HANK
THE PAST FIVE years have acclimated me to the rising crowds, the seas of unfamiliar faces, and the knowledge that the next eager handshake could be coming from a multimillion-dollar investor… or, even better, a burgeoning innovator.
So walking into a roomful of strangers calling my name and angling to get closer is par for the course… but not here, not like this. Not when I know the names behind the faces and remember the quality of our former interactions in ways they seem to have forgotten.
Jimmy Alverez, star quarterback and overall decent guy. Not more than a passing acquaintance back in high school, but now as I walk through the double doors he’s all over me, clapping my back, snapping selfies one after the next, and acting like my long-lost best friend. Which is fine. Like I said, he was a decent guy. But in a graduating class of five hundred, he’s just one. And already I can’t see past the press of bodies looking to get closer. I can’t tell if Abby’s here. If she’s alone.
My security team has instructions to stay out of the gym. It’s the press I’m serious about avoiding, and they’re mostly camped outside by the front entrance. But my lead guy, Jerry, must be getting antsy with the swarm of people around me, because suddenly it’s his hand on my shoulder, and he’s quietly asking if I want him to clear things out.
I shake my head and spend the next thirty minutes taking pictures with people I barely knew, shaking hands with guys who’d been total pricks, and ignoring the press of tits against my arm from women who swear they’d had the biggest crush on me back in high school. There’s a break in the crowd and I see Abby across the gym, laughing with some of the girls I remember her hanging out with. And like that, the tension I hadn’t quite realized was building within me is gone. Because even after seeing her the other day, or maybe because of it, I wasn’t sure she’d come. And I wanted her to. I wanted more than two and a half minutes of showing off what any first-year technical school dropout could have done while I disrupted her class.
Her dress is a deep violet, one of those filmy numbers with a short matching half-sweater over the top. It’s the kind of prettily conservative outfit that shouldn’t come off as sexy, but does. Surrounded by her friends, a drink in her hand, Abby’s watching me.
She doesn’t try to turn away like she’s hoping I won’t notice. It’s not her style. She lifts her glass to me with a pitying smile and cock of her head.
I can practically hear her: Eesh, good luck with your fans, Hank.
But I’ve had enough catching up with people I didn’t really know and, after mumbling a few polite words, I excuse myself. The crowd is thick and I shake hands without looking at who’s caught me, patting shoulders… all the while never taking my eyes off hers.
Jesus, she’s beautiful.
“Hank.” She says my name quietly, but I hear it like it’s the only sound in the room. Like Taylor Swift’s “Love Story” isn’t playing in the background. Like there aren’t a hundred different conversations going on around us. Like the echoes of every time she’s said it before have lined up and spoken together. It’s enough to rock me off balance and leave me a little out of control. And damn, it feels good, because I’m always in control.
Abby raises a brow, stepping closer before stopping a polite distance away.
Too far.
Not what I should be thinking, but it is what it is.
“I wasn’t sure you’d really come.”
Hitching a shoulder, I close some of the distance between us, taking more satisfaction in the slight widening of her eyes than I should.
“Neither was I.” I could leave it at that, hold on to what little control I’ve got left. But letting go with this girl has always been more temptation than I can resist. “But then I saw the prettiest girl in school and I realized how much I missed talking to her.”
That’s all it is. Me wanting an opportunity to talk to the girl who’d been such a critical part of my life… and finding something out about the woman she’s become. Sure, seeing Abby is stirring me up some, poking at a part of my control-freak psyche that’s been lying dormant for the better part of ten years. But there’s nothing more than that. And hell, I like to see her blush. That’ll never change.
“Hank.” She shakes her head as she peers up at the ceiling. When her eyes meet mine, she sighs. “You took me by surprise. Back in my classroom.”
“Tell me about it.” I push my hair back from my glasses and nod. “Thought I was hallucinating for a minute there in the hall. But it sure explained a lot about why Jack was so hellbent on getting me over to the school.”
“Wait, you didn’t know I teach here?” Her pretty face screws up like I’ve seen it so many times before. “Ugh… of course you didn’t. Egosaurus Rex here, right? You’ve got just a few more things to keep track of than some girl you used to date.”
She’s laughing, but that casual description of what she was to me doesn’t sit right. Still, I want to make her feel better.
“I’ve been busy?” I offer with the kind of sheepish grin that promises I know just exactly how weak an answer it is. I’ve taken not knowing where this woman works, if she’s met someone, whether she’s ever changed her mind, to a perfected art form.
And surprisingly enough, the girl who never let me get away with anything lets me get away with this. She gives me the same skeptical smile that had me tripping over my own feet in these very halls fourteen years ago. “I’m guessing that’s something of an understatement.”
Probably, but it was also a copout, and being this close to the most honest girl I’ve ever met makes me feel shitty about it.
“So, a teacher,” I say, more interested in hearing about all those things I’ve spent years telling myself not to wonder about than I am in talking about myself. “English… just like you planned.”
Abby lights up, and then she’s telling me about the career she always wanted. She talks about the kids in her classes and laughs about having the teachers we used to fear as her peers.
“Tinder? Mrs. Graham? Seriously, no,” I protest, wiping a hand over my mouth, like I think it’s going to do one damn thing to hide the guilty smile beneath. “But she was so… old. Even ten years ago.” She had to be seventy.
Abby nods, supremely satisfied. “The girl swipes right. And she brags about it! The details, Hank.”
And damn, that smile. Without thinking, I’m reaching for her, pulling her into my chest for the kind of easy hug we’ve shared a thousand times before… just not once in the last ten years. A fact I’m reminded of as the soft curves and smooth lines of her body come into contact with mine. It’s like a jolt from a capacitor, overloading my system in a way that’s almost painful, it’s so intense.
My smile fades and Abby’s laughter evaporates into a quiet gasp, like maybe she felt it too. Our eyes meet and hold, and my hand closes at the small of her back, desperate to fist the fabric of her dress but somehow finding the restraint not to. There’s a question in her eyes, but then it’s gone as she looks away.
The body that always melted into mine, snuggling closer, no matter how tight I held her, tenses, going still and stiff. This isn’t one of those easy hugs. Things aren’t the same.
Shit.
Letting her go, I take a step back. “Sorry. Old habits die hard,” I say, like a total ass. Maybe I’m wrong about the connection still being there… or at least from both sides.
Abby’s shaking her head, looking anywhere but at me as she starts to talk.
“I don’t want to monopolize your whole night. It was so good talking to you, Hank. So good to see you—in person—I mean, I see you everywhere in magazines and on TV, but—” She cuts off with a self-deprecating laugh and closes her eyes before meeting mine again. Only this time there’s something guarded and closed off that hasn’t been there since that first year she moved to Bearings. “It was good to see you, Hank. Congrats on all your success. You deserve every bit of it.”
“Abby, wait,” I say, but she’s already headed for the door.
ABBY
SO NOW I know. All the years of wondering what it would be like to run into Hank again, and this was it. Incredible. Heartbreaking. Awe-inspiring. A torture like I should have imagined.
God, when he pulled me into his arms—
I’d almost forgotten how perfect that fit was. How right. How when Hank looks into my eyes like that, I never want it to end. One touch and it all came back in a rush. What it was like to love him. What it was like to let him go.
He calls after me, but I only walk faster. I barely make it out the double doors before I’m blinking back the tears.
They don’t make sense. It’s been ten years and I’m over Hank Wagner.
The halls are mostly deserted on the way to my classroom, where I pick up my purse and coat. Sometimes after a faculty meeting I’ll just sit in this quiet space, but tonight all I want is to get away.
The irony isn’t lost on me. I’m the one who stays. But tonight I can’t get to the south exit fast enough. A minute later, I’m crossing the faculty lot, heading toward the lone car still parked there, when the sound of my name bouncing off the concrete walls brings me around.
Hank.
I quickly wipe my eyes before turning back to him, but one look and already I can feel that fortress inside me starting to crumble. He’s coming around the side of the building at a jog, a sense of urgency in the way he rakes his hand through his hair.
Why did he have to come back?
“You’re ruining my escape,” I say as he closes the distance between us.
“Yeah, sorry about that.” He stops in front of me, his brows knit together in a scowl that makes me itch to brush my finger across the furrow. He shoots a quick look over his shoulder and I remember the press out front.
This isn’t the shy boy who was mine ten years ago. He’s the confident man the whole world wants a piece of.
“Abby, what happened?”
I turn toward the track behind us, willing the ache in my chest away. Wishing I had the words to answer him. But I don’t know what happened, because I’m over him… no matter what it feels like in this moment. I am.
“Abby,” he says again, his voice low, pleading. “Look at me.”
I want to hide, to stop this humiliation before it gets any worse, but when he touches my arm, I can’t help but turn back to him.
“I’m sorry. You shouldn’t be out here. I’m fine, I just—” I pull an uneven breath, glancing back at the school before meeting his eyes. “It’s hard seeing you again… maybe because I used to be the one who knew you best, but now I feel like I know you least of all.”
Hank’s mouth curves into an understanding smile. Looking up at the night sky, he rocks back on his heels. “I imagine you still know me better than you think. Better than most people, probably.”
Standing like this, in the quiet night behind the school, just the two of us, I can almost believe him. “Maybe.”
Hank stares a second longer before seeming to make up his mind. “Well then maybe you’d be willing to postpone your escape for a few minutes to find out. Take a walk with me and catch up some more?”
“You didn’t come to the reunion to take a walk with me. Everyone’s inside.”
“I didn’t come to see them.”
He doesn’t mean it the way it sounds. Only standing beneath the quiet night sky in the place where he used to be mine, it would be so easy to let myself believe he did.
Whether I’m over him or not.
“I’d like that, Hank.”
And then, just like ten years ago, we’re walking toward the track. No discussion about our destination, just the both of us heading to the place where we spent so many nights walking and talking… Until the walking and talking hadn’t been enough, and we found someplace quiet and private to do more than talk.
I can’t believe I’m thinking about those nights, or how my belly does this little flip when I do. I glance away, hoping the lights from the school won’t be enough for Hank to see the silly blush burning up my cheeks.
“What’s that look all about?”
So much for that. The guy’s always been the observant type.
“Just funny to be here with you. Takes me back, is all.”
“I know what you mean.”
“So where do you want to start?”
“Anywhere but the Men’s Health spread,” he groans, giving me the sheepish smile I can’t believe Hank Wagner, tech god, still pulls off. And seriously, for being one of the world’s biggest brains, what does he think is going to happen when he says that?
“Hank, now it’s the only thing I can think of.” I laugh. “And can I just say, I was impressed?” Me and all of my girlfriends, my mom, and Helen too. Maybe Helen most of all.
Wiping a palm over his mouth, he cuts me a narrow look that makes me laugh all the harder. Because if I’m not mistaken, this time he’s the one with a blaze burning across those chiseled cheekbones.
“Thanks for that,” he says, and I turn around so I’m walking backward and don’t have to miss a second of this big, strapping man’s epic squirm.
“Seriously though, how did that happen?”
“All the muscles? For the girl who knows me best, surprised you don’t remember that I lift weights when I’m working out a problem.”
My mouth drops into a gape and I must stop walking, because then Hank is right in front of me, his big hands on my arms as he propels me back into step again.
“That’s not what I meant and you know it.” And if I live to be a hundred, I don’t think I’ll ever forget watching Hank lift weights while he quizzed me for our econ final senior year.
“I eat a lot of lean protein,” he offers, clearly delighted to be teasing me.
Shaking my head, I meet his eyes. “I never in a million years would have thought you’d sign on for something like that. Which isn’t to say that I and probably ninety percent of the female population don’t appreciate it. But how?”
“Would you believe it was a favor for a friend?”
Actually, it’s probably the only explanation I’ll believe. It makes sense in the context of the guy I used to know. Generous to a fault. Loyal to the end.
Walking together with him around this track, I feel the loss of him from my life.
We talk some more about the usual things, his parents and mine. About his move back to Chicago a year ago and what it’s like being back in the Midwest after so long out east.
He asks whether I have a boyfriend but then changes the subject as soon as I bring up his love life.
And all the while, I keep stealing glances at him, mentally cataloging what’s the same and what’s different.
The high-end wardrobe, edgy eyeglass frames, and perpetual shadow of scruff across his jaw are new.
He might be a couple inches taller. That lanky frame has filled out, broadening him through the shoulders and chest. Even without the skin-and-sweat magazine spread burned into my mind for all eternity, I can see from the fit of his shirt how muscular he is.
His smile is the same, but his laugh is deeper, taking on a low rumble I can practically feel moving through me.
And those eyes, well, they’re harder than they were in high school. Wiser. More confident and knowing. But when Hank looks at me like he is now, all I can see is the boy who used to be mine.
Only that boy is gone.
And too soon, this man in his place will be too.
As if to underscore the point, he pulls his phone from his pocket, signaling to give him a second while he answers the call from his security team. He tells them where he is, but that he’d like some privacy, so to keep their focus on keeping the press where they are out front. He won’t be long.
I stop at the edge of the track.
“Abby?”
It’s now or never. “I hate how things ended between us. I hate how I ended them. After so much good.” So much love. “It wasn’t fair and I’m sorry, Hank. You deserved better.”
He swallows, his head dropping forward so that fall of overlong hair blocks his eyes. “None of that matters. It’s just good to see you.”