She cleared her throat. “Yeah. I’d rather not.”
“Okay. I’m going to walk the place.”
“Do you need me?”
He arched a brow. “If you think there are things that you should point out. Otherwise I’ll try to see what I can find on my own.”
She blinked, taking in the changes to his face. The lines that crinkled by his blue eyes, the deep grooves by his lips. He was the same height as he’d been in high school, but he was thicker now. Broader. He did physical labor, so she supposed that she shouldn’t be surprised he was in excellent shape. But it was a little bit confronting.
He looked... Better. Better even than he had then.
What does it matter how he looks?
It didn’t.
“I’ll walk with you,” she said.
She had managed to avoid the guy every time she had come back to town before now. And now she had hired him. And was apparently digging in to the hiring of him. Because not hiring him would be stupid, and would also reveal the fact that she...
She felt something when she looked at him.
That was silly. She’d been hit with a wave of nostalgia upon seeing him, because who... Who didn’t feel that way about their first?
And there were just other things tangled up in him that she was never going to be able to sort out.
She cleared her throat. Awkwardly. “So. What’s... What’s been going on with you?”
He turned, one brow lifted. “Just... In the last nineteen years?”
“Yeah.”
“Not much.” He turned away from her.
“I’m in the Boston Symphony Orchestra,” she said and wanted to pull the screwdriver out of the back of his pocket and stab herself.
He might not be trying to impress her, but apparently she wanted to impress him.
She did not do things like that, especially not with men.
Now he was just making her feel...not herself. Insecure and younger and not the accomplished, confident woman she was.
“I know you are. I think my mom has a picture of you on her fridge. That she took off of a brochure.”
She laughed. “Really? I mean, I wouldn’t have thought your mom would...”
“You thought she might hate you?”
“Yes.”
“She did.” He turned toward her again, and this time he smiled. “She got over it. Because it’s been a long time. And mostly she’s proud of you. Because you went and did what you said you would.”
She noticed that he didn’t say he was proud of her.
Do you need your ex-boyfriend to be proud of you?
“Right.”
“Good for you,” he said. “Not very many people do.”
She didn’t know what to say. Because she realized that she didn’t actually know for sure what all he had wanted. He’d talked about staying close. He’d talked about loving this town.
I can’t stay close.
But you’ll be back.
Maybe I won’t!
They’d fought about it. So much. He’d told her he’d wait, and she’d said he had to come with her.
To a college I can’t afford? Where I can hang out and be your deadbeat, townie boyfriend?
Everything had seemed clear and easy before Josh and he’d made her feel like she was breathing around knives. She hadn’t known what to do.
Until you blew it up.
“You...own your own business.” Realizing full well that her tone made it clear she’d just given him the verbal equivalent of a participation trophy.
“You don’t have to pretend to be impressed, Hannah. I’m well aware that I don’t impress you.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“I knew it then. I know it now.”
“Maybe I don’t actually think about you that much.”
That earned her another look. And something twisted low in her stomach. And she knew that she thought about him about as much as he thought about her. Which was perhaps more often than either of them would like.
She had hurt him.
She wished that hadn’t been essential. But it had been. She’d had to make a clean break, a real break. Her violin wasn’t the home wrecker. It wasn’t the diversion. She’d given up her childhood for it already. Had given up normal long before Josh. Her sacrifices had already been endless. He had been unplanned and completely useless to her goals.
She’d made a choice to be tougher. To get refocused.
“I’m sorry that I was an asshole when I was seventeen. Who isn’t?”
He huffed a laugh. “I swear I don’t walk down the street with a Hannah shaped chip on my shoulder.”
She believed that. It had been a long time. But he’d...known he was going to see her and he had to have had a feeling about that. Given his reaction to her.
She crossed her arms, as if she was trying to shield herself for the response of what she asked next. “Did you prepare a speech? For this. You knew we were going to see each other.”
He turned to face her, crossed his arms over his broad chest. “Maybe.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“No. Because this has already gotten weird.”
“Joshua Anderson,” she said. “If you have been saving up a speech for me for nineteen years then I deserve to hear it.”
“Fine.” He turned to her, shoulders square. “I’m happy. I did exactly what I wanted to do. I built a life here. I took care of my mom. My dad died, but I bet you didn’t know that. But it made it so I couldn’t leave, even if I had wanted to. I took care of my mom, and I took care of my sisters, and I’m proud of what I did. And you were right. We wouldn’t have worked. Because I would have made you miserable, every day of your life. And you would have looked around at what I think is paradise and seen nothing but your broken dreams. So, thank you. For breaking my heart then. So that you didn’t have to do it later.”
Her lungs deflated. “I did not know your dad died. I’m sorry. My mom never told me.” Her mom wasn’t one to share news from town, that was for sure.
“She probably
