Page 86 of That Reunited Feeling

“Hopefully he’ll think it’s cool,” Hannah says.

“Could even be valuable when he’s older,” Hugo says, wincing as he stretches out his left leg and rubs his knee.

“Hugo’s learning about investments,” I tell Hannah. “But this one”—I give her a quick peck on the cheek, prompting a groan from Hugo—“is all you.”

“I love it so much.” A pink flash blooms in her cheeks as she almost bounces in her seat.

“I’ve never even seen this myself.” The Japanese release of the first Four Thousand Medicines album has the title in beautiful Japanese characters. The cover’s been signed by each of the band members, and one of them has written, “We love Japan!”

I use the corner of theOverlord Hybridscover to point at the date scrawled below the message. “That coincides with their first tour of Asia.” A flood of memories of the early, nervy days of the business hits me. “Man, I remember wondering whether that was a good idea. I was terrified they might bomb out there.”

“And how many millions did it make?” Hugo asks, leaning back as the server sets his burger and chips in front of him.

“A very nice number of them,” I tell the man whose last contract was tens of millions a year, and hand the albums back to Hannah. “So incredibly cool. Excellent choices.”

“By the way.” She slides them back into the bag and rests a hand on my thigh—a warm, gentle touch that’s so easy, so natural, it feels like it’s been there all my life and will be there for the rest of it. “You also bought a rare Sex Pistols album for a guy with blue hair named Bez. He’d been looking for it for nearly ten years and couldn’t have been happier if I’d told him I was getting him a house. You got a Brooks and Dunn album for Maria, whose husband died three weeks ago—it was the first gift he’d ever given her, but it got lost in a move years ago, and she was desperate to track down a copy to replace it. And you treated Abe to a signed copy of John Coltrane’sLive at the Village Vanguardbecause he wants to teach his grandson about jazz. And also because he was actually at that show in 1962.”

“Wow,” Hugo says, a forkful of chips hovering halfway to his mouth.

I pick Hannah’s hand off my leg and kiss it. I simply could not adore this woman more.

If I’d given Louisa a blank check to go shopping, she’d have come back with a shedload of stuff just for herself.

Not Hannah. She picked one thing for herself, one thing for her son, and then spread the love to other customers. And came back with the reasons and beautiful stories of why she did it.

Holy fucking hell. She has the biggest heart and the truest spirit.

“That’s about the loveliest thing I’ve ever heard. And it’s exactly what I should have expected. Thank you so much for doing it.”

“Oh, it was my pleasure,” she says as if it was nothing. “I just wished you could have seen how happy you’d made them all. It gave me the biggest kick. I guess it had never really occurred to me that having money means you can make other people happy as well as yourself.”

“And again,” Hugo says, shoving in the chips. “Wow.”

The server returns with my chili and garlic bread, and Hannah’s fish and chips. He doesn’t even glance at Hugo, which is why we’re at this particular pub. It’s a small, out-of-the-way place off the paparazzi path. Hugo’s been coming here for years, ever since he lived around the corner and was a nobody on a lowly apprentice wage. The locals and staff are so used to seeing him they don’t bat an eye at his megastar presence now. And they keep it quiet that he’s a regular.

“I just need to run to the restroom quickly.”Hannah picks up her purse and heads to the back.

She’s barely six feet away when Hugo asks, “She’s the one, right?”

He picks up the burger and sinks his teeth into it.

“Absolutely not,” I scoff. “The exact opposite of that.”

“Yeah, sure,” he mumbles through a mouthful of food, then closes his eyes in pleasure as burger juice runs down the side of his hand. “The upside of being out of the game—being able to eat whatever the fuck I want.”

“I told you,” I loud-whisper at him, one eye on the door to the loos, “it’s temporary. A relationship of convenience. Bringing something that was never properly concluded to a conclusion. And, you know”—I rip off a piece of garlic bread and dunk it in the chili—“enjoying ourselves.”

“Pfft.” Hugo shakes his head and wipes his mouth with a napkin. “Youneverlooked at Louisa the way you look at Hannah. Never. Not once. In all those years. Not one time. Not for a single secon?—”

“Okay, okay. I get the gist.”

He leans toward me across the table. “And she’s fucking awesome. She could have taken a truckload of records from that store, and she picked two.Two.” He stabs a chip with his fork and points at me with it. “Diamond.”

“I know.”

“So, what’s your problem?”

“My life’s here. Hers is in the States.” The garlic bread leaves trails in the chili as I swirl it around. “And about to be even farther away, in California, because her son’s enrolled in a clinical trial for an ear condition.”

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