Folk Around and Find Out (Good Folk: Modern Folktales #2)(80)

Hannah’s mouth tugged to the side. “I didn’t say Patty was a snob, I said—and this is just my assumption, I don’t know for certain—they probably kept it on the down-low since she didn’t want folks to know she and Hank were dating unless they got serious. Not sure that makes her a snob so much as careful about her reputation and wanting to avoid gossip.”

“I guess that makes sense.” When she put it like that, I could see her point. But still, if Hank and I were together, if we were dating and in a relationship, it would never occur to me to hide it.

“His reputation isn’t the best, and not just because he owns The Pony—you know that. He’s never tried to clean it up or correct people’s assumptions about him. It’s almost like he enjoys their scorn.”

I heard Hannah, but I hadn’t moved past her earlier revelation. “I didn’t know he actually dated people.”

“What were you thinking he did? Just a bunch of hookups?” Her eyes moved over me. “If he did, would that bother you?”

My mouth opened, then shut, and I shrugged. “No. As you said, as long as folks are upfront and safe about it, and no one is getting hurt, and no one is married to someone else, and there’s no cheating, I’m not going to care if he has hookups in his past. It’s—I don’t know. I didn’t give the structure of his personal life much thought before now. It never felt like it was any of my business, so why would I think about it?”

Hannah made a scoffing noise. “Well, that makes you irregular. I don’t think it’s betraying a confidence to tell you that we get women customers in here all the time asking about him, especially during the hen parties. And during my shifts hosting at the Front Porch, I get twenty questions from all sorts of folks about his sex life. Their curiosity, though inappropriate, doesn’t seem weird to me. You gotta admit, he’s notorious in these parts.”

“I guess he is.” Wrinkling my nose, I thought about this. In a way, I supposed we were both notorious—me for being pitied, him for being . . . eccentric. And yet, just as I never had the time to care about being pitied, I’d never spent time or energy pondering over his reputation either, other than admiring how he marched to the beat of his own drum. I barely had time to think during any given day, why would I spend it on gossip?

“Think about what people see: filthy rich, troublemaker, Ivy League dropout. Smart and handsome, major real-estate investor in the area, philanthropist, only heir to the Weller fortune, drives a rusted old pickup, and he runs this club? He doesn’t make any sense to most people. ’Course, the women who are curious rarely ask him out on a date either. They just want to speculate about what makes him tick, I suppose.”

I felt her eyes on me, so I gave her mine.

She’d adopted an impish smile, saying, “Right now, you make him tick.”





CHAPTER 21





CHARLOTTE





“It may be important to great thinkers to examine the world, to explain and despise it. But I think it is only important to love the world, not to despise it, not for us to hate each other, but to be able to regard the world and ourselves and all beings with love, admiration and respect.”

HERMANN HESSE, SIDDHARTHA





Hannah and I should’ve been spending these precious hours training her on FastFinance. Instead, she stared at the wall while I stared at the file cabinet. We’d been sitting that way for at least a full minute before she broke the silence.

“Wow. That’s—wow.”

“I know,” I muttered.

I’d told her everything. Literally, everything. It poured out of me. I told her about having a crush on Hank when I was a teenager, him not showing up to take me to prom, how I’d thought I was over the crush and unable to trust him again, but how being around him again here at the club had aroused the slumbering beast. I told her about how he’d offered me the bookkeeping job, our odd flirting exchanges, which I’d assumed were one-sided, how he’d apologized on Thursday and then been dismissive on Friday, how he kissed me and what he’d said on Sunday, and then finally concluded with the events of the day.

Her hesitation was palpable before she finally asked, “He really offered to . . . whenever you want? You just have to tell him?”

I met her gaze; it looked both disbelieving and impressed. I nodded.

Hannah’s eyebrows jumped. “That might be the sexiest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“I know!”

Her face split with a smile. “If my forever crush came to me and made the same offer, you better believe I’d be calling him every damn day and sitting on his face every single night.”

I choked on nothing. Hannah sounded so sweet, so demure and soft and modest. When she cursed or made an overt sexual reference, I never expected it.

“Please, please, please tell me you’re going to take him up on the offer.” She looked at me imploringly, like the fate of womankind’s sexual satisfaction hung in the balance.

“I can’t,” I moaned.

“Why not?” Her lower lip puffed out, just a bit. “If he’s offering, if he wants to do this for you, why not?”

Abruptly anxious, I stood and paced to the window. “I can’t use him like that. I would never use him like that. He deserves so much better, someone who will put him first. And feelings are involved. Long-buried feelings on my side.”