Page 120 of Be Your Anything
What I want from her.
Why she should forgive me.
Truthfully, all of those things sound like shit. Absolute shit. So when Wyatt shows up at my house, I feel like the gods have given me a proper sounding board.
“Thanks for coming by today,” he says, parking his bike on my patio and then dropping down into one of the loungers next to mine.
I shake my head. “You shouldn’t be thanking me, man. Honestly, it’s something I should have done a long time ago.”
“Well, all I know is I came home to a happy little sister today.” He shrugs. “That’s because of you, so whether you want my thanks or not, you have it.”
I nod, take a sip of my drink, and then rest my head back on the lounger. We both sit in silence for a while.
“Hannah mentioned you’re gonna teach her how to surf?” he asks.
I nod. “Yeah. It was Paige’s idea.” I examine the contents of my glass. “A way to bond over something that could be shared with our dad.”
“She’s nervous about it.”
I chuckle. “Why? You saw her on that snowboard going down the dunes on bonfire night. She’s gonna be fine.”
Wyatt shakes his head. “It isn’t that. She’s nervous because this might be the only real thing you and your dad had that she wasn’t a part of.” He shrugs. “She doesn’t want to let you down.”
I look out at the lights floating distant in the ocean, the handful of cargo boats moving through the water in the dark of the night.
“She could never let me down.”
Wyatt doesn’t respond, and we sit in silence for a little longer before I manage to ask the question I’ve been dying to ask. The one only Wyatt can answer.
“How did you know Hannah would give you another chance?” I ask, peeking over at him.
He laughs, rubs the back of his neck. “I didn’t, but I hoped. I hoped I’d be able to convince her.”
“And if that letter hadn’t worked?”
“I would have been on a plane out to Phoenix. Might have even gotten to that bus station before she did, and then I would have spent however much time I needed to spend there trying to show her I was serious about what I said.”
I let out a sigh, thankful that my friend loves my sister as much as he does.
“I need to figure out how to do the same with Lennon,” I say.
Wyatt looks in my direction, his brow furrowed. “Lennon? What happened with Remmy?”
I bark out a laugh. “See, this is the difference between male friends and female ones.”
He gives me a confused look, and I just shake my head, deciding it’s clearly time to fill him in.
So I tell him about Lennon and Remmy and the root of the open relationship and the pregnancy and my conversation with Lennon yesterday that has me gearing up for a long battle to convince her of how I feel.
“Shit.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s…a lot.”
“I know.”
“I don’t know if I really have any ideas for you, man,” Wyatt says, picking up my drink off the side table that sits between us, taking a sip.
