Page 115 of That Reunited Feeling

I wasn’t planning on falling for Hannah. But I’m stuck with it now. I can’t ignore it. I have to deal with it and figure out a new future.

Hannah is my bum knee—not that romantic, but if that’s what it takes for me to realize I’m being a fucking fool, that’s what it takes.

I reach for my phone on the nightstand to check the time. Taking great care to avoid the glass of water.

I might not have wanted to bump into the love of my life that morning—particularly while stark naked—but it’s beenimpossible to extract myself from her gravitational pull ever since.

And just because Hannah doesn’t trust men and thinks her role as Dylan’s mother—as vitally important as it is—is the only thing she can be, that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t at least try to show her otherwise.

I close the laptop lid.

If I can put Louisa and her nonsense behind me, I can put Hannah in front of me.

“No. I am absolutely not going to find out the address for you.” Jude rams her hands into her overall pockets with a defiance associated with mules.

She’s the only person I know who might have the address of Rachel’s new house. And if she doesn’t, as she claims, she could subtly find out for me.

“I get that you hate me, I do,” I tell her. “But I’m crazy about Hannah. And I have to find her so I can tell her.”

“Pfft.” Jude throws her gaze to the ceiling. “Yeah. Just like you were crazy about her before, then disappeared to London, and she never heard from you again.”

Oh my God, is there no one who can let go of something I did when I was six-fucking-teen?

“Look.” I rest my hand on the shop counter. Something soft and damp squishes under it. My palm is now coated with wet soil. Great. “That’s not how it will be this time, I promise you. And that’s what I’ll promise her.”

“Ask her yourself.” She yanks a withered leaf from a plant sitting at eye level on the shelf beside her. “She hasn’t changed her number.”

“There’s no way she’d tell me.”

“Exactly.” Jude moves behind the counter and drops the leaf into the trash can. “Because she doesn’t want you showing up on her doorstep.”

I sigh and try to knock the brown sludge off my hand. “Is there anything I can do for you?” Maybe she’ll take a trade. “Like, do you need…” I look around the shop. “New shelves, more stock, a new delivery van, or something?”

Jude studies me and tips her head to one side. “You want tobribeme for Hannah’s address?”

Oh, God, yeah, that was probably how it sounded. “No, not at all. I was just?—”

“Forget it.” Her expression is that of a cat deciding whether to knock something fragile off a counter. “Totally not telling you.”

She picks up a roll of ribbon and winds a loose end back on like she’s trying to strangle the spool. “Blood is thicker than assholes.”

And that’s it. Fuck. My one and only lead on Rachel’s address. Gone.

Any lingering hope of getting it from Jude has joined the leaf in the trash.

But all hope can’t be lost—there has to be a way.

I turn and head for the door.

I twirl the tumbler of scotch around and around in circles on the kitchen island while my other hand drags across my laptop trackpad, walking me along yet another Los Angeles street.

The wind howls outside the dark windows behind me, the only light in the kitchen apart from the glow of my laptop coming from the under-cabinet lighting.

Hannah once showed me a photo of the view from the land where Rachel and her husband are building the house. It was on the side of a hill and looked out over the city. I remember her pointing out the ocean in the distance, and I still have a vague recollection of what the skyline looked like.

After stabbing around on the map forthree scotches’ worth of time, I’m finally in an area that looks out at a similar angle—if I’m even remembering correctly.

If only I’d paid more attention to it, asked more questions.

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