“I suspected that about her.” Tyler looked at me and it felt like he was peeling the skin off my body, the flesh off my bones. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it was strange. Like he knew more about me than he led on up until now.
An awkward silence fell between us, while Tyler just stared at me. My mother moved and stood behind his back, mouthing to me.
“What’s going on?” She pointed between me and him with her finger. Then Dad walked in and interrupted us. He was dressed in jeans and a simple white t-shirt. I was so used to seeing him in suits that he looked like a different person. He shook Tyler’s hand and quickly caught up with the topic.
“Lauren loves to show people that picture,” then Harry Spencer focused his attention on me. “We didn’t have time for our talk.”
“Next time.”
“I could drive you to the airport. Grab some coffee and talk it out,” he suggested.
I shook my head. “The taxi will be here any minute.”
Dad just nodded and didn’t say much else after that. Ten minutes later we sat in the car. I let out a long relaxing exhale. Tyler reached over and cupped my knee.
“I didn’t know you were so weird around your Dad.”
“You are weird around your entire family.”
“That’s true,” he said, squeezed my knee gently and dropped the subject.
Hours later, he still hadn’t said anything to me about our dating situation. I didn’t want to be pushy, but I had been dreaming about a date with Tyler for so many years, I just had to broach the subject.
“Are you going to ask me out or what?” I asked a little more sharply than I intended. Tyler’s loud laugh made people turn to see who was making so much noise. I blushed under their disapproving eyes.
“I might,” he teased.
“Fine. I can play that game too. Let’s see who will cave in first, Hartley.” He leaned back in his seat nonchalantly and closed his eyes. He looked so handsome, I couldn’t stop watching him. “But I have to warn you,” I continued. “Patience is my strong suit.”
A huge grin formed on his face, but he kept his eyes shut.
“It really is, isn’t it?” He murmured and slept for the rest of the flight back to Boston.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Hannah
Three weeks after the wedding and four official dates with Tyler later, I walked out of my office building with a bunch of colleagues. Tyler and I were still seeing each other almost every day, even if it was for an hour, but it was a Friday that day and I knew what that meant. No Tyler tonight. That was the only day out of the week that we never saw each other.
“Do you want to go grab a drink?” one of my colleagues asked.
“Only if Hannah takes us to her boyfriend’s place,” another one laughed. Tyler had waited for me after work a few times and most of them had seen him already.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I corrected calmly for what felt like a thousandth time.
Tyler never approached the subject of labeling what we were doing, and I didn’t want to poke him about it. I guessed it was a pretty huge deal to him to even call it dating, let alone a relationship. Bringing my noisy colleagues to his workplace and having them call him my boyfriend didn’t seem like a good idea.
“Oh, come on. That’s the first evening this week that he hasn’t come to wait for you after work.”
“That doesn’t make him my boyfriend.”
The conversation went back and forth for longer than I wanted. I had no desire to spend the night with them and preferred to go back home than be grilled about my relationship status, so I did exactly that.
I ate standing up at my kitchen island, thinking about my current situation and the idea that got stuck in my head ever since my first trip back to California this summer. I wanted to quit my job. The first time I thought about doing it was when I realized how much I enjoyed being back in California. I imagined quitting and leaving Boston. Then things with Tyler escalated and I wanted to explore where they might lead us.
But the truth was I felt unsatisfied with the work I did. Most of my clients came from privilege. They had problems, yes, but I craved working on something really challenging. Like coaching single mothers. Or young people coming from poverty or foster homes, who wanted to achieve financial stability. Those people couldn’t afford to pay my boss’s fees.
My phone buzzed.
Tyler: Are you free tomorrow? I have an idea.
I smiled and started typing back an answer. My thumbs hovered over the phone screen, a thought forming in my head.
Hannah: I want to quit my job. Do you think I could?
Tyler: Not on a Saturday.
Hannah: I’m serious.
Tyler: Do it. What’s the worst thing that could happen?
Hannah: No one hiring me again?
Tyler: You could always work on your own.
That was one of the things I loved so much about Tyler. He could make serious matters seem easy to navigate. Working on my own, would be amazing. I could choose my clients.
Hannah: Are you sure you can’t come over later?
The need to see him, just be close to him, overwhelmed me.
Tyler: I can’t. I’m all yours tomorrow.
Are you? I wanted to ask but didn’t.
I knew I shouldn’t act like a needy, possessive crazy woman, storming into his work place uninvited. On a Friday. When the bar was full to the brim. I also knew that Chloe would probably be there with all her off-putting self. And yet I wanted to see him, even for a few minutes. So I didn’t text him back. Instead, I walked over to my bedroom to change.
As I thought, the bar was crowded. It was pouring outside, so it smelled of sweat and wet hair. There wasn’t a single free table.
I walked over to the bartender. He recognized me from the previous times I had come and smiled at me.
“He is in his office,” he shouted over the noise. “Go,” he cocked his head towards the back door.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” he nodded. “He instructed us to let you in there whenever.”
My heart flipped inside my chest at the sound of that.
“Okay, thank you.”
I walked over to Tyler’s office and knocked. No sound.
“Ty,” I cracked the door open. He wasn’t there.
I thought of waiting at the bar counter for him, but he specifically told the staff to let me in whenever, so I decided to invite myself into his office. I left the door open and sat down in front of his desk. His office looked like his apartment. Empty. Soulless. No pictures. No personal belongings.
Twenty minutes passed and nothing. A weird feeling crept up on me. Like something bad was about to happen. Like I couldn’t see something that should be grabbing my attention.
Taking my phone out of my purse, I caught a glimpse of my keychain. Tyler’s keychain. The poppy inside it looked as fresh as always. I couldn’t believe almost ten years had passed since I made it.
What would he think If I gave it back to him? Would he figure out I was in love with him for the second time around?
It was too soon. Too messy. With his sister being my best friend. With our history. With all the things we wanted differently in life.
I threw my keys in my purse again and checked my phone for messages or calls.