by Kim Karr
Hannah Michaels
The idea hadn’t exactly come out of left field.
Jace and I had spent New Year’s Day together discussing it, and how each of us felt about it.
In the end, we decided it was the best course of action, and the wheels were put in motion.
While I went home for two days, Jace hopped on a bus to Kalamazoo to stay with Ethan, and then he would hitch a ride back to school with Ethan’s parents.
It was during those two days he planted the seed. Neither of us knew if Ethan would be into it, but both of us thought he might.
Back at school, five days passed and nothing on the Ethan front, but Jace and I were spending more and more time together.
Much to my delight, he had officially changed his major to computer engineering, and we had three classes together. And even more to my delight, he usually picked me up at my dorm room and walked me to class. Afterwards we’d eat lunch together or grab a coffee. And then he’d come back to my dorm room to hang out or study.
I still slept at their house, and I still met Jace in the kitchen at night, but he was no longer bringing random girls home to fuck. The issue then was he knew I was fucking Ethan, and this often got him all riled up. In the late hours of the night, I would breathe in and breathe out with him, and that would calm him down.
On the first Friday night back, Ethan and I were laying in his bed watching a new porn movie he’d bought over break when he paused it.
“Hannah,” he whispered, running his fingers over the strap of my camisole.
“Yes,” I said.
“I have an idea I want to run by you. You don’t have to say yes. It’s just a thought.”
I sat up on my elbows and pulled the plaid comforter up a little more. “What is it?”
Sheepishly he shook his head. “Never mind.”
“Ethan, tell me,” I insisted.
Reaching in his nightstand drawer, he pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a clean ashtray. He only ever smoked one a night, and it was usually after sex.
Not tonight.
Smoking wasn’t the only hidden vice he had, but he was a clean-cut boy with a clean-cut image that he liked to keep intact. From the outside you had no idea he had dirty magazines under his bed and porno movies in his cabinets.
Being the gentleman that he was, he offered me the pack first, and I took one. I didn’t usually, but this time I did.
I let him light it for me, but didn’t bring it to my lips.
Ethan lit his own cigarette and inhaled the smoke deep in his lungs before letting it out in a series of rings. “Jace thinks you’re hot.”
The cigarette in my hand was bothering me, so I reached over Ethan and set it on the ashtray next to the picture of him with his parents outside their little brick house. “Does he?”
More smoke rings. “Definitely.”
I gave him a thoughtful look. “Does that bother you?”
He took another long drag, and only after he blew the smoke out did he answer. “Nope.”
There was nothing for me to say, so I averted my eyes to the television screen where the picture was frozen on a girl lying on her back with two men eating her out. Usually Ethan liked the two girls, one guy setup. This was a deviation from the norm, but I had not commented on it. I knew why.
After he stubbed his cigarette out, he asked me, “What do you think of him?”
The room was dark except for the glow from the television, and I focused on the neat stack of books on the other side of the room. “I like him, you know that. I think he’s a great guy.”
It was not a lie.
Not at all.
But if anyone asked me if that was the whole truth, I would have had to say no. I more than liked him.
Ethan lit another cigarette. “If you weren’t with me, would you be with him?”
This took me by surprise, and still not looking at him, I shifted my gaze to the basket of clean clothes near his closet. “I don’t know.”
It was the truth. Chances were good we would have never reconnected if it weren’t for Ethan.
“Do you think we should break up so you can find out?”
If shock was what he was going for, he’d succeeded, and I swung my gaze to look at him. “Do you want to break up with me?”
He leaned back on the bed and took a sip of the beer he had beside him. “No, not at all. In fact, I want to watch you with him.”
Grabbing for his beer bottle, I took a long pull, and then handed it back to him. “Do you?”
The tent in Ethan’s boxer shorts happened almost immediately. “Yeah,” he breathed, completely turned on by the thought.
The reaction I allowed to be seen on the outside was cool and collected, but on the inside my body swirled with heat. “You want to watch me fuck someone else?” I clarified.
Taking one last drag of his second cigarette, he quickly blew it out. “Sure, unless you want to fuck us both? That would be really hot.”
This was college. Everyone did what they wanted. Being with two guys wasn’t that unusual anymore, just like a guy being with two girls wasn’t either. Still, I had to swallow against my then dry throat before I could answer. Was I going to do this? It so wasn’t me, but then…I let the unfinished thought sit there. “If you want me to, I will.”
It came out like it might be a hardship, and I hadn’t meant for that to happen.
Ethan stubbed out his cigarette and came close to nuzzle my nose. “I think you might really like it. I mean the things two guys could do to you at once.”
The nod I gave him was more definitive. “You never know. I might.”
There was a long silence as Ethan shoved his cigarettes back into the drawer. “I’ll talk to Jace, and if he’s game I’ll set it up for tomorrow night.”
The plan had worked.
Ethan thought it was all his idea.
“Okay,” I said, and gave him a chaste kiss. “Now how about we finish the movie?”
Something was off about him, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. What I had agreed to was what I knew he wanted.
I’m not sure if he wanted to have to convince me of it a little more, or maybe he knew what he had asked was exactly what I had hoped for. “There’s a Law and Order marathon on, mind if we watch that?” he asked.
I sank back into my pillow. “No, not at all,” I said with a smile.
We both fell asleep before the first episode ended, and when I woke in the middle of the night, I made my way down to the kitchen.
Jace was there just like I knew he would be.
As I told him about the conversation I had with Ethan, I knew what he and I had done was wrong.
The rush of guilt I felt would follow me for a long time…
Yet in the end, it wouldn’t be what crushed us.
13
Present Day
Jace Bennett
Nostalgia had never been part of my DNA.
Yet, I found myself going through old pictures instead of working, as I usually did late at night.
Clicking through the digital snapshots taken during the four and a half years I’d spent at Michigan State, I stopped on a picture of Ethan, Nick, and myself.
The three of us looked so young, and like such chumps. We were sitting on the porch of the old house we lived in, holding beers in our hands, and toasting to something we would never even remember five minutes later.
Back then though we had very few obligations. Life was easier. Too bad we hadn’t seen it that way. Now, we were grown up, and life was nowhere as easy as it once had been.
I zoomed in on the photo and stared at Ethan’s goofy grin. Hard to believe that guy was the Ethan of today. Ethan, the attorney, got married right on the heels of my own wedding, but only because he had knocked Fiona up. They’d only just met. Lucky for him, the two of them turned out to be a perfect match. Ethan and Fiona were happy with Max, and didn’t want any more children. Their life was just what they wanted it to be.
My
gaze shifted to Nick and his tough guy smirk. He grew up next door to my mother’s family, and although he came from nothing, you’d never know it. Out of all of us, he’d changed the least. Nick, the businessman, made a fortune in real estate development. He got married about two years ago to Fiona’s best friend, Tess, and they’d already had two children. He and Tess were also a perfect match. Tame and intent, they’d decided on a family of six and were well on their way to achieving it.
Then there was me, the wildcard. No one ever knew what to expect when I was around. My life was nothing short of a shit show. There had been anger. Confusion. Loneliness. Rebellion. And there had been women. A lot of them—until I met Hannah. She made me see how different my life could be if I let someone in. After Hannah left me, I drowned myself in the same old misery. But then I met Tricia, and she became the one for me. Ethan and Nick warned me that rebound relationships never worked out.
Again, being the wildcard, I proved them wrong.
Clicking on the next picture, I shook my head and laughed out loud when it popped up. Nick and I were wrestling on the raggedy old carpet in that crappy house we rented. Ethan was snapping photos for the sake of documenting our youth, he’d said. The truth was he hated getting down on the dirty floor. I laughed out loud. He was more of a lover than a fighter.
With my hand gripping the mouse, I clicked again. As soon as the next picture loaded, I had to close my eyes. When I reopened them, I couldn’t help but smile. The photo was of Hannah and I drafting the platform structure for my thesis. Ethan was astonished I cared that much about anything and felt the need to document that as well.
Dick.
Wait! I take that back, he wasn’t the dick, I was. I cared about more than my grades back then. I cared about his girlfriend…he just hadn’t known how much.
So I was the dick.
That very familiar guilt began to suffuse me, but not over Ethan this time. That had been put to rest. This guilt was different. This was about Hannah. This was about Tricia. And it cut much deeper.
When the doorbell rang, I quickly closed the viewing app on my computer and wheeled around in my chair to glance out the window. The sight of the white Infinity SUV caused my breathing to increase tenfold.
Now what?
Ignoring the bell wasn’t an option. There was the fact that the constant ringing would wake Scarlett, and then there was the fact that my body hummed at the thought of seeing Hannah, and I couldn’t deny that I wanted to.
Hustling down the stairs, I held my breath as I opened the door. Holy fuck, but her beauty nearly knocked me on my ass.
That hair of hers hung long and straight around her heart-shaped face. Her top was slightly sheer and clung in just the right places. And those jeans. Those jeans were tight. Tight in all the right places. She wore earrings that dangled and a necklace that sparkled.
If she had dressed to catch my attention—she had succeeded.
However, what struck me most of all was that this time her features didn’t seem to hold any hostility or anger. That didn’t mean she wasn’t pissed. I mean, why else would she be here? She just didn’t look as angry as she had over the past week.
“Hannah,” I said, keeping my voice low.
She shifted, as if uncomfortable with the close scrutiny I was giving her. “Can I come in?” she asked.
“Yeah, sure,” I replied, and moved to the side.
Yes, I stared at her ass when she walked past me, and yes, I felt a familiar yearning I tried to deny.
Nearly plowing myself over, I made sure to get in front of her. “Follow me,” I said, and walked toward the family room.
Keeping her distance, she stopped just before a chair. “May I?” she asked, pointing to the club chair Tricia loved to sit in because she could curl up into a ball when sitting in it.
As my eyes skittered to the mantel and over all the pictures of Tricia on it, I had to push her from my mind, and only then did I offer, “How about we go into the kitchen?”
She tucked a piece of that hair I loved to run my fingers through behind her ear. “Sure.”
Feeling a little off kilter, I led her past the dining room and into the kitchen. “Would you like a drink?” I asked, feeling a jab in my gut I wanted gone.
Sitting down and twisting her fingers together, she was without a doubt, nervous. “No, thank you, this won’t take very long.”
“What happened at school now?” I asked bluntly, running a hand through my hair in frustration that the two of us were pretending to battle over our children, when we were clearly battling over ourselves.
When she almost smiled, I knew I could relax. Scarlett must have not said or done anything inappropriate, or there was no way Hannah would have been looking like she wanted a truce. “Nothing bad,” she said. “In fact, I think Jonah and Scarlett have decided they want to be friends.”
Crossing my arms over my chest, I leaned against the counter. “That’s great news, I think.”
This time she laughed. “Crisis averted…for now. But anyway I came over tonight because Jonah told me you offered to help him learn how to play football.”
I scratched my head. “Yeah, about that, I probably should have asked you first, but he was just so excited.”
She sighed. “Listen Jace, this whole thing between us is a bit awkward, but I’m just going to come out with what I came over to say.”
Jumping to my own conclusion, I narrowed my gaze. “You aren’t seriously going to give me shit because I did something nice, are you?”
With a shake of her head, she put me at ease instead of in my place. “No, I appreciate what you did. I really do. It’s just that Jonah’s father is not involved in his life, and he tends to get attached to people, especially men, very easily.”
My brows popped. “And you want to make sure he doesn’t get attached to me?”
“Yes, I mean no.” She was exasperated. “What I’m trying to say is I just want you to understand the situation.”
Warning bells went off in my head, and yet I found myself moving closer to sit beside her. “You want to make sure if I promise him something, I don’t fuck it up and not carry through with it.”
Even though Hannah bit her lip, she couldn’t stop the corner of her mouth from turning up. “Not quite how I wanted to phrase it, but yes. Listen, I don’t want to come across as expectant or needy. It’s perfectly fine if you don’t have time to spend with him. All I ask is that you …” She shook her head, “well, he’s gotten his hopes up too many times in the past only to have them crushed again.”
The thought of reaching across the table and grabbing her hand in reassurance caught me off guard. So much so that I pushed my chair back and stretched my legs to get some distance. Then I found her gaze. “Tell me what you did after Michigan State.”
She blew out a deep breath and her own gaze bounced around my kitchen, from the floor to the ceiling, and finally back to me.
It was a very personal question and we weren’t even friends anymore, but I never did care about boundaries. I wanted to know. “Hannah,” I urged. “Tell me. What did you do? Where did you go?”
Finding my gaze narrowed on her, she kept eye contact, and finally spoke. “Well, I graduated as planned.”
I nodded. “Good. I’m glad.”
The smile she gave me was sad. “But that was about all that went as planned.”
“That’s life, isn’t it?”
She laughed a little. “Yes, I suppose so. In my case, instead of heading to Seattle or Redmond or any of the cities with major computer hubs as I had planned, I took the easier path and went back to Grand Haven.”
Shock rocked me. I really thought she’d end up working for Google or Apple or Microsoft. That was her dream, and she was so determined. If anyone would have accomplished their dream, I thought it would be her. “Why?”
“Why does anyone do anything? During my senior year, I had isolated myself. I felt so alone, that after I graduated, I just wanted to be near my mo
ther. There weren’t many job opportunities there though, and going to work for the Crestfalls only made sense. I don’t know if you remember, but my mother had worked for them her entire life.”
Like a light bulb switching on, it came back to me. Crestfall. Hannah Michaels, now Hannah Crestfall. How had I not made the connection days ago? “The couple who owned the paper mill with the douchebag son who screwed you over in high school?”
Sadness gleamed in her eyes as she nodded. “That douchebag son became my husband.”
“You married that asshole? Why?”
She nodded. “I had gotten pregnant. I didn’t really love him, and he definitely didn’t love me.”
“Hannah.” It was all I could say.
That sadness only seemed to magnify. “I wanted my child to have a father, unlike I’d had. And Adam’s parents wanted a legitimate grandson. He only married me to avoid being hassled by them, and to avoid being cutoff, if I’m being honest. He left town as soon as Jonah was born.”
Flinching, I couldn’t stop the anger coursing through my body from surfacing. “Why the hell would you have ever gotten together with him in the first place after everything he put you through?”
Twisting her fingers together on the tabletop, she spoke just above a whisper. “To be honest, I don’t know why. I was lonely, and he was there. It’s nothing more profound than that. I didn’t love him. He didn’t love me. Anyway, after our divorce, his parents still wanted to be a part of Jonah’s life. And I let them. Unfortunately, what I didn’t know was that they were making promises to Jonah about his father that I could not possibly allow them to keep.”
Kids didn’t deserve the shit adults put them through. I knew that first-hand. Struck with some unidentifiable emotion for both her and her son, I moved my hand across the table. As if that wasn’t bad enough, before I knew what I was doing, I then wrapped my fingers around hers. “I’m sorry, Hannah, I’m so fucking sorry…about everything.”
I had no idea what I was saying, or even what the hell I meant by that. For some reason I felt to blame for the path she had taken.
She shivered from the contact and stared down at our joined hands for a long while before standing up and forcing us apart. “I should go. I have a babysitter watching Jonah. I just came by because I really wanted you to be aware of Jonah’s situation.”
