Chapter Forty-One
Hennessy
I spend most of the night tossing and turning, fighting my way through one bizarre nightmare after another. By the time the sun starts to peek through the window, I’m actually relieved to have an excuse to get out of bed. I flip on the Weather Channel to find that the fast-moving storm traveled clear across Minnesota and into Wisconsin overnight, so there’s no reason my relocation can’t happen today.
No excuses, Hennessy.
I roll out of the frameless bed and drag myself to my feet, skirting around the cardboard mountains as I make my way to the bathroom. Twenty minutes later I emerge feeling considerably more human with freshly-brushed teeth and washed hair. A glance at the clock on the stove tells me I have about two hours to kill before the truck arrives, one hour before I can find a cup of coffee anyplace, and maybe half hour before my sisters renew their phone campaign to get me to stay.
I open the fridge door and peer in, not sure what it is that I’m expecting there. It looks exactly the same as it did last night when I wanted a snack. A few olives in a jar, the dregs of a ketchup bottle, and a sad little slice of American cheese. I’m considering how to integrate the three items into some semblance of breakfast when I hear it.
I turned off the television in the bedroom—I’m certain of it. The screen on my phone is dark, so the sound’s not coming from there. I lean closer to the wall I share with my neighbor, wondering if she’s playing loud music—which would be unusual for her, especially at this hour of the morning. But it’s not coming from there, either.
Is that…Peter Gabriel?
I don’t know what makes me do it, but I walk to the far end of the apartment and look out the window.
Oh, who am I kidding? I know exactly why I do it. That movie. That silly movie with John Cusack and the boom box. But what is it that I think I’m going to find out there on the sidewalk three floors down? Some guy—who may or may not be Bryan—playing a song in an attempt to win my heart?
Hah! Yeah, like that Hallmark Channel nonsense ever happens in real life!
Still, I look. No guy. And still, the music is coming from somewhere nearby. I close my eyes and listen, trying to triangulate where it’s coming from. It’s not loud enough to be inside the apartment. It’s more like someone’s standing in the hallway…
I practically knock over a boxful of books in my rush to get to the front door. I know within five feet that I’ve got it right this time, and when I look through the peephole, I gasp at what I see.
Standing there, looking bedraggled and exhausted, is Bryan Truitt. He’s holding his iPhone up to the door, and I can just make out the tiny image of Peter Gabriel’s album So on the screen. Bryan doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t knock. He doesn’t ring. He just stands there, phone up, waiting for me to hear him and open the door.
I do.
“In your eyes, I see the doorway to a thousand churches…” Peter Gabriel sings just loud enough so as not to bother my neighbors.
“That’s my favorite line,” he says. “The doorway to a thousand churches line…”
“Yeah, that is a pretty amazing image,” I agree, playing along as he pretends this is a perfectly natural situation.
“I get it.”
“What?” I ask, neither of us budging.
“I get what he’s saying. Because I see that when I look into your eyes.”
I stare at him, my breath suddenly caught in my throat.
“You…you do?” I ask, sounding tentative.
He nods.
“I do. And that’s why I’m here.”
“It is?”
Jeez, could I be any lamer?
He nods again.
“Can I come in?”
“I’m moving to Boston,” I blurt. “In like two hours.”
“Please?”
I step back and hold the door open so he can pass me. I notice he’s got a plastic shopping bag in his other hand.
“Janet,” he says, following my gaze. “She sent me with a pie. I’ve got a thermos of coffee in here from Jameson, too.”
For the first time, I realize I’m dressed in only a terrycloth robe with my hair swept up in a towel turban. No clothes. No makeup. Not even a pair of slippers.
“Uh…that sounds great. Let me go put something on—”
“No,” he says sharply. The surprise must register on my face because he’s quick to jump in again. “I don’t want to let you out of my sight. Not for a second. I can’t.”
“Bryan…”
He sets the bag and his phone down on the breakfast bar and wraps his big, strong hands around my forearms.
“No, Hennessy. I let you go once, and I won’t do it again. Not ever.”
“What are you talking about?” I whisper, looking up into his dark eyes. There’s something there that I haven’t seen before. They’re not amused or determined or angry. What I see in Bryan Truitt’s gaze, and on his face, is sheer emotion—ragged and raw. It’s so powerful that I couldn’t look away from him even if I wanted to. And I don’t.
“I love you,” he says on an exhalation, as if it’s a living, breathing thing that’s been inside of him all this time. “I loved you the moment I got stuck in that stupid pile of snow. I went there expecting to get the contract signed and get back on that plane home. But then I saw you…and I knew I couldn’t. I couldn’t ever leave that town again without you.”
“That’s—that’s insane,” my brain replies, even as my heart flutters ecstatically.
And still, Peter Gabriel sings. He must have the song set to repeat.
Bryan shakes his head. “I should’ve made you listen to me. I should’ve given you the benefit of the doubt—trusted that you’d understand what happened after you heard the whole story. But I was afraid you wouldn’t…that you couldn’t love me after that. So I ran away.”
“But you can only outrun your past for so long,” I say, echoing the words that Janet spoke to him when she handed him the sweet potato pie.
“Exactly,” he nods.
I sigh and give him a bittersweet smile.
“Bryan, I’m leaving for Boston. I’ve taken a job there.”
“Then I’m moving to Boston,” he says firmly.
I pull my arms out of his grasp and gape at him incredulously.
“What? Are you insane? Your home is in Los Angeles.”
“No.” The single word comes out as a sharp staccato. “No. Hennessy, my home is wherever you are. I will follow you wherever you go because I don’t want to live without you for a single second longer.”
I simply cannot process what I’m hearing—this declaration of undying love from a man who’s known me for less than three months. Nor can I process what I’m feeling—the swell of joy that’s radiating up from my toes, through my body, and practically shooting out of the top of my head.
He loves me! He wants to be with me! He’s as certifiably nuts as I am!
“You went to Mayhem before you came here?” I ask, wrenching my thoughts back onto firmer ground.
He looks confused for a second.
“The thermos and the pie,” I explain, gesturing to the bag.
“Yeah. I went there last night looking for you. Your sisters told me what was going on.”
“My sisters?” I sputter. “But they hate you!”
A sheepish smile spreads across his face.
“Not so much… Walker loaned me her jeep, Bailey made me a mix tape for the road, and Jameson packed me snacks. They told me to bring you home. But…”
“But what?” I ask, a little eagerly.
“But like I said, my home is wherever you are. So if you want to stay here, it’s here. If you want to go to Boston, it’s Boston. If you want to come back with me to the west coast, we can do that, too.”
“And if I want to go back to Mayhem…?”
My question comes out as a whisper.
Bryan closes the distance between us again, wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me to his chest.
“Then that’s where my life is from now on, Hennessy O’Halloran. Because you’re my home, and I’m never, ever leaving home again.”
Even as I look up to see his face as he utters these words, he’s lowering his lips to mine. I welcome him, sighing with relief at the feel of his hands on the bare skin under my robe.
He’s not wrong. Right here, right now—this is home.
…
He’s so warm and soft—and I’m so emotionally exhausted—that I fall asleep in his arms for hours afterward. I barely register it when he gets up just long enough to shoo away the irritated movers, placating them with a ridiculous tip and the promise of a move somewhere in the very near future—destination to be determined.
When my eyes flutter open around noon, he’s back in bed, his body wrapped around mine, clutching me as if he’s afraid I’ll levitate and float away from him.
“You haven’t said it,” he murmurs without preamble.
I don’t need to ask what it is he’s talking about.
“I love you, too,” I whisper without qualification.
This makes him smile. It’s a smile that makes his entire face soften while filling it with light… And all at once I feel as if I’m the luckiest person in the world to have someone smile at me like this. But then something unreadable dulls it.
“What?” I ask, desperate for him to look at me like that again. “What is it, Bryan?”
I’m startled to see his eyes fill with tears.
“I’m so sorry I couldn’t save it for you, Hennessy. I tried… God, I was so arrogant. If I’d just done it differently, you’d still have your father’s pub…”
Well, now I’m just plain confused. I prop myself up on my elbow so I can get a good look at him.
“What are you talking about? You did buy the pub, didn’t you? Isn’t that what all this fuss has been about? Letting us continue running it? Staying all anonymous?”
He shakes his head solemnly.
“No, Hennessy, it wasn’t me,” he says miserably.
I stare at him for a long moment before reaching up to touch his face.
“Bryan, it’s okay. It’s all going to be okay.”
He starts to protest, but I put a finger to his lips.
“Don’t you get it? It’s like you said, when we’re together, it’s like we’re home. I don’t need the building to have the memories. It’s just a building—a thing. And, in the end, it brought us together, didn’t it?”
“You’re the most amazing woman I’ve ever known,” he says, swiping at the rogue tears that have escaped to roll down his scruffy cheeks. “What…what do you think you want to do now?”
I can tell it’s not an easy question for him to ask, seeing as how he’s just committed himself to go wherever I want to go. Which, by the way, is no longer Boston.
“Right now I want to get up and eat some of that pie and have a cup of coffee. Then I want to crawl back into this bed and sleep the day away in your arms.”
“I’m liking it so far.”
“Yeah, I thought you would. Beyond that, I’d kinda like to have you all to myself for a little while. So how about we just hang here for a few days or weeks or whatever, and we can take our time figuring the rest of it out together?”
“Whither thou goest, I will go, and where thou lodgest, I will lodge.”
For a second I’m stunned.
“I’m sorry, did you just quote the book of Ruth to me?”
“Uhh… Leonard Cohen, actually. But he probably borrowed it from Ruth.” He smirks, and I roll over on top of him, digging my fingers into his sides to tickle him until he’s begging for mercy and the tears running down his face are tears of joy.
My God, it feels so good to be home at last.