Present Day
Jace Bennett
NOSTALGIA HAD NEVER been part of my DNA.
Yet, I found myself going through old pictures instead of working, as I usually did late at night.
Clicking through the digital snapshots taken during the four and a half years I’d spent at Michigan State, I stopped on a picture of Ethan, Nick, and myself.
The three of us looked so young, and like such chumps. We were sitting on the porch of the old house we lived in, holding beers in our hands, and toasting to something we would never even remember five minutes later.
Back then though we had very few obligations. Life was easier. Too bad we hadn’t seen it that way. Now, we were grown up, and life was nowhere as easy as it once had been.
I zoomed in on the photo and stared at Ethan’s goofy grin. Hard to believe that guy was the Ethan of today. Ethan, the attorney, got married right on the heels of my own wedding, but only because he had knocked Fiona up. They’d only just met. Lucky for him, the two of them turned out to be a perfect match. Ethan and Fiona were happy with Max, and didn’t want any more children. Their life was just what they wanted it to be.
My gaze shifted to Nick and his tough guy smirk. He grew up next door to my mother’s family, and although he came from nothing, you’d never know it. Out of all of us, he’d changed the least. Nick, the businessman, made a fortune in real estate development. He got married about two years ago to Fiona’s best friend, Tess, and they’d already had two children. He and Tess were also a perfect match. Tame and intent, they’d decided on a family of six and were well on their way to achieving it.
Then there was me, the wildcard. No one ever knew what to expect when I was around. My life was nothing short of a shit show. There had been anger. Confusion. Loneliness. Rebellion. And there had been women. A lot of them—until I met Hannah. She made me see how different my life could be if I let someone in. After Hannah left me, I drowned myself in the same old misery. But then I met Tricia, and she became the one for me. Ethan and Nick warned me that rebound relationships never worked out.
Again, being the wildcard, I proved them wrong.
Clicking on the next picture, I shook my head and laughed out loud when it popped up. Nick and I were wrestling on the raggedy old carpet in that crappy house we rented. Ethan was snapping photos for the sake of documenting our youth, he’d said. The truth was he hated getting down on the dirty floor. I laughed out loud. He was more of a lover than a fighter.
With my hand gripping the mouse, I clicked again. As soon as the next picture loaded, I had to close my eyes. When I reopened them, I couldn’t help but smile. The photo was of Hannah and I drafting the platform structure for my thesis. Ethan was astonished I cared that much about anything and felt the need to document that as well.
Dick.
Wait! I take that back, he wasn’t the dick, I was. I cared about more than my grades back then. I cared about his girlfriend . . . he just hadn’t known how much.
So I was the dick.
That very familiar guilt began to suffuse me, but not over Ethan this time. That had been put to rest. This guilt was different. This was about Hannah. This was about Tricia. And it cut much deeper.
When the doorbell rang, I quickly closed the viewing app on my computer and wheeled around in my chair to glance out the window. The sight of the white Infinity SUV caused my breathing to increase tenfold.
Now what?
Ignoring the bell wasn’t an option. There was the fact that the constant ringing would wake Scarlett, and then there was the fact that my body hummed at the thought of seeing Hannah, and I couldn’t deny that I wanted to.
Hustling down the stairs, I held my breath as I opened the door. Holy fuck, but her beauty nearly knocked me on my ass.
That hair of hers hung long and straight around her heart-shaped face. Her top was slightly sheer and clung in just the right places. And those jeans. Those jeans were tight. Tight in all the right places. She wore earrings that dangled and a necklace that sparkled.
If she had dressed to catch my attention—she had succeeded.
However, what struck me most of all was that this time her features didn’t seem to hold any hostility or anger. That didn’t mean she wasn’t pissed. I mean, why else would she be here? She just didn’t look as angry as she had over the past week.
“Hannah,” I said, keeping my voice low.
She shifted, as if uncomfortable with the close scrutiny I was giving her. “Can I come in?” she asked.
“Yeah, sure,” I replied, and moved to the side.
Yes, I stared at her ass when she walked past me, and yes, I felt a familiar yearning I tried to deny.
Nearly plowing myself over, I made sure to get in front of her. “Follow me,” I said, and walked toward the family room.
Keeping her distance, she stopped just before a chair. “May I?” she asked, pointing to the club chair Tricia loved to sit in because she could curl up into a ball when sitting in it.
As my eyes skittered to the mantel and over all the pictures of Tricia on it, I had to push her from my mind, and only then did I offer, “How about we go into the kitchen?”
She tucked a piece of that hair I loved to run my fingers through behind her ear. “Sure.”
Feeling a little off kilter, I led her past the dining room and into the kitchen. “Would you like a drink?” I asked, feeling a jab in my gut I wanted gone.
Sitting down and twisting her fingers together, she was without a doubt, nervous. “No, thank you, this won’t take very long.”
“What happened at school now?” I asked bluntly, running a hand through my hair in frustration that the two of us were pretending to battle over our children, when we were clearly battling over ourselves.
When she almost smiled, I knew I could relax. Scarlett must have not said or done anything inappropriate, or there was no way Hannah would have been looking like she wanted a truce. “Nothing bad,” she said. “In fact, I think Jonah and Scarlett have decided they want to be friends.”
Crossing my arms over my chest, I leaned against the counter. “That’s great news, I think.”
This time she laughed. “Crisis averted . . . for now. But anyway I came over tonight because Jonah told me you offered to help him learn how to play football.”
I scratched my head. “Yeah, about that, I probably should have asked you first, but he was just so excited.”
She sighed. “Listen Jace, this whole thing between us is a bit awkward, but I’m just going to come out with what I came over to say.”
Jumping to my own conclusion, I narrowed my gaze. “You aren’t seriously going to give me shit because I did something nice, are you?”
With a shake of her head, she put me at ease instead of in my place. “No, I appreciate what you did. I really do. It’s just that Jonah’s father is not involved in his life, and he tends to get attached to people, especially men, very easily.”
My brows popped. “And you want to make sure he doesn’t get attached to me?”
“Yes, I mean no.” She was exasperated. “What I’m trying to say is I just want you to understand the situation.”
Warning bells went off in my head, and yet I found myself moving closer to sit beside her. “You want to make sure if I promise him something, I don’t fuck it up and not carry through with it.”
Even though Hannah bit her lip, she couldn’t stop the corner of her mouth from turning up. “Not quite how I wanted to phrase it, but yes. Listen, I don’t want to come across as expectant or needy. It’s perfectly fine if you don’t have time to spend with him. All I ask is that you . . .” She shook her head, “well, he’s gotten his hopes up too many times in the past only to have them crushed again.”
The thought of reaching across the table and grabbing her hand in reassurance caught me off guard. So much so that I pushed my chair back and stretched my legs to get some distance. Then I found her gaze. “Tell me what you did after Michigan State.”
She blew out a deep breath and her own gaze bounced around my kitchen, from the floor to the ceiling, and finally back to me.
It was a very personal question and we weren’t even friends anymore, but I never did care about boundaries. I wanted to know. “Hannah,” I urged. “Tell me. What did you do? Where did you go?”
Finding my gaze narrowed on her, she kept eye contact, and finally spoke. “Well, I graduated as planned.”
I nodded. “Good. I’m glad.”
The smile she gave me was sad. “But that was about all that went as planned.”
“That’s life, isn’t it?”
She laughed a little. “Yes, I suppose so. In my case, instead of heading to Seattle or Redmond or any of the cities with major computer hubs as I had planned, I took the easier path and went back to Grand Haven.”
Shock rocked me. I really thought she’d end up working for Google or Apple or Microsoft. That was her dream, and she was so determined. If anyone would have accomplished their dream, I thought it would be her. “Why?”
“Why does anyone do anything? During my senior year, I had isolated myself. I felt so alone, that after I graduated, I just wanted to be near my mother. There weren’t many job opportunities there though, and going to work for the Crestfalls only made sense. I don’t know if you remember, but my mother had worked for them her entire life.”
Like a light bulb switching on, it came back to me. Crestfall. Hannah Michaels, now Hannah Crestfall. How had I not made the connection days ago? “The couple who owned the paper mill with the douchebag son who screwed you over in high school?”
Sadness gleamed in her eyes as she nodded. “That douchebag son became my husband.”
“You married that asshole? Why?”
She nodded. “I had gotten pregnant. I didn’t really love him, and he definitely didn’t love me.”
“Hannah.” It was all I could say.
That sadness only seemed to magnify. “I wanted my child to have a father, unlike I’d had. And Adam’s parents wanted a legitimate grandson. He only married me to avoid being hassled by them, and to avoid being cutoff, if I’m being honest. He left town as soon as Jonah was born.”
Flinching, I couldn’t stop the anger coursing through my body from surfacing. “Why the hell would you have ever gotten together with him in the first place after everything he put you through?”
Twisting her fingers together on the tabletop, she spoke just above a whisper. “To be honest, I don’t know why. I was lonely, and he was there. It’s nothing more profound than that. I didn’t love him. He didn’t love me. Anyway, after our divorce, his parents still wanted to be a part of Jonah’s life. And I let them. Unfortunately, what I didn’t know was that they were making promises to Jonah about his father that I could not possibly allow them to keep.”
Kids didn’t deserve the shit adults put them through. I knew that first-hand. Struck with some unidentifiable emotion for both her and her son, I moved my hand across the table. As if that wasn’t bad enough, before I knew what I was doing, I then wrapped my fingers around hers. “I’m sorry, Hannah, I’m so fucking sorry . . . about everything.”
I had no idea what I was saying, or even what the hell I meant by that. For some reason I felt to blame for the path she had taken.
She shivered from the contact and stared down at our joined hands for a long while before standing up and forcing us apart. “I should go. I have a babysitter watching Jonah. I just came by because I really wanted you to be aware of Jonah’s situation.”
Rising to my feet, I stepped closer to her. I couldn’t stop myself. “Let Jonah come home with Scarlett after school tomorrow. Mrs. Sherman can feed them dinner and when I get home, I’ll take them both to the park to throw the football around.”
The look on her face was one I’d never seen before. “Why would you do that for me after everything?” she asked, her voice cracking.
Tiredness.
Defeat.
Sorrow.
I wasn’t sure what I was looking at, but I didn’t like it.
Out of instinct, I pulled her into my arms. “Because a long time ago, you helped me,” I whispered into her ear.
Curving her head into the slope of my shoulder, I could have sworn she was crying. “But then everything fell apart.”
Hating that she was sad, I cradled her head in my hands and held her to me. The feel of her silky, smooth hair caused a jolt of lust to race through me. Next thing I knew I was kissing her temple and leaving my mouth in that spot for a long moment. Heat flooded my body as soon as my lips made contact with her skin. Nothing I was doing was smart. Then again I never considered myself to be an Einstein. “Shh . . . what do you say we agree to leave the past in the past?”
She looked up at me, and slowly her eyes shifted from sadness to something else entirely. “Is that really ever possible?”
Describing what I felt as I stared down at her was nearly impossible.
Eagerness.
Anticipation.
Adrenaline.
They were all racing through my veins at various speeds. I kissed her again, this time on her forehead. When I did, she shifted a little, and somehow I slid my mouth down just enough to hover over hers, and whispered, “Anything is possible.”
Words said in the heat of the moment without thought or consequence. At that point in time, though, I wasn’t thinking with the head on my shoulders. If I had been, I would have realized that line of thinking was nothing but bullshit . . .
Anything was not possible, and the past can never stay in the past.