She breezes past me with a grin, smelling like spring and the promise of something beautiful. It’s intoxicating.
Hannah stops just inside and takes off her high heels.
I look down at my outfit, then at her. “I’m underdressed. And you look…” Adequate words don’t exist to finish that sentence.
“No, I’moverdressed. I haven’t been home since this morning.”
She moves through the living room. Her eyes survey the space as if assembling a mental list of everything that’s missing.
The pin I sent her earlier was instinct, but now I realize she probably didn’t need it. She’s been here before. “I bet it looks different than you’re used to seeing it.”
“What do you mean?”
She stops in the middle of the dining room beside the step-ladder positioned under the soon-to-be-replaced light fixture and turns to face me.
“I mean, I’m assuming you’ve…been here before. To visit Pops.”
Her lips twist in an almost smile. “No, actually. I only ever visited him at the lake house or we saw each other at the VFW.”
I nod, scratching my chin. There are so many questions I want to ask about my grandfather. But I also just want to spend time with her. Make sure she’s okay since last night. Maybe kiss her. Or maybe I shouldn’t?
“I don’t have much here besides beer and crackers, but we could order something if you want.”
“I already ate, but I’ll take a beer.”
“Okay, you can um…” My words trail off when I gesture at nothing. There’s nowhere to sit.Smooth, Rowan.“Sorry, I didn’t think this through.”
Her huff of amusement is soft around the edges. The smile that accompanies it leaves me lost for words.Again.
Without preamble, she fluffs her skirt like a princess ballgown and plops directly onto the floor. “I’m good right here.”
She settles onto one hip, legs bent beneath her. Leaning on a flattened palm, she hangs her head to the side and watches me.
Words come before I can yank them back in. “You’re really pretty.”Okay, lame.
Hannah’s laugh echoes off the barren walls behind me as I head to the kitchen. For a flicker of a moment it feels like the home bursting with life that I remember from my childhood summers spent here in Colorado. All warmth and joy and full to the brim.
Beers in hand, I return and sit cross-legged in front of her. We tip back our bottles, gazes locked, for long seconds before she finally averts her eyes.
She scans the paint cans along the wall. “What color you going with?”
I shrug. “Don’t know. Something white or off-white or?—”
“Not quite white,” she interjects over a sip, humor glimmering in the upturn of her mouth.
“Yeah,” I snicker. “Whatever white sells houses.”
Our smiles catch along with our eyes, the distant hum of the bedroom ceiling fan down the hall filling the silence. We get lost somewhere in our stare, inhaling every line and curve of the other’s face. I think it hits us both at once. We’re here. Together, in the same room. Breathing the same air. I never thought this would happen again.
“Hannah,” I exhale. “I don’t know where to start.”
Her whole face softens. She sets her drink aside and shifts so her back is to the wall, legs out in front, ankles crossed. Patting the space next to her, she says, “Come here.”
I sidle up beside her, my right pressed into her left from shoulder to thigh.
Her head falls to the side to meet my gaze. “How about I start?” I swallow, nod once. “I’m sorry. And I know you’re about to tell me I have nothing to apologize for, but I do. I see now how much you worried about him, and I could’ve lifted some of that weight by letting you know how he was doing, and I didn’t. I’m sorry for that.”
She gives me a crooked grin, already knowing what I’m about to say. “Can I say it now?”