When We're Thirty, Casey Dembowski [best reads of all time txt] 📗

to wash away Teddy’s bad mojo, according to her theories on dating. There were many theories, but the call wasn’t a good sign.

She picked up the phone. “That bad?”

“I’m hiding out in the bathroom,” Kate said in a muffled voice, meaning someone else was in there. “Can you call me back in like five minutes?”

“An ‘Oh Timmy’?” Hannah asked, continuing to scroll through pictures on her computer.

“With a little more flair than usual.”

The line went dead. It was bad enough when Kate called, but an Oh Timmy with flair? That was reaching stage-five-clinger level, or as Kate called them, “Herpes”—persistent and impossible to get rid of. The next episode of Bitching about Boyfriends was going to be a doozy. Hannah couldn’t wait to hear the retold version of the story, always the most thorough and embellished when Kate was doing it for an audience. Kate would probably ask Hannah to reenact her phone call with fake distress, rapid breathing, and all.

Hannah jumped at the sound of someone knocking on her front door. No one knocked. Kate and Brian had keys, and everyone else texted their arrival. She stared at the door as if at any moment, someone was going barge in. She couldn’t decide if it would be with a knife or a cake, but it was still early for the local riffraff, and she lived on the fifth floor. Though that begged the question of who was bringing her belated birthday cake. She walked to the door, staring at it for another second. Maybe it was just one of those annoying cable salespeople. Yes, she was perfectly happy with just Netflix and Hulu. No, she didn’t miss flipping through five hundred channels for nothing to be on or to be sucked into yet another Harry Potter weekend. Fine, maybe she missed it a little, but not for the extra hundred dollars a month. The knock came again.

Hannah opened the door. Her mind registered the man kneeling on her doormat, but all she saw was the diamond ring.

Chapter 3Hannah

Hannah’s eyes widened at the boulder-sized princess cut diamond in front of her. Her heart dropped—Brian. A few hours ago, she’d been debating breaking up with him. Was he really proposing on the dirty hallway floor? Hannah blinked rapidly, trapping tears she knew were coming. She’d brought up engagement six months ago. He’d scoffed and disappeared for a week, reemerging with a tan and few apologies. But here he was on bended knee. She turned her attention from the ring to the man kneeling in front of her—the man who was not Brian.

She took in the older, leaner version of the boy she had once known. Memories flooded her brain—study sessions, drunken nights, Wilderness concerts, a graduation-night kiss, and finally, the image of him draped over yet another girl, this one in a bridesmaid dress.

“William Thorne,” she said derisively. Her body buzzed, adrenaline coursing through her. She’d wanted it to be Brian—for him to have finally figured out that he wanted her for more than just the foreseeable future.

She turned her attention back to Will. He remained on one knee but had lowered the ring. A smile, halfway between questioning and amused, played across his face. “This is amazingly uncomfortable. Why do people propose like this?”

“Knights, courting, et cetera and so forth,” Hannah said absently, waving him into her apartment. She peeked around the door, but fortunately, it was late enough that the hallway was empty.

Will stood, pocketed the ring, and came in hesitantly despite his initial grand entrance. Hannah watched his eyes travel around the room, taking in the small clues littered throughout the apartment before focusing on her laptop, which still had a picture of the two of them open. Great first impression.

“You seem surprised to see me,” he said, turning his full attention and the power of his perfect smile on her.

She should’ve felt surprise at Will’s sudden appearance, but she didn’t. And not just because she’d just gotten a friend request from him—this was completely and utterly a Will thing to do. And really, she should’ve been expecting him.

“Well, you are a day late.” On top of the last half a decade. Even as Hannah thought it, she knew she had a hand in those lost years. In the end, it wouldn’t matter—not for them. They would still be Will and Hannah. She knew it, and by the contented expression on Will’s face, he knew it too.

He pulled her into a hug, lifting her off her feet. “Hannah Abbott, as I live and breathe! I’ve missed you.” She giggled as he twirled her around and set her down. He stepped back and gave her a once-over—not in the creepy way some guys did, but exaggerated and comical. “You used to be taller.”

She rolled her eyes. Only Will would bring up the story she’d told him one snowy night on campus that, when she was seven, she’d spent a whole two months convinced that she’d been shrinking. The following April Fool’s Day, he had moved everything in her dorm a few inches higher, making several things just out of her reach.

Hannah stepped further into the living room, keenly aware of Will’s every move as he took a seat on the couch.

“Beer, wine, water?” she asked.

“Water would be good.”

She nodded and pushed the lid of her laptop closed. “I’ll be right back.” As she headed for the fridge, her eyes never left Will’s form. He sat back on the couch, his hands clasped and his eyes fixed on his lap. A part of her—the part that knew and loved Will all those years in college—felt no qualms about his late-night visit. Will was Will. Even when they were best friends, he had flitted in and out of her life, always coming back just as she started to worry he never would. But underneath that calm was a rumble of discomfort. He’d shown up at her apartment—an apartment he’d never been to. She searched his face.

Will looked up, his