Page 19 of That Reunited Feeling

I reach out again to touch her. This time, as if sensing I’ve finally grasped it, she doesn’t move away. She lets me wrap my fingers around her upper arm. “After a while, when I got myselftogether and decided to stay there, I just figured you’d have moved on.”

Seventeen years of heartbreak behind her eyes rip right through me. “Didn’t have much choice.” She shakes her head slightly and her mouth quirks up at one corner. There’s that dimple again. “And boy, did my life change.”

“You named him after Bob, right?” Instinctively my thumb slides back and forth across her arm, stroking her, doing what little I can to soothe her hurt.

This time I get a full smile, one filled with love and pride. “Of course.”

I can’t bear the thought of what I unwittingly did to her. And I can’t bear that she hates me for it. But she’s obviously a devoted mother. “He seems like a good kid.”

“He has his moments.” She straightens, like she’s just remembered she should be pissed off with me. “Anyway.” She sniffs and moves her arm out of my grasp. “I need to go.”

I can’t let her leave now, just when her armor has cracked a little and there’s something I can work with to lessen the tension.

I could do without having to deal with any of this at a time when most of my emotional energy has already been wrung out of me, but I need to give it a shot.

I grab the bowl and spoon. “Just let me finish getting some food together for you. Please. There’s no point spending your hard-earned cash in the grocery store when a lot of this will go off before we can even eat it.”

She says nothing but doesn’t show any sign of actually leaving.

“Makes sense, right?” I try again. “For you to take some?”

Being broke and unable to disagree with the logic, she gives me a reluctant nod. “Sure.”

“Good. This’ll take me a few minutes.” I can spin this out, buy some time to try to repair at least a tiny bit of the damage. “I just saw some wine in the fridge. How about you open a bottle and we have a glass while I do it.”

I’m not the only one who would benefit from an improvement in the atmosphere. Being stuck with me and hating me the whole time can’t be any good for her either.

“No, thanks.”

I place the glass bowl on the marble counter with a clunk. “Would you really prefer to stand there awkwardly till I’m done?”

She shrugs the shrug that means she wants to do what I’ve suggested but also doesn’t want to back down. At least that’s what it always used to mean. But maybe she’s a completely different person with completely different mannerisms now.

“At least having a glass of wine would occupy your hands.”

She throws her gaze to the ceiling and sighs. “Okay.”

“Great. Just don’t open anything with a homemade label. That shit is lethal. As I discovered on my first night here.”

She walks around behind me to get to the fridge, her electric aura prickling my back as she passes. “Is that why you ended up wandering the hallway naked?”

“Thank you for reminding me of that.”

“I’ve never seen anyone grab their crotch so quickly in my life.” There’s a clink of bottles as she takes one out, decides against it, and switches it for another. “Not that I haven’t seen it before.” She closes the fridge door and pulls a corkscrew from a drawer.

She can’t think I forgot about that, can she? That, although we never went the whole hog, there had been some hand action.

I pick a baby dill pickle out of the bowl and hold it up to her as she takes two glasses from a cabinet. “Could we please not discuss my genitals while I’m dishing up salad?”

And there it is. The Hannah smile that comes from her heart. One at my expense, but I’ll take it. It lasts for only a fraction of a second before she yanks herself back under control, but it was there. Perhaps there is hope I can smooth things over.

She slides a glass of white wine along the counter toward me. I pick it up to tap it against hers, but she turns and strolls around to the other side of the large island.

I hold it up anyway. “Cheers.”

“Please don’t propose a toast,” she says, taking a sip to preempt it.

“You can’t stop me.” I raise my glass higher. “To renewing old acquaintances.”

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