Hannah patted his arm. “I like you just fine at two in the morning, drunk or otherwise.”
“Let’s make a pact,” he said, leaning his head on her shoulder. “If we’re both still single when we’re thirty, we’ll get married to each other.”
Hannah had learned the hard way that Will didn’t make pacts lightly. She had once made a pact with him on a whim and ended up spending spring break building houses in Mississippi instead of partying in Fort Lauderdale.
“But I already have you penciled in as my man of honor,” she said, nudging him with her shoulder.
He laughed. “I guarantee I will look much better in a tuxedo than a bridesmaid dress.”
“I don’t know.” She gave him a once-over. “Plum would look good on you.”
He turned to her, his expression playful. “Afraid to marry me, Abbott?”
She narrowed her eyes. He knew she liked a challenge. And there wasn’t really a downside to this pact. By thirty, she’d either be married already or she’d get to marry Will. He wasn’t bad to look at, and they had fun together. It could work.
“Fine. Let’s make a pact,” she said, holding out her pinky finger. Without a pinky promise, there was no pact. Rules were rules.
Instead of linking his pinky around hers, Will kissed her, soft and hesitant. He paused with his lips still on hers. They weren’t friends who kissed. Hannah felt her heart speed up, confusion and longing and relief mixing in her veins. She leaned into the kiss, letting him deepen it just so. There had been a time when this was all that she had wanted. Could it be that way again?
Will pulled away, fixing her with a grin. “I thought we should know what we’re signing up for.”
She rolled her eyes, her heart rate dropping down to a normal pace. Just Will being Will—that’s all. He pulled the sleeping bag over their legs. It was the two of them and the silence, and then she felt him link his pinky with hers—pact sealed.
“HANNAH?”
Hannah looked up from the blinking cursor she’d been staring at for far too long. Will wasn’t thinking straight. How could he just show up with a diamond ring and a marriage proposal, pact or not, after not seeing her for five years?
“What’s up?” Hannah asked, smiling up at Riley.
“You wanted to talk to me before I left for the day?” Riley said, bouncing between feet.
Fuck. This was not what she needed on top of everything else. “Oh, right, yes.”
“Great, I just have to pee... again. So meet me in my office.”
Once Riley was out of sight, Hannah made her way over to her boss’s office and took a seat on the couch. She flipped through a tattered copy of an old Spin edition on the table—Riley’s husband’s first cover—but she couldn’t focus. Instead, she leaned back and counted the cracks in the ceiling, trying to piece together what she had to say. Any way she phrased it, this was not going to be a fun conversation.
A few minutes and twenty-three ceiling cracks later, Riley ambled—waddled, when out of earshot—into the office. She patted her stomach, saying something quietly to the growing baby inside before easing herself into the oversized armchair she’d forced her husband to drag up four flights of stairs during her first pregnancy. Hannah had been an intern then, just out of graduate school, and one of only three staffers at the yet-to-publish-an-issue Deafening Silence New York, the offspring of the small but well-loved Los Angeles–based Deafening Silence.
That had been five years ago—five years of New York’s finest indie music scene. Since then, the staff had bumped up to ten. Hannah had gone from intern to staff writer to columnist, finally settling in as the Long Island section editor last year. It wasn’t the most glamorous gig, but she had gotten to interview bands like Taking Back Sunday, Brand New, and Nine Days—not that anyone remembered who they were until she sang the chorus of their single. It was a lot of growth for five years, and editor by thirty was nothing to frown at. Still, Hannah felt the itch for bigger things, better bands, and a salary that did more than keep the electricity on.
“What is it this time? Did Henry pitch the Halloween feature on the Amityville House again? Did Anita spell ‘Hauppauge’ wrong for the thousandth time?” Riley rolled her eyes, but her tone was endearing. “Do you need another intern?”
On any other day, these topics would’ve sent Hannah straight to Riley’s office. “No, the team is fine. I’m actually... well, I’m checking in on what we talked about a few months ago.”
She didn’t have to look up to know that Riley was wringing her hands. Her boss had done it the entire conversation last time while making promises they both knew she couldn’t keep, both of them agreeing to believe the lie. Until today.
“Nothing’s changed. The management team in LA is focused on starting editions in other regions, but we don’t have the investors. Without investors, we can’t expand to Boston, Chicago, Austin. And without expansion, we have no money.”
“Without money, you can’t fund health insurance.” Hannah sighed. They’d been talking in circles for a year. “I know all this, but it’s been two years already. Do you know how much I pay for the barest of minimum plans right now? If anything happened, I would be in serious trouble.”
“I know, Hannah. And I know I promised you I would do everything I could when we made you editor to get you insurance, but the higher-ups are just not... it’s not in the plan for at least the next year. Boston is their priority right now.”
A year. That meant another year of downing vitamin C at the first sign of sniffles, fearing that every ache would turn into something requiring medication, and forcing her knee into compliance with RICE.
When she’d quit Starbucks two years ago to take on the more demanding columnist position, she’d not only lost the extra income but the health insurance to go with it. As a staff writer, she hadn’t needed to keep a second job, but Starbucks had kept her insured and supplied her with free coffee. It had also given her a built-in space to conduct interviews. But as a columnist, she couldn’t manage both. She’d been on the cusp of leaving Deafening Silence—even going as far as to polish and preen her resume and collect writing samples—when the editor position had come along last year. The pay increase had also helped convince her to stay despite the lack of benefits. She hadn’t planned for a car accident and a bum knee.
“How do they expect to hire a team in Boston without a competitive benefits package?” If things weren’t so dire, Hannah would have rolled her eyes at herself. Competitive benefits package?
“They’ll bring in people from the other editions, take on interns and freelancers,” Riley said, still wringing her hands, “just like we did when we came to New York.”
“You can’t build a magazine on interns.”
Riley smirked. “But we did, didn’t we?”
The compliment warmed Hannah, even though she knew it wasn’t the whole truth. Yes, she’d done way more than any normal intern would have been expected to. Riley had thrown her into the Warped Tour press tent in her first week with a simple “Have fun. Don’t act starstruck.” It had only gotten crazier from there.
“Deafening Silence wasn’t built on me.”
“No, not entirely. But without you, well... I probably would’ve left a long time ago.” Riley sighed, and Hannah finally looked up. The tears she’d heard in Riley’s voice were real. Riley moved her hands to the right of her belly where she could feel the baby best. “Which is why I should’ve said this to you two years ago—we can’t give you what you need. If you have to leave, I can make some calls.”
She meant it. Hannah knew Riley, and though Riley didn’t want to see her leave, she would help Hannah go. Deafening Silence New York was Riley’s baby—she’d literally moved across the country to start it five years ago when the editorial board decided they wanted an East Coast addition. And while her husband had continued to write for big-name music magazines, Riley had stayed the course. That didn’t mean she expected anyone else to stay with her. But this was New York City—half the jobs were being covered by interns or freelancers, and the other half had thousands of applicants. It didn’t help that Hannah was either vastly overqualified for many of the positions or lacking several years’ experience despite her editor title.
Just as Riley had avoided saying that line for two years, Hannah had circumvented the reality of her situation. She couldn’t stay. Open enrollment season was only a few months away. Thanks to her thirtieth birthday, the dirt-cheap plan she had would disappear, leaving more substantial plans with higher premiums. She could afford one if she sold her car.
“I should go check and make sure Henry didn’t try and slip that feature into the layout again,” Hannah said, turning on her heels. The weight of Riley’s stare followed her out of the small office.
