Page 27

Chapter 27

Wyatt

I knock on the door while juggling a box of donuts and two cups of coffee, then step back to grin at the peephole.

Hannah pulls the door open and looks around me, clearly assuming I wouldn’t visit alone. “Wyatt, what are you doing here?”

“What are you doing?” I ask in return because even though I'm the one who showed up unannounced, she’s the one who looks out of character right now, acting all cagey and peeking around the door.

“I’m kind of in the middle of a project. Don’t you know people don’t do pop-ins anymore? You’re supposed to text.”

“How about you let me in? I brought high-quality bribes, and I need to talk to you.”

“You do?” She slowly opens the door, still searching the front yard for reinforcements. “Wait here, I need to put a few things away. Give me a minute.”

As instructed, I wait in the entryway while listening to the clanging sounds of frantic cleanup going on inside.

“Okay, you can come in now.” Hannah sniffs the air. “Please tell me that coffee is for me.”

There’s a large red plastic bin in front of the TV that I assume holds all the items she was hiding away. Her jumbo white board and bookshelf crowd the small eating area and couch. Looking around, it’s clear this woman’s brain is a stack of graph paper. I can’t help but smile at her piles of binders, notebooks, bins, and impressive rainbow of markers

Hannah grabs her coffee and embraces the cup. Her table is covered with Post-it notes with arrows connecting them together in an elaborate spider web of directions.

I pick up a red sticky note with the word “police” on it and look curiously at some tinsel hanging off her whiteboard.

“Are you planning to rob a bank?” I ask. She gives off a sweet vibe, but with her incredible research and organizational skills, she could be a criminal mastermind. No one would ever suspect her.

“Oh, please, do you really think I’d rob a bank? No, I’m planning a murder,” she retorts, completely nonplussed.

I gape at her.

“Just kidding. Well, sort of. I’m planning a murder mystery party. Do you want to come? Because if you do, you can’t look at any of this. What am I saying, of course you’re going to come.” She drags me approximately six feet into the living room and unceremoniously shoves me onto the couch with my back to the plotting.

Hannah is a huge planner, and she’s very visual. You give her a problem and leave her in a room with a dry erase board and some crafting supplies, and she’ll come up with a NASA-level solution.

I hand her the donuts. “You might need a bigger lair.”

“Don’t judge me.” She gives me a sassy smirk and tests her coffee.

“No judgement. It’s just a question. I take it things didn’t work out with you and Quincy.”

“No, but that’s fine. I think he’s convinced I'm some minor celebrity and left it open if I want to call him. But no sparks.”

“Can’t say I’m surprised. He didn’t seem quite right for you, but don’t give up. The right guy is out there, and Moxie seems like she wants to help you find him.”

Hannah nods her head but without conviction.

I drop that subject because she’s usually a chatterbox and her silence is giving clear “leave it be” vibes. She sets two plates on the coffee table and drops onto the couch, carefully opening the donut box. She falls silent as she deliberates. Time for what I came here for.

“I need your help, and the way I see it, you owe me.” I smile and snag a donut for myself.

She studies me. “I’m happy to do you a favor, but why do I owe you?”

“You set me up.” I let that hang there for a minute. “Don’t even try to deny it. You plucked me out of your past and waved Moxie in front of me so you could solve the feud and work this pact with your new friend. I was an unwitting pawn in your elaborate game. The last couple months of my life have been a Hannah Nelson production.” I wave my hand at her whiteboard.

Hannah sits back in her seat and wipes her face with her napkin, her head tilting as she looks off to the left. “But did I?” She smiles an evil little grin and leans forward. “If you really think about it, all I did was tell Moxie about you and then get her to the Expo so she could sign up with Shred and Tread. The rest was nature taking its course. She asked you out and you said yes, my friend, so I think it’s all on you.” Hannah eyes the rest of the donuts, clearly proud of her explanation.

“Are you denying responsibility?”

“For you falling head over heels for her? Absolutely.”

She’s downplaying her role, but I let it slide because she’s just sunk an arrow straight into my heart and doesn’t even know it. It’s true; I fell hard and fast, and then I blew it.

Hannah, distracted by her donut, doesn’t notice the change in my mood. “I think this has worked out great for all of us. The feud is over, and you’ve got Moxie. If anything, you should be thanking me.”

I thought Moxie might have told Hannah about the breakup, but clearly not. It worries me. She isn’t close to her family, and I’m pretty sure Hannah’s the closest friend she’s got around here. If she hasn’t talked to Hannah about us, that likely means one of two things: Either I never meant as much to her as I thought and I’m not worth mentioning to her friend, or she’s hurting without a support system. Neither is great.

Hannah still hasn’t looked my way and continues talking even with a mouth full of donut. “It’s like if a friend says, ‘I could go for some Mexican food,’ and I know this little place on Hilltop Drive that has a great enchilada. Of course I’m going to tell them they should check it out. That’s all I did.”

My mouth drops open. “Hannah Nelson, were you telling Moxie about my enchilada?”

“What? No!” She whirls around, her face turning a tomato red.

She’s so easy to rattle.

“Don’t worry, I’m giving you a hard time. You were right to set us up. She’s fantastic.”

“I knew it!” Hannah drops the last of her donut and bounces up and down like she won the lottery.

I let her have her moment before I break the news to her and ask for help.

The smile dies on my face. “It was going great, but I take it you haven’t talked to her or your mom today.”

Hannah checks her phone with a groan. “I missed a call from my mom, but it’s too early for me to face Stitch ‘N Bitch drama. I haven’t heard a peep from Moxie, but we worked different hours yesterday and she’s not really a morning person. What happened? Did the dinner with Noah and Mindy not go well?”

My muscles tense as my fight-or-flight mode activates. No part of me wants to relive our argument. I’ve tortured myself with enough mental reliving already, but I have to bring her up to speed.

“It started off great. Everyone hit it off right away, and Noah and Mindy told us they’re expecting. Can you believe that? They’re having a baby.”

“That’s great for them.” Hannah’s smile for this news is genuine, but her eyes are still full of concern.

“Then the conversation took a turn.” The whole story pours out of me. The argument with Noah that Moxie overheard, her dumping me because of it, and my failure to show up on time to work the next day. While I can barely bring myself to even think it, I even tell her about Noah’s plan to close Shred and Tread.

“Oh, shit.” Hannah drops down on the chair, her face turned down. “That’s a lot. I’m so sorry. I know Shred and Tread was everything to you.”

My eyes well up, and I try to discreetly wipe the moisture away. For the last twenty-four hours, I’ve felt myself falling into the same pit of despair I got lost in after my injury. That same drowning sensation has overtaken me. Pulling myself out of bed and coming here to Hannah’s was more of a monumental effort than I can say, but it’s my cry for help.

“He’s been trying to tell me. He’s been telling me constantly, and I still somehow missed it.”

Hannah bites her lip and puts a gentle hand on my shoulder before tentatively saying, “Maybe you didn’t want to see it.”

I look up at her, waiting for her to continue.

“I’ve known you a long time. Besides Shred and Tread, I've only seen you so passionate about one thing before.”

She waits for my reaction, and I grind my teeth, instantly feeling defensive. “I don’t want to talk about baseball. I’ve got enough terrible shit going on right now. Don’t make me relive my old nightmares, too.”

She winces and says the rest like she has to power through it. “I’m not great at this, but I think this is a tough love moment. Maybe you need to talk about baseball. Maybe if you’d talked about baseball anytime in the last several years, you wouldn’t be where you are right now with Shred and Tread.”

“I fail to see the connection.”

“It took a lot for you to get excited about the business after everything you lost with baseball, but when you did, you jumped in with both feet. I wonder if maybe, because of all that loss, you were so afraid of losing everything again that you couldn’t admit to yourself what Noah was telling you.”

Begrudgingly, I work my way past my raised hackles to consider this. It’s one thing that’s been plaguing me since my conversations with Noah. I may not be great with numbers, but how could I still not have heard what he’d been so plainly telling me? Shit, Hannah might be onto something.

“That... actually makes sense,” I admit. My head sinks into my hands.

“I’m sorry. I know it’s not what you want to hear.”

“I can’t go down this road again. You and Noah pulled me out of it, but it’s my life. I can’t give up on that yet. I’ll figure something out; I just need more time to think.”

She nods, her weak smile understanding. “Just to be clear, we were there for you, but you fought your way through the pain and disappointment. We just stood behind you so it was harder to slip back.”

Hannah gives my hand a squeeze.

“And Moxie?”

“She hasn’t called you?” I ask.

“No. You know how she is. She’s a closed book. She’s not going to rely on anyone unless they force her to.”

“I don’t want to lose her. I’m falling for her, and I swear she was happy with me. I’m sure of it.” I get up and pace the living room. “I don’t know what to do. I thought you might be able to help. I don’t want to be the jerk that doesn’t take no for an answer, but I’m worried. Can you check on her and make sure she’s okay?”

“I’ll call her.”

“If she needs time, I can give her whatever she needs, but I don’t want her to give up on us.”

“I know. I’ll see what I can do, but she’s a private person. If she doesn’t want to talk to me, I need to respect that.” She looks across the room at me, her eyes full of concern.

I wipe my hand across my forehead. “I didn’t want to do the fake dating thing, but that was all she was willing to do. From the beginning it’s been real for me. Now I don’t want to imagine my life without her. I’m sorry I’m dumping all this on you, but I don’t know what to do.” I get up and start pacing. “I was trying to go slow and not rush the relationship thing, you know? I thought I was hanging back, but then she flipped out.”

Hannah’s brow furrows in concern. “I’m so sorry. I’ll let her know that you’re worried about her.”

“You agree I should give her time to sort out whatever is stressing her out? You don’t think I should try to help her?”

“No, let me talk to her. Maybe she just needs time to process. Like you said, she had a hard time getting on board with a relationship to begin with. I know it’s hard because you care about her, but try to put her to the back of your mind for right now. Give her space. You’ve got other fish to fry. It sounds like you need to focus on Shred and Tread. Is there any way I can help there?”

“Actually, yeah.” I hold up a thumb drive. “I snagged some of the stuff from work that I failed to deal with before. Noah’s given up. I don’t blame him, but it means I can’t talk to him about it. I want to salvage things, but I have to understand them first and I’m not good with numbers. These spreadsheets go over my head.”

Her eyes light up at the word spreadsheets.

“Will you go over them with me?” I ask.

She extends a grabby hand out for the flash drive. “Of course. This is right up my alley.”

We spend the next two hours reviewing Noah’s budget documents, and finally I get it. I know what we need financially not only to get back on track, but to stay there. Now I just need to figure out how to make it happen.

“Do you want me to brainstorm with you?” she asks. “I love brainstorming.”

“No, thanks. You’ve done more than enough. I think I need to do that on my own. Can you forget that I came here all pathetic and needy?” I ask.

“You aren’t pathetic. Just don’t tell anyone about the murder party yet,” she says.

“Deal. I haven’t even asked, how are things going with you?”

She shrugs. “Pretty good, I guess. Glad the parents are finally getting along.”

I groan, and her mouth falls open.

“No, not them too! What happened?”

I tell her about my mom’s suspicions. “It didn’t sound promising.”

Hannah sighs. “If I could find somebody for real, maybe they’d let this go.”

I pat her shoulder. “If it makes you feel any better, once they find out about me and Moxie, it’ll be both our faults. And really, their fight shouldn’t be the reason you want to find a partner.”

“I know, but I’d have been dating anyway. I’m just not any good at it. I have no luck.”

“You’re still doing the pact, right? Maybe you’ll hit it off with one of Moxie’s exes,” I try to reassure her, even though I’m not confident that Moxie will want to continue setting her up after she and I broke up.

“We’re kind of a mess, huh?” she says.

“Yup,” I agree, staring into space and rubbing at my chest where my aching heart is pining for Moxie.

“Come here and let me give you a hug. Have faith. Things will work out.”

“I hope so. I’m going to take off, but thanks for your help.”

“I’ll let you know what she says, and I’m putting you on the guest list for the party!” she calls out as I walk toward the door.

“I’ll have to think about it. Last time you killed me with an icicle to the head.”

“Oh, that’s right. That was some of my best work!” She chuckles. “They can’t find the murder weapon if its melted.”

“Want me to drop that in the recycling?” I nod at the now-empty donut box on the table, but I don’t even hear Hannah’s response because the box has given me an idea.