When I was little, I’d drive my ent

When I was little, I’d drive my entire family insane by not sleeping for days before any holiday or big event. Nobody understood why. My exhausted mother would sit up with me night after night, begging me to just go to bed.
“Ziggy,” she would say. “Honey, if you go to bed, Christmas will get here sooner. Time goes faster when you’re asleep.”
But it never seemed to work that way for me. “I can’t sleep,” I’d insist. “There’s too much in my head. My thoughts won’t slow down.”
I’d spend the countdown to birthdays and vacations wide awake and anxious, pacing the halls of our big house while I should have been asleep upstairs. It was a habit I’d never outgrown.
Saturday wasn’t Christmas or the first day of summer vacation, but I was counting every day, every minute as if it were. Because as pathetic as it sounded, and as much as I hated that I was looking forward to it, I knew I’d see Will. That thought alone was enough to find me up every night, wide awake at the window, recounting the streetlights to his building.


I’d always heard the first week after a breakup was the hardest. I hoped that was true. Because getting Will’s message on Tuesday night—You’re all I can think about anymore—was torture.
Could he have texted the wrong number by mistake? Or did he say that because he ended up alone, or because he was with another woman, but thinking of me? I couldn’t exactly be angry, and my initial self-righteousness over the prospect of him texting me while he was with Kitty faded quickly; I, too, had texted him when I was on my dates with Dylan.
The worst part was that I had no one to talk to about it, really. Well, I did, but I only wanted Will.
The sun had dipped low in the sky on Friday night as I walked the last few blocks to meet Chloe and Sara for drinks.
I’d tried to put on a brave front all week but I was miserable, and it was starting to show. I looked tired. I looked sad. I looked exactly how I felt. I missed him so much that I felt it with every breath, felt each second pass since I’d last seen him.
The Bathtub Gin was a small speakeasy in Chelsea. Visitors were greeted with an everyday storefront, the words STONE STREET COFFEE stenciled across the top. If you weren’t sure what you were looking for, or happened to pass by during the week when there wasn’t a crowd of people lined up outside, you might miss it. But if you knew it was there, illuminated by a single, glowing red bulb, you’d find the right door. One that opened up to a Prohibition-era club, complete with dim lighting, a steady hum of jazz, and even a large copper bathtub at the center.
I found Chloe and Sara sitting at the bar, drinks already in front of them and a gorgeous dark-haired man at their side.
“Hey, guys,” I said, sliding onto the stool next to them. “Sorry I’m late.”
The three of them turned, looked me up and down before the man said, “Oh honey, tell me all about the man who did this to you.”
I blinked between them, confused. “I . . . hi, I’m Hanna?”
“Ignore him,” Chloe said, sliding the menu across the bar to me. “We all do. And order a drink before you talk. You look like you could use it.”
The mystery man looked appropriately offended and the three of them argued among themselves while I scanned the various cocktails and wines, picking the first thing that seemed to fit my mood.
“I’ll have a Tomahawk,” I told the bartender, noticing in my peripheral vision the way Sara and Chloe looked to each other in surprise.
“So it’s like that, I see.” Chloe motioned for another drink and then took my hand, leading us all to a table.
In all reality, I’d probably just hold my cocktail for most of the night and absorb the comfort afforded by the option to get completely hammered. But I knew I wanted to race tomorrow, and no way was I going to run hungover.
“By the way, Hanna,” Chloe said, gesturing to the man currently watching me with curious, amused eyes. “This is George Mercer, Sara’s assistant. George, this is the adorable and soon-to-be-drunk and/or facedown-on-the-table Hanna Bergstrom.”
“Ah, a lightweight,” George said, and nodded to Chloe. “What in the world are you doing with this old boozehound? She should come with a warning label for girls like you.”
“George, how would you like my heel up your ass?” Chloe asked.
George barely blinked. “The whole heel?”
“Gross,” Chloe groaned.
Laughing, George drawled, “Liar.”
Sara leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Ignore them. It’s like watching Bennett and Chloe, but though they’d both rather screw Bennett than each other.”
“I see,” I murmured. A waitress placed our drinks on the table and I took a tentative pull from my straw. “Holy crap,” I coughed, my throat on fire.
I downed almost an entire glass of water while Sara watched me, appraising. “So what’s happening?” she asked.
“This drink is so spicy.”
“Not what she meant,” Chloe said bluntly.
I looked down at my glass, tried to focus on the tiny specks of paprika floating along the surface and not the hollow feeling in my gut. “Have you guys talked to Will lately?”
They each shook their head but George perked up.
“Will Sumner?” he clarified. “You’re banging Sumner? Jesus hell.” He motioned to the waitress again. “We’re gonna need another glass, lovely. Just bring the whole bottle.”
“Actually, I haven’t talked to him since Monday,” Sara said.
“Tuesday afternoon,” Chloe volunteered, pointing to her chest. “But I know he’s had a crazy week.”
“Uh-oh,” Sara said. “Didn’t he go home with you for the holiday?”
George sucked in a breath. “Yikes.”
And now I was that girl, the one with the breakup story I didn’t even want in my head, let alone as something to share over drinks. How did I explain that things had been perfect that weekend? That I had believed everything he said? That I had fallen in—I stopped, the words hardening like concrete in my thoughts.
“Hanna, honey?” Sara reached forward to set her hand on my forearm.
“I just feel like an idiot.”
“Sweetie,” Chloe said, her eyes full of nothing but concern. “You know you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
“The hell she doesn’t,” George snapped. “How are we all supposed to make his life appropriately horrible if we don’t know every sordid detail? We should probably start at the beginning and work our way to the horror, though. First question: is his cock as epic as I’ve heard? And the fingers . . . are they truly quote-unquote magical?” He leaned closer, whispering, “And rumor has it the man could win a watermelon-eating contest, if you know what I’m saying.”
“George,” Sara groaned, and Chloe glared at him but I cracked a smile.
“I’m sure I have no idea what you mean,” I whispered back.
“Look it up on YouTube,” he said to me. “You’ll get the visual.”
“But back to the part where Hanna is upset,” Sara said, eyes playfully stern and fixed on George.
“I just . . .” I took a deep breath, hunting for words. “What can you tell me about Kitty?”
“Oh,” Chloe said, sitting back in her chair. She glanced at Sara. “Oh.”
I leaned forward, brows drawn together. “What does ‘oh’ mean?”
“Is this the . . . I mean, is Kitty one of his . . .” George trailed off, waving his hand meaningfully.
“Yeah,” Sara said. “Kitty is one of Will’s lovers.”
I rolled my eyes. “Do you know if he’s still been seeing her?”
Chloe seemed to be considering her answer carefully. “Well—I don’t officially know of him ending things with her,” she said, wincing a little. “But Hanna, he adores you. Anyone can—”
“But he’s still seeing her,” I interrupted.
She sighed reluctantly. “I honestly don’t know. I know we all gave him a hard time about not ending things, but I can’t . . . for a fact, I mean, say that he ever stopped seeing her.”
“Sara?” I asked.
Shaking her head, Sara murmured, “I’m sorry, honey. I honestly don’t know, either.”
I wondered if it was possible for a heart to break by fractions. I’d been sure I’d heard it crack when I’d read the text from Kitty. Felt another piece break with his lie about Tuesday night. And all week, I’d felt bruised, felt every tiny shard as it fell away until I wondered what could possibly still be beating in my chest.
“I’d overheard him talking to my brother about wanting to be serious with someone but being afraid to end things with the others. But I figured, maybe he just meant officially end them? Things seemed really good with us. But then Kitty sent him this text,” I said. “I was playing with his phone and she replied to a message he’d obviously sent her about getting together Tuesday night.”
“Why didn’t you confront him?” Chloe asked.
“I wanted him to tell me himself. Will has always been all about honesty and communication, so I figured if I invited him over for dinner Tuesday he’d tell me he was going to be with Kitty.”
“And?” Sara asked.
I sighed. “He said he had a thing. A meeting that night.”
“Ouch,” George said.
“Yeah,” I mumbled. “So I ended it right there. But I did it really badly because I had no idea what to say. I told him that it was getting too heavy, that I was only twenty-four and didn’t want anything serious. That I didn’t want this anymore.”
“Damn, girl,” George sang quietly. “When you want to end things, you dig a hole and drop a bomb in it.”
I groaned, pressing the heels of my hands against my eyes.
“There has to be an explanation,” Sara said. “Will doesn’t say he has a meeting when he’s going to be with a woman. He just says he’s going to be with a woman. Hanna, I’ve never seen him like this before. Max has never seen him like this before. It’s clear he adores you.”
“But does it matter?” I asked, my drink long forgotten. “He lied about the meeting, but I’m the one who said we should keep it open. It’s just that open for me meant the possibility of someone else. Open for him was more of the reality already in hand.