“What was that?” he asked after they pulled away.
She ignored the breathiness of his voice and shrugged. “I wanted to know what I was signing up for.”
Chapter 7Will
Leave it to Hannah to make their second first kiss sloppy and confused and flavored of everything bagel. The kiss hadn’t been unpleasant—he didn’t think there was any way that kissing Hannah could be unpleasant—but it hadn’t been earth-shattering. It didn’t live up to the memory of that graduation-night kiss; it was not a kiss you told your children about. He shook his head, chiding himself for the thought. This wasn’t about that. And it might never grow into that. No matter what he had once felt for Hannah, he needed to keep his head on straight. But the little details of Hannah burned in his memory—her inquisitive golden-brown eyes when she caught him watching her, the freckle on the crest of her right cheekbone, and even the pen marks littering her right hand.
Hannah stood and held her hand out as if the kiss hadn’t happened. “Come on, I want to show you something.”
She chattered incessantly from the moment they got on the downtown subway until they skirted Washington Square Park. Even with the students and the tourists, the park smelled of freedom and creativity. Or maybe that was just the scent of weed wafting off half the hipsters they passed. He didn’t miss the hipsters. As Hannah led them down a side street, he could already imagine her office building—quaint, classic, full of stories waiting to be uncovered. Why Hannah wanted to show him where she worked, he wasn’t exactly sure. The magazine she worked for was small—he was ashamed to say he’d never picked it up, though he’d seen it a few times. It was unlikely they were the Google of magazine offices, but she’d insisted, and he was kind of excited to see how she lived.
She unlocked the office doors with a key—not a swipe or fob, but a physical key. Musty, stale air, heavy with the scent of hardwood and old city brownstone, greeted them. The scent took him back to long ago production nights in the Brown House with Hannah and a mismatched group of wannabe journalists. He wondered if Hannah had felt the same way when she first walked in, if she felt it still, and if it somehow grounded her to this publication.
She sat down at one of the smaller desks with a picture of a coworker and her girlfriend in one corner. “When I started, this was my desk.” She rubbed her thumb over a worn spot that on closer inspection showed her initials carved into the wood. “I’d finished my masters, and Deafening Silence was just opening in New York. It looked so much like the Brown House here, and Riley was young and broken and determined. It became like home. Five years later, I feel more like myself between these walls than I do in my apartment.”
He waited for her to continue, to add to the end of the statement, to give it meaning. Loving your job was a privilege not afforded to many, but to love it more than your home life felt an uncomfortable balance. Even with everything that had happened these last few months and the even more tenuous ties to his family, home was still better than work.
“There’s... I-I need health insurance,” she said after a few false starts. “My job doesn’t have benefits. I can’t afford the marketplace plans, and I have a chronic knee injury.” She grimaced at his expression. “I was in a car accident and injured my knee over a year ago, but without insurance... it’s been too long of me trying to fix the problem myself. Honestly, at this point, I probably need surgery.”
“So, it has to be legal,” he said, parroting her words back to her.
She nodded. “It has to be legal and include access to your health insurance, which I’m assuming you have.”
“Yes, I have health insurance,” he said slowly. Health insurance had been on his list of reasons Hannah might agree to get married, right under his good looks, pity, and financial and criminal trouble. “My brother Daniel is also a doctor, so we can get you in fast and with some of the best if you don’t already have a preferred ortho.”
She smiled, tentative and shy, but Will could sense the tension around her fading, an almost nervous energy radiating from her in its place. “Should we have some ground rules?”
Will’s heart pounded in his chest, in his ears, and at the base of his wrist. Hannah had agreed to marry him in not so many words. He hoped she couldn’t see the sweat beading at his temples or the excitement oozing out of every pore. He never dreamed she would agree. Well, maybe dreamed. He pulled his thoughts back to Hannah’s actual question. Ground rules for marriage—how romantic. “Whatever you want, Abbott.”
Chapter 8Hannah
Ground Rules for Our Marriage:
We will remain married for one year.
We won’t be assholes about money should we get divorced.
We may not date other people.
Binx is allowed to sleep in the bedroom.
Our friendship is the most important thing.
Sometimes college seemed like ages ago, another life, or a different track that couldn’t possibly have ended up here. But then Hannah would make some joke that only Kate would get because it had to do with that one night at that one party with that one guy, and it felt present again. They’d aged out, not grown up. Sitting back in her apartment with Will, debating ground rules for their made-up marriage, she felt on the cusp of going both backward and forward. He sat contentedly on her couch, alternating between petting Binx and flipping through pages of Netflix suggestions. Simple actions, really, but Brian could never—would never—sit with Binx or scratch his ears. Binx didn’t purr often when other people were around, but he purred now, loud and deep.
She tapped her pen against the list. Five things. That couldn’t be all there was to a marriage.
“The list is fine,” he said. Hannah heard the opening chords of Netflix’s creepy new show. “It’s not like we’re signing anything into law. We can always amend it.”
“Yeah, but I have a more rigorous list of requirements for the pet sitter.” She put the pen down and noticed little blue spots dotting her palm.
“Well, Binx is a hard-ass.” Will ran his hand down Binx’s spine, causing the cat to arch his back.
Hannah rolled her eyes. “Clearly.”
“I’m sure we could come up with a whole page of things to add to that if we really tried. But I do think it’s this simple. We’ll be married for at least a year—enough time to get me my board seat and secure it with a whole slate of meetings, long enough that we can handle anything that comes up regarding your knee, and long enough that no one will question the validity of the marriage. Neither of us will be a jerk, and we’ll just find our own way. I’m pretty sure most people who get married don’t have a list of rules.”
“Yes, but they’ve usually been in a relationship for a while.”
“We were best friends for three years. We basically lived together for a semester senior year.”
“Will.”
“Fine.” He picked up the pen and pulled the paper toward him.
Hannah watched him scribble a few things, growing more incredulous by the letter. He couldn’t be serious. But he was, because he was Will.
Ground Rules for Our Marriage:
Number 1: We will remain married for one year.
1a. We can choose to stay married for an as yet undecided period at that time.
Number 2: We won’t be assholes about money should we get divorced.
