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Hannah paused.
Why was she hesitating? She’d told Levi she wanted a divorce, and she did. Didn’t she?
“Talk to me again when the answer is yes,” Noelle said. Hannah heard her clomp up the stairs to the loft bedroom.
“Okay. I guess that’s that.” She started to walk away. Miriam came after her, Kringle slinking along between Miri’s legs.
“You can talk to me, if you want.”
Hannah shook her head, her braid whipping. “I can’t talk to anyone. You’re Team Levi. Noelle’s pissed. I can’t talk to his parents about this because that would be unfair. Who’s here, Miri? Who am I supposed to go to?”
“Why do you assume I’m Team Levi? Because I’m still his friend? We’ve been friends since we were born, remember? Am I supposed to hate him? Also why is there even a Team Levi?”
Hannah turned on her heel and glared at Miriam until Miriam threw up her hands. “Fine! Don’t talk to me. Go talk to Marisol, or, hell, call Tara! She gives weirdly great relationship advice.”
Marisol worked at the boutique in Advent and hung out with Noelle all the time, so she was out. Whatever Noelle had already told her about Levi was probably true but definitely not unbiased.
Tara Sloane Chadwick was Miriam’s former fiancée, an icy blonde she’d left in Charleston when she’d moved home to Carrigan’s and been swept off her feet by Noelle. She and Hannah had started to build a real friendship. They were both highly competent women other people thought were bitchy, going through shitty breakups.
It was kind of Miriam’s fault. Miriam had fallen in love with Hannah’s best friend, and now Hannah needed new friends. She liked Tara. Tara was a stone-cold bitch on the outside but she had surprisingly insightful input on relationships. Also, she didn’t live in their tiny bubble, which was amazing.
Unfortunately, she didn’t think her friendship with Tara was up for middle-of-the-night freakouts about boys, and she didn’t want to explain to yet another person that she was secretly married. So she was going to go to bed, because she had a very important client coming the next morning, and she was going to try to sleep without imagining Levi’s hands all over her skin.
But if she imagined it a little, who would ever know?
When she got to her room, Blue was sitting on the floor next to her door, his knees up and his arms wrapped around them. His head was resting on the wall, which was covered in vintage parrot-patterned wallpaper. A parrot looked like it was about to nest in his hair. His eyes were closed, long dark lashes resting against his cheeks, those slashes of eyebrows relaxed for once. He looked the way he used to, when she would watch him sleep.
“LB,” she said, trying to sound annoyed but only managing exhausted. “Haven’t you caused enough of a scene tonight?”
His lashes rose, and he looked up at her, his face breaking into a smile. The kind of smile he saved only for her, the “I’m so glad you exist” smile. She instantly tensed, on guard against her own reaction to him.
“I wanted to check on you and apologize. I didn’t mean to ruin your seder. I know you worked hard planning it.” He didn’t stand up, didn’t try to get into her space. He just sat there, in the middle of their hallway in the middle of the night, being casually thoughtful. What was she supposed to do with that? “Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?”
She rested her forehead against the door. “If you really want to do something, it would help if you made yourself scarce tomorrow. I have the governor’s daughter, Delilah Davenport, coming to tour in advance of her wedding festivities. I very much need you tonotmake a scene while she’s here.”
He chuckled sadly. “Aye aye, Captain. You won’t even know I’m in the inn.”
“I highly doubt that,” she muttered, unlocking her door.
He stood up, shoving his hands in his pockets.
“Nan,” he said quietly. He waited until she looked at him to say anything else.
“You asked me why I’m back, and I left out the most important piece of information, because it seemed obvious. I’m here because you’re the love of my life, and every minute of my life that I’ve ever lived without you sucks so much more than any minute with you, even the worst ones. I just…thought I should say that. While we weren’t naked, or screaming, or both. That I love you.”
She froze. Him entreating her that he loved her was so much different than him yelling at her that she was his wife. So much harder to guard against, here in the dark.
It hurt, so she lashed out. “I believed you when you told me that once, and your version of love destroyed me. Your love is poison, Blue. I don’t want it.”
He blew out a breath. “Good night, Hannah. I’ll try not to see you in the morning.”
How many nights could she cry herself to sleep, she wondered, before she ran out of tears in her body?
The next morning was dreary, the snow having turned into a slushy rain, the sun in hiding. Her tour had been delayed by the bride getting a late start because, as she’d said when she called, “who gets out of bed on a day like this?” Hannah couldn’t fault her for that logic. Still, she’d been on edge all day waiting to begin, wondering where Levi had holed up. Even when she couldn’t see him, he was destroying her calm. She kept hearing his words from last night, echoing in her head.
Focus, Nan. Get through this tour. This is the most important event you’ve ever booked,she told herself once she was walking the governor’s daughter around the space.
“Normally we set up the ceremony outside, but as you can see, we have lots of room both in the great room or the barn, depending on the size of the wedding, to move indoors in case of weather. The staircase provides a nice bit of drama for the bride, if you have a small enough ceremony.”
