when they went home for Christmas.”
Hanna pressed her hand to her chest, feigning a gasp. Tucker, the family’s golden retriever, who was all things fluffy and good, liked anyone who would make eye contact with him.
“Scandalous.”
“Tragic,” Milo said, shaking his head. A comfortable silence settled between them as Berto’s yacht rock floated on the warm breeze. She cleared her throat.
“Thank you for saying that. I’m still absolutely ready to die, but it kind of helps.”
“The good news is you don’t have to dread it much longer,” Milo said, nodding toward the house. She twisted in her seat, her vantage point offering her a perfect view of Logan coming through the patio door, his hand wrapped around the golden skin of Sloane, the new girl in question. She was short with caramel skin and perfectly placed highlights.
Hanna couldn’t even remember the last time she’d had a haircut.
“Damn,” Hanna muttered. “I was hoping she face-tuned her Instagram photos.”
Milo coughed on his beer.
Sloane was hot and Hanna wasn't about to pretend otherwise. She also wasn't Hanna's enemy, as easy as it would have been to hate her.
No, the worst part about their breakup was that Logan hadn’t cheated on her. He did it all on the up and up, the fucking bastard. She could still hear his throat tightening around the words on the phone.
“I don’t know how to even say this, Hanna.”
She flopped back on their bed, her brunette curls fanning out as her brows furrowed. He’d called her every night since moving to New York, but he’d missed last night.
“I, uh, god—”
“Just say it.”
“I think I met someone.”
Hanna bolted upright, the cotton bedspread bunching under her thigh.
“You think you met someone?”
“It’s going to sound so fucking dumb—”
“It already sounds dumb!”
“Hanna, I am so, so sorry. I know it sounds crazy, and I hate that I’m even saying this, but you know me! I’m not the guy who cheats on his girlfriend on a whim. I would never do that to you. But I met someone at work yesterday, and I just… I don’t know. The feeling… it’s not nothing. And I couldn’t not say anything to you.”
Hanna fought for a breath as their bedroom—her bedroom—fell away, plunging her into a black void.
“I think we just… we’ve been together since we were kids, Hanna.”
“Here we go,” she sighed. She pinched the skin on her leg, needing to be sure it was really happening. “We were too young, we’ve changed, it’s not you, it’s me!”
“Don’t do that—”
“Don’t do what? That’s what you’re about to say, isn’t it?”
Logan took a deep breath. She wondered which of his suits he was peeling off after his workday.
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah,” she breathed, her throat collapsing under the weight of the shock.
“Hanna—”
She hung up and turned her phone off. It was the last thing she’d hear him say for a year.
For months after that phone call, she'd wished she had caught him texting someone else, or that she'd seen him in someone's Instagram story, dripping over another woman in a swanky Manhattan bar. It would have been so much easier to hate him if he were a bad guy.
But Logan wasn’t a villain, even if she was the victim.
Her eyes fixed on him as he cut a path across the patio, a baby-blue polo capping his nicer work pants. She wondered if Sloane had picked the shirt for him.
Hanna pulled herself out of the lounge chair and put on her bravest face.
“You want company? Logan doesn’t like me, might be fun.” She tossed a glance at Milo, noting to dig into that piece of information later. “Go get ‘em, tiger.”
She smoothed the hem of her sundress and rolled her shoulders back. The threads of her muscles screamed in protest as she pushed herself across the yard and pasted on the same No really! I'm fine! smile she'd been wearing since the funeral.
If nothing else, her mother’s death had given her a PhD in faking it. In the first few months, she had learned how to easily disarm anyone who knew what happened with the perfect blend of somber eyes and a hopeful nod to prevent them from asking the kind of questions that punched her in the gut and knocked the wind out of her.
You can do anything for fifteen minutes, she told herself, her espadrilles clicking onto the patio.
And she almost believed it.
She used every one of the twenty steps between them to get ahold of her breathing, all for two piercing blue eyes and a megawatt smile to send her heart rate through the roof as he turned toward her.
THREE
Hanna had forgotten how pretty he was.
Logan called out her name like it was a sacred prayer, and her skin flushed with a boiling red tint and thin layer of sweat. She crossed the final distance between them.
“Hey,” she mumbled, resenting how feeble it sounded as she leaned in and hugged him. In all her imaginary dress rehearsals, she hadn’t blocked a hug, and the motion threw her off her balance. She leaned into the momentum and did what none of the thirty sets of eyes on them expected—she hugged Sloane too.
She smelled even better than Hanna feared. Expensive.
“It’s so nice to meet you,” Hanna croaked.
“You too,” Sloan managed, an unexpected sweetness in her tone. She rambled off the requisite small talking points as Hanna tried to manage her breathing.
She liked Phoenix, the sunsets are amazing, the heat is a lot, but at least it’s dry!
Logan’s eyes clung to the floor between them.
When Hanna had counted to one hundred in her head, she widened her bullshit smile and chirped, “I need to freshen up my drink!”
She turned, ready to dart back toward the bar, and patted herself on the back for surviving the first rip of the proverbial band-aid.
