Page 114 of From This Moment (After We Fall 4)
“Yeah.” I felt like a dick with my one-word answers and my obvious lack of interest, but this was not my strong suit—small talk with strange women.
“Where is it?”
“On the lake, north of town.”
“Nice.”
There was an awkward pause, and we both drank. At this point, I couldn’t even make eye contact.
“Wes.” She put a hand on my knee. “You don’t have to be nervous. I don’t bite.”
“I’m not nervous.” I looked at her hand on me and wished she’d remove it.
“Your mom said you were shy.” She leaned toward me a little, her blouse falling open. “Don’t worry, I think it’s cute.”
Oh, Jesus.
I was trying to think of what to come back with, how to nicely request that she take her hand off my leg, when I heard a voice say, “Wes?”
I turned, and there was Hannah. Slack-jawed, stormy-eyed, and trembling as she looked back and forth from Becca to me. “I knew it,” she said. “I fucking knew it.”
Then she was gone.
Twenty-Two
HANNAH
I heard him calling my name as I speed-walked down the street, flanked by Margot and Georgia, each of whom had an arm around me. “Don’t stop. I don’t want to talk to him.”
&
nbsp; “But maybe there’s an explanation,” said Georgia.
We turned the corner onto the quiet side street where I’d parked. Rage and regret coursed through me. “No. There might be an excuse, but I don’t want to hear it.”
“Maybe she’s a work friend,” Margot suggested.
“Oh, she’s a work friend all right. The same work friend who fucked my husband while I was home with a newborn baby.”
“What?” Margot screeched. Georgia made a similar noise of disbelief.
“Yes.” The sight of her sitting there with him, so smug, her hand on his knee, her full breasts practically on his lap, had sickened me. Brought back all the horrible, wretched feelings of betrayal and self-doubt I’d suffered back then. I wanted to vomit.
“Hannah!” Wes was getting closer, so I sped up, moving ahead of my friends. But my heel caught on a crack in the pavement and I went down on my hands and knees.
Margot and Georgia reached for me, but I stayed there and burst into tears.
Next thing I knew, Wes was helping me to my feet. “Are you okay, baby?”
I wrangled my arms from his grasp. “Let me go. I’m not your baby.”
“Hannah, please. Let me explain.”
“No.” I tried to start walking again and he grabbed my arm. “Let me go, Wes.”
“I can’t,” he yelled. “I tried for years to let you go, Hannah. Years! I never could!”
Margot gasped and clutched Georgia by the elbow.
