No Weddings (No Weddings #1)(54)

In fact, the hold my past had on me was so tight, I’d made a f*cking rule to protect my heart: no weddings. Like hiding from all the fluff of someone else’s best day of their life would erase my worst. No amount of bleach in the world could scour that shit from my mind as if it never existed.

A sudden epiphany lit up in my mind like a blinding light bulb. I pulled on jeans and a T-shirt and shrugged into my jacket. After scooping up my keys, I rummaged through the junk in my desk drawer. Then I grabbed a pair of pants out of my closet and stuffed them into a white plastic bag.

The ride over to Hannah’s seemed to take forever. Left to my thoughts, they all came up blank. My only focus was Hannah. Finding her. Seeing her face. I’d checked her shop first, hoping I was wrong, but she’d pulled another sick day. Not surprising. The gut-wrenching, nauseating feeling hadn’t disappeared for me either.

It would never go away. Not unless we made it go away.

Her street was quiet. When I pulled into her drive, loose gravel crunched beneath my tires, washout from her landscaping after the heavy rain overnight.

A dense fog had rolled in, humidity from the waterway behind her house intensifying the effect into a near-total whiteout. As I walked through the soupy air, the mist parted, spinning into little eddies on either side of me.

I jogged up the steps. Taking a deep breath, I pounded on the door.

As I waited, I scanned her two front windows. No lights were on. I debated the wisdom of creeping around back, banging on every pane of glass until she let me in, but quickly discarded the idea as the act of an insane man. The last thing I wanted was to be cast into the category of a stalker.

I knocked a second time with a bit less anger. Three hard raps on the wood.

Nothing.

Determined, I turned around and sat on the cold brick step, putting the plastic bag beside me. By the time little dewdrops formed on the plastic, I figured at least another twenty minutes had gone by. I leaned back and knocked again. Rap, rap, rap.

My steady knocking was repeated every thirty minutes or so.

As the sun broke through the dismal fog, I wondered if I should’ve brought soup. What if she really was sick? Chicken noodle was always my favorite. I calculated how far away the nearest convenience store was and how long it would take me to get there and back.

Although, what a sad offering to someone in need: soup in a can. I pulled out my phone and surfed the Net to find the nearest restaurants and eateries. It wasn’t even 10:00 a.m. Most wouldn’t open until 11:00 a.m. for lunch.

I rapped on the door again. It had been at least forty minutes since my last attempt. I didn’t want her to think I’d given up.

My doorstep vigil continued. Noon approached. The thought of creeping around the perimeter of her house to find an open window, or at least peek inside, had been revisited and discarded. Three more times.

Legs suddenly cramping, I stood up and stretched, walking down her pathway to work the kinks out of my muscles. When I turned around to return to the spot I intended to sit in all day if necessary, the door cracked open.

Like a starving man suddenly offered a bite of bread, I rushed forward, afraid I’d imagined the opening, or that the invitation would be taken away.

The door opened further, revealing a distraught Hannah in flannel pajamas. Her eyes were red rimmed, her cheeks wet with fresh tears. Her hair was a tangled mess.

I dropped the bag inside her living room and crushed her to me, inhaling the sweet tropical scent of Hannah.

She shivered. “You’re freezing.”

“Tough shit.” I refused to let her go and, instead, pushed forward and kicked the door shut. Her stiff body eased bit by bit the longer I held her.

We said nothing. Just stood there, holding each other.

With great reluctance, I gently released her. We needed to talk. Absent a professional therapy session, Hannah and I needed to deal with our demons head on. There would be no way to move forward unless we exorcised the darkness from our past.

I took my jacket off and she backed up, staring at me the way she had in the bathroom at McGinty’s—like she wanted to increase the distance between us, like I was dangerous. That look killed me, but I held back, giving her the physical space she needed.

Hell, I’d made it into her house. That was a first step. And nothing would make me leave now. Not even Hannah. We were in this together, even if I needed to play the role of both interventionist and commiserating victim.

She took a deep breath. “I need to get something to drink.” Looking frazzled, she disappeared behind the column, closing the shutters over her counter.

I sat in one of the chairs. The thing was more comfortable than it looked. I scooted my ass back and forth, finding the sweet spot in the cushion, before relaxing back.

The chair faced the kitchen. Hannah banged around in there, opening and shutting cupboards. I heard a whirring noise.

A slow smile curved my lips. We’d been here before, and the familiar situation gave me a small amount of comfort. Only then, I’d been a cocky son of a bitch camped out in the front of her shop, while she, the Ice Queen, with her impermeable shields, got her bake on in her kitchen in the back. Now, we’d become two different people who’d cast off their armor, baring themselves. And no matter what else Hannah or I wanted from each other, in the midst of it all, we’d become friends.

The whirring died down. “Do you want something to drink?”

I was parched. “Yes. Whatever you’re having.”