From This Moment

by Melanie Harlow

  “Yes, you could. And you might.” Margot grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “Love is a risk, Hannah. But it’s always a risk worth taking.”

  Deep down, I wanted to believe her. Because I ached for Wes. He had my heart and I wanted his. And I wanted to be the kind of person who lived life fully and didn’t let fear hold her back. But could I be that brave? “I just don’t know if I have it in me.”

  “You do,” they said together, then laughed.

  I smiled too, despite the tears, and made my decision. “Thanks, you guys. I’m going to call him when I get home.”

  “Good girl,” said Margot.

  “Cheers,” said Georgia, holding up her glass. “To love.”

  “To love,” echoed Margot and I as we clinked glasses.

  One more chance, I told myself. I’d give love one more chance to prove it could overcome all the odds stacked against us.

  Ten minutes later, that chance went up in smoke.

  Twenty-One

  WES

  That week, I’d looked at my phone more than any human being should look at an electronic device. I willed it to ring. I begged it to buzz with a text. I checked it obsessively, to the point where I was starting to go nuts.

  But I didn’t call her. I didn’t want to be the guy who smothered the woman he loved. I didn’t want her to think I couldn’t give her space when she needed it or make her feel like what she’d asked for was wrong. Only the biggest asshole in the world would be like you don’t need space, babe, you need my big hard dick, although deep down I felt like going caveman on her. Driving to her house, carrying her up the stairs, throwing her down on the bed and worshipping her body until she was convinced that I loved her enough that I’d never let anything keep us apart. But I didn’t do that, either.

  Although I thought about it a lot.

  My mother was in a particularly good mood all week, which shouldn’t have bothered me, but it did. I couldn’t help thinking how miserable Hannah and I were in comparison. Maybe because I was home for dinner every night. Maybe she was truly that excited about my birthday dinner. Maybe she was secretly glad Hannah and I weren’t spending any time together this week. I wasn’t sure what it was, but by Thursday morning, her cheerfulness was borderline grating.

  Don’t be an asshole. She’s your mother, and she’s happy you’re home.

  That afternoon, she called me as I was leaving work. “Hello, darling,” she trilled. “How was your day?”

  “Fine. Yours?” I unlocked my car and got in.

  “Oh, fine. Listen, I’m downtown at that cute little martini place, the new one, and I wondered if you wanted to meet me for a drink.”

  A drink sounded pretty damn good. “I guess I could.”

  “Fabulous,” she cooed. “It’s called With a Twist. I’m right up front at the bar. You can’t miss me.”

  “Okay, see you in a few.” I hung up and drove downtown, thinking it was a little curious, since I’d never known her to frequent bars on her own before, but then again, I’d been gone for the better part of ten years. She might have developed all kinds of new habits I hadn’t seen in the last month because I’d been so preoccupied with Hannah.

  Still. I was slightly wary as I walked into With a Twist, which was located in an old storefront. It was dark inside, but I spotted her right away—and the pretty, well-dressed blond in the chair beside her.

  Fuck me. She didn’t.

  She saw me before I could escape. “Wes, darling!” My mother motioned me over and I grudgingly obeyed. When I got close enough, she grabbed my arm, like she was afraid I might try to make a run for it. “Wes, this is Becca, my friend Mary’s granddaughter, the one I’ve been telling you about. Becca, this is my son, Wes.”

  Becca smiled beguilingly and held out her hand. She was young, probably mid-twenties, and wore lots of makeup. “Hi, Wes.”

  “Hello.” I shook her hand and gave my mother a murderous look that she ignored.

  “This is such a delightful coincidence, because I’ve been wanting to introduce y’all.”

  A coincidence. Right.

  “Sit down, darling. Here, take my seat.” She vacated the barstool next to Becca. “I actually have to run, but you two should stay and chat.”

  I was fuming. I did not want to have a drink with Becca, but I didn’t see a way out of it without being rude. When I got home I was going to throttle my mother.

  “Stay,” Becca coaxed, giving me a flirty look. “I’ll buy you a drink. You look like you could use one.”

  “You have no idea.” Feeling outmanned and outmaneuvered and really fucking thirsty for some whiskey, I dropped onto the barstool next to her.

  My mother beamed. “No rush to get home, Wes.”

  “What time is dinner?” I asked her.

  “Oh, don’t worry about that. I can make you a plate any time. Y’all enjoy yourselves.”

  “Bye, Lenore,” said Becca. “Thanks for the drink.”

  I ordered some whiskey on the rocks, Becca ordered another Cosmo, and while we waited for them, I stewed about my mother. I couldn’t believe how she’d tricked me into this. However, it suddenly occurred to me that maybe this would help my case. My mother thought I was hung up on Hannah because I didn’t give anyone else a chance. If I played along with her little matchmaking game for twenty minutes or so, I could go home and report there was absolutely zero chemistry with Becca, I was madly in love with Hannah and always would be. Maybe then she’d believe me. At least she wouldn’t be able to say that I hadn’t looked at anyone else.

  “Bad day?” Becca angled her body toward me and tilted her head. Her legs were crossed in my direction, her hands clasped over one knee. She had very good posture, or else she was trying to put her breasts on display, because her back was ramrod straight, almost arched. She was big-chested, and her breasts strained at the buttons of her blouse, which was already low-cut.

  Okay, yes, I noticed them, but after that, I kept my eyes above her neck. And they didn’t do anything for me.

  “Not really. Just tired.”

  “Me too. I’ve been working a lot of hours. It’s so nice to relax and unwind.” She put one elbow on the bar and propped her head in her hand.

  “Yeah.” What did she do again? I tried to recall what my mom had said. “You’re in sales?”

  She nodded. “Pharmaceuticals. I used to come to your office a lot, but then my territory got switched. I knew your brother.”

  “Oh.”

  “I was really sorry to hear what happened. He was such a great guy.”

  “Thanks.”

  Our drinks arrived, and I took a healthy swallow.

  “So you just bought a house, I hear?”

  “Yeah.” I felt like a dick with my one-word answers and my obvious lack of interest, but this was not my strong suit—small talk with strange women.

  “Where is it?”

  “On the lake, north of town.”

  “Nice.”

  There was an awkward pause, and we both drank. At this point, I couldn’t even make eye contact.

  “Wes.” She put a hand on my knee. “You don’t have to be nervous. I don’t bite.”

  “I’m not nervous.” I looked at her hand on me and wished she’d remove it.

  “Your mom said you were shy.” She leaned toward me a little, her blouse falling open. “Don’t worry, I think it’s cute.”

  Oh, Jesus.

  I was trying to think of what to come back with, how to nicely request that she take her hand off my leg, when I heard a voice say, “Wes?”

  I turned, and there was Hannah. Slack-jawed, stormy-eyed, and trembling as she looked back and forth from Becca to me. “I knew it,” she said. “I fucking knew it.”

  Then she was gone.

  Twenty-Two

  HANNAH

  I heard him calling my name as I speed-walked down the street, flanked by Margot and Georgia, each of whom had an arm around me. “Don’t stop. I don’t want to talk to him.”

&
nbsp; “But maybe there’s an explanation,” said Georgia.

  We turned the corner onto the quiet side street where I’d parked. Rage and regret coursed through me. “No. There might be an excuse, but I don’t want to hear it.”

  “Maybe she’s a work friend,” Margot suggested.

  “Oh, she’s a work friend all right. The same work friend who fucked my husband while I was home with a newborn baby.”

  “What?” Margot screeched. Georgia made a similar noise of disbelief.

  “Yes.” The sight of her sitting there with him, so smug, her hand on his knee, her full breasts practically on his lap, had sickened me. Brought back all the horrible, wretched feelings of betrayal and self-doubt I’d suffered back then. I wanted to vomit.

  “Hannah!” Wes was getting closer, so I sped up, moving ahead of my friends. But my heel caught on a crack in the pavement and I went down on my hands and knees.

  Margot and Georgia reached for me, but I stayed there and burst into tears.

  Next thing I knew, Wes was helping me to my feet. “Are you okay, baby?”

  I wrangled my arms from his grasp. “Let me go. I’m not your baby.”

  “Hannah, please. Let me explain.”

  “No.” I tried to start walking again and he grabbed my arm. “Let me go, Wes.”

  “I can’t,” he yelled. “I tried for years to let you go, Hannah. Years! I never could!”

  Margot gasped and clutched Georgia by the elbow.

  “I don’t believe you!” I cried. “If that were true, you wouldn’t have hurt me like this!”

  “It was just a drink!”

  “With the woman Drew fucked while he was married to me? No, that wasn’t just a drink. It was the final sign that this”—I gestured back and forth between us—“can never be. And I was an idiot to think it could.”

  “Oh my God.” His face conveyed his shock. “Hannah, I had no idea. You know I didn’t!”

  “I don’t know anything except that I need to stay away from you!”

  “Please. Just listen to me.” Now both his hands gripped my upper arms, and I was no match for his strength. “My mother set that up. She tricked me into coming to the bar and then left.”

  “Why didn’t you leave?”

  “I was just trying to be nice! I didn’t know she was the one! I swear to God I’d have left if I had.” He shook his head. “I should have left anyway. I’m sorry.”

  “Too late now.”

  “I thought I was doing us a favor,” he went on.

  “What?” I shrieked. “How was that doing us a favor?”

  “My mother thinks I only fell for you because I never gave myself a chance to fall for anyone else. I thought if I met the damn girl she wanted me to meet, I could go home and say, ‘Guess what, Mom? I met the girl and I’m still in love with Hannah.’ I thought it would help convince her to accept us.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said, sobbing uncontrollably now. “It doesn’t even matter because she’ll try something else next. She was never going to accept us, Wes. And you were always going to choose her.”

  He shook his head. “What are you talking about?”

  “I mean the birthday dinner! Do you know how much it hurt me to learn she didn’t want me there and you said okay?”

  “No! Because you didn’t tell me! I was just trying to do anything to make things easier on us. I thought I was helping! I love you, Hannah, but I can’t read your mind.”

  “I didn’t expect you to read my mind. I expected you to fight for us like you said you would!”

  “I’m sorry, I should have considered how it would make you feel. I should have fought back. If it matters to you that much, you can come. Or I won’t go. Whatever it takes,” he pleaded. “I’ll make this right, Hannah. I promise.”

  “No more promises.” I closed my eyes, tears dripping off my lashes. “It’s too late.”

  “But I love you.”

  “It’s not enough, Wes. Love isn’t enough to save us. Face it—we were never meant to be.”

  His grip relaxed slightly on my arms, but he didn’t let go. “Do you remember,” he said quietly, “what I said to you the night you married my brother?”

  My eyes flew open. Of course I did.

  He said the words again, his voice strong and sure. “I knew the moment I saw you that you were the one.” But this time he went on. “The one I’d always love. The one I’d always dream about. The one I’d always wish was mine.”

  One of my friends gasped. From the corner of my eye I saw them clutching at each other.

  Wes stared me down hard. “It was snowing the day we met. February twenty-fifth. A Tuesday. You were wearing a black shirt with a picture of a pineapple on it. You smiled at me, and I thought, ‘My God, the most beautiful girl in the world just smiled at me.’”

  “Wes,” I wept. “Stop. We just weren’t meant to be. It’s too hard. It’s too much.”

  “I knew the moment I saw you that you were the one, Hannah. I walked away then because I was too scared to tell you how I felt, and I’ll walk away now because it’s what you want, but you listen to me.” He pulled me closer. “I don’t care what anyone says. I’ve loved you since the day I met you, and I’ll love you until the day I die. And I will never, ever believe it was supposed to be any other way.”

  And then he kissed me. Like he should have done then. Like he’d never kiss me again.

  And he walked away.

  “Oh. My. God.” It was either Margot or Georgia who said it, but I was covering my face with my hands so I wouldn’t have to watch the second love of my life leave me.

  You made him leave. You chose this.

  Maybe I had. But at least I hadn’t been blindsided this time.

  “Are you okay?” My friends came to me, stroking my arms, patting my back, hugging me as I cried.

  “No,” I sobbed. “I’ll never be okay again.”

  “Oh, Hannah.” Georgia looked like she was about to cry too. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Me too. That was…” Margot paused. “I don’t even know what that was.”

  “Intense,” Georgia supplied.

  Margot nodded. “And sad. Heartbreaking. He’s loved you all along?”

  “He says he did.” But it only made me feel worse.

  “That’s some heavy baggage,” said Georgia. “He was in love with his brother’s wife?”

  “He met me first,” I explained, trying to get control of my breath. “But was too shy to ask me out.”

  “Oh my God.” Margot clutched her heart.

  “And then I met Drew, and he swept me off my feet.”

  “You’re killing me.” Margot fanned her face with both hands, like she was trying not to cry. “This entire thing is killing me.”

  “It killed me too, when he told me. I’d had no idea.” I sniffed, looking around for my purse with Margot’s handkerchief in it. Spying it on the ground about three feet away, where it must have landed when I fell, I scooped it up and dug through it.

  “And that woman at the bar…” Georgia faltered.

  “Oh, God.” I took out the handkerchief and wiped my nose. “It makes me sick that he was with her.”

  “Drew actually cheated on you with her?” Margot asked. “You’re sure?”

  I nodded. “He confessed.”

  “No wonder you got so upset.” Georgia rubbed my back again. “But maybe it was like Wes said, just a drink set up by his mom.”

  “Doesn’t matter.” I steeled myself against any inclination to believe him.

  “I so wanted you to give love another chance,” Margot said softly, brushing my hair off my face.

  “I almost did.” I shook my head as the tears came again. “God, you guys. I’m a mess.”

  “You’re not,” insisted Georgia. Then she paused. “I mean, right now you kind of are, but you’ll get through this, Hannah. I know you will.”

  “But I love him,” I sobbed. “What am I going to do about that? I love him. And he w
alked away.”

  “He walked away because he thought it was what you wanted,” Georgia reminded me gently. “Not because he doesn’t love you. He does.”

  “Is there any chance you can work this out?” Margot asked. “I can’t stop feeling like this isn’t over.”

  “No. It’s over,” I said, squeezing my eyes shut. “It never should have started.”

  Twenty-Three

  WES

  I was seething.

  I drove home, blood boiling in my veins. How could I have been so stupid? How could I have hurt her like that? How could I have lost my chance with her, the only woman I’d ever love?

  You fucked up.

  But I hadn’t meant to! I didn’t know she would be so upset about the stupid dinner! And I had no fucking idea about goddamn Becca, whom I’d left sitting at the bar after throwing a twenty dollar bill at the bartender and storming out. How could Hannah think I’d betray her like that?

  Because she’d been betrayed like that before, asshole.

  I frowned and pounded the heel of my hand on the steering wheel. I was furious with Drew for cheating on her. Furious with myself for leading Hannah to believe I wouldn’t choose her over anybody. And furious as fuck with my mother, who was about to bear the brunt of my rage.

  I barged into the house and strode into the kitchen, where she was making dinner. “How could you do that to me?”

  She feigned innocence as she set a pot of water on the stove. “What?”

  “How could you set me up like that?”

  “Wes, don’t be so dramatic, darling. It was just a drink. I thought it would be nice for you to get out of the house. Meet some new people. You’ve been so down this week.”

  “I was down this week because Hannah asked for time apart. Because you made her feel bad.”

  “I didn’t do anything to her.” She continued moving about the kitchen like everything was fine.

  “Yes, you did. You said cruel things when she came to get Abby on Sunday. You shamed her, and you scared her.”

  “I didn’t say anything she didn’t deserve to hear.” Taking a peeler from the drawer, she started peeling potatoes in the sink. “If she felt bad, it was because she heard the truth from me.”