Page 13 of Love Me

“Hello, Hannah, nice to hear you’re your usual snarky self. Very cute. How’s our granddaughter?”

“Thank you, warden, I do try my hardest for you. Charlie is doing amazing, loving preschool, learning so much, and making friends. Complete opposite of her mother.”

“That’s great, that’s what we love to hear. And how is Levi?”

My teeth gnash at the inside of my cheek to keep from losing my mind. She asks this every week when she calls, and my answer is always the same.

“I wouldn’t know. Levi doesn’t come around often, and he hardly calls anymore.”

“Well, you know, if you didn’t work so hard, and focused on raising Charlotte, things would be easier. No one wants to have a long-distance relationship, Hannah. If you just put in some effort with him, maybe he would come home.”

Always the same conversation. Over and over and over again.

“It was Levi’s choice to leave, our lives are here.”

“Yes, but to provide for his family, Hannah.”

“No, mom. It wasn’t. It was a selfish decision that I wasn’t even a part of when he made it. Charlie and I are doing just fine by ourselves. More than fine.”

She sighs into the phone, no doubt to make sure I hear her disappointment through the speaker. I feel like a robot on repeat, going nowhere fast.

“You can’t continue to run yourself into the ground, Hannah. This nonsense has gone on for far too long, and you can’t do it all on your own. Not to mention what a travesty it would be for Charlotte to be raised without a father. Either you get it together and make things work with Levi, or you are coming to California with us. End of conversation.”

God, does she even hear herself? I am surviving just fine on my own, raising Charlie and running Bean Haven. Why the hell can’t anyone see that? She’s always been like this, refuses to see that pushing me towardherversion of happiness and success isn’t what works for me. I’m living my happy life, with a joyful, healthy daughter. But I don’t want to lose Bean Haven if that’s what she is truly threatening. This place is deeply rooted in the marrow of my bones, and if they take it from me because I don’t meet their outdated expectations of what my life should look like, I don’t know what I would do.

I don’t even want to think about having that conversation with my grandmother. Just the thought of her no longer being with us and her bakery being sold is enough to steal the air from my lungs, the pain squeezing tightly. I would do anything to keep Bean Haven.

I haven’t even given a single thought to moving to California,because it’s not an option. I wouldn’t—I couldn’t—leave Aspen Ridge, even if they take Bean Haven from me.

“No, mom,” I object, my voice monotone and withdrawn. “Charlie and I are happy in Aspen Ridge, our lives are here. Please trust me. We are thriving, and I am figuring things out.” Quickly changing the topic, I add in over her audible huffs of disappointment, “Will you be coming back to Aspen Ridge for Charlie’s birthday party?”

She sighs again before answering, and I have to pull the phone away from my face so that I don’t freak out on her. Bringing it back up to my ear just in time to catch her reply, I roll my eyes and let my shoulders sag in relief.

“We wish we could, but we just can’t make it work to hop up there for just a weekend. We will be back for the summer in the last week of May, and we’ll take her out to celebrate and spoil her. I’ll call her on her birthday, okay?”

“Sounds great, Mom. We’ll talk soon then, k? Thank you for calling, it’s always such a good start to my week.”

The moment I click “end” on my phone, I drop it on the counter, let out a frustrated wail, and stomp my feet.

“Whoa! Everything okay?”

A startled, high-pitched scream bursts from my lungs as I turn and come face-to-face with the gigantic, tattooed, muscled mass of a man in a leather jacket. His long hair is combed back and pulled into a ponytail, a few stray strands falling around his face, his beard thick and scruffy. To a stranger, they’d assume this big bad wolf would be here to eat them alive and use their bones as toothpicks, but his soft emerald-green eyes give away that he’s really just a bunch of gooey melted chocolate on the inside.

“Dammit, Reid! I think I just peed my freaking pants! For fuck’s sake!”

“I thought you heard the bell. I didn’t mean to scare you.Then you screamed and I thought you were hurt so I came running back here.”

“Not hurt. Not physically at least,” I sputter, rolling my eyes and walking into the café area. “Parental bullshit. They want me to marry Levi so that Charlotte is being raised the ‘proper way,’ with both mommy and daddy in the same house,” I confess, my tone dripping with condescension. “Oh! And they’re holding Bean Haven over my head to get me to comply.”

Reid rubs the back of his neck as he walks to the front of the counter so I can take his order and get it started. He’s been best friends with Liam’s older brother, Sawyer, since Sawyer was in college. A few years ago, he opened up a tattoo shop a couple blocks up the street from me called Rogue, and pops in a few times a week to satiate his sweet tooth and get a coffee fix.

“I know something about difficult parents, pretty sure I’m the poster child for doing the opposite of what they envisioned for me.”

“What, lawyer daddy not proud of his tattoo artist, motorcycle-riding, tattooed-from-neck-to-toe son?”

“Somethin’ like that,” he says, fairly sheepishly. “We just need to live the life we want. We’ve only got one of them and it’s a privilege to wake up every day.”

“So wise, big guy. But I’m in the mood to burn shit down. I’m so over being fucked with. Anyway, your usual?”

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