Page 42 of Claim to Fame

He laughed. “It was the style.”

She flipped a few more pages, stopping to laugh at Gavin’s shoulder-length hair cut, until she got to the half pages designed by each graduating senior. Where his classmates had filled their half pages with collages of logos of their favorite bands, homecoming photos and snapshots of family pets, his stood in stark contrast. There were only two photos beneath his name. First, a photo of him, Baz, and Gavin as kindergarteners, standing triumphant in the treehouse in Gavin’s backyard, juice boxes clutched in their six-year-old fists. Second, a department store family portrait of him, Stephanie, and one-year-old Tessa. It was the first time he’d seen that portrait in years.

Hannah ran her fingers over the photos, first the one of him and his friends as children, then the family portrait. “You look tired,” she said.

“I was seventeen with a baby and a girlfriend who refused to talk about the future. I was exhausted.”

“Are you two still friendly?” she asked.

“She passed a few years back,” he said around the lump in his throat. His face was hot and his nose stung, as it did every time he said the words. He and Stephanie hadn’t been together for over a decade at the time of her death, but it didn’t make her loss any less painful. She would always be the mother of his child, a woman he had cared about deeply.

“I’m so sorry. Ethan, I had no idea.”

“We hadn’t been together in years. In fact, that photo was taken about twenty minutes before Steph told me she didn’t want to marry me.”

As soon as he said it, he regretted it. Not because he didn’t want Hannah to know about his past, but because it didn’t seem like the right place or time to unearth teenage traumas.

“You were just kids,” she said.

“I wanted to protect her. Both of them,” he said, unable to stop talking about it now that he’d started. “Steph’s parents kicked her out when she got pregnant. It was the biggest scandal this town had seen in…a long time. I wanted to make it better. I fucked up her life and it was all anyone could talk about. She said it felt like everyone was staring at her, thinking about how we couldn’t keep our pants on. I just wanted to fix it. But she wouldn’t let me.”

Hannah set down the yearbook and took his face in her hands. “You were teenagers and you made decisions, together, that gave you a beautiful daughter.”

“She didn’t want to stay here and I couldn’t see how we could leave. But everyone was talking about us everywhere we went. I would have fixed it if she would have let me."

“Maybe she didn’t want you to.”

He pulled away from Hannah. It felt wrong to have another woman’s hands on him while he talked about Steph, like he was betraying her memory or something.

“Ethan, I only meant—”

“You’re right. She didn’t want me to fix it. She didn’t wantme.She took my kid and left town, and it didn’t matter that I wanted to be there for her, that I wanted to be the father Tessa deserved, because Steph couldn’t handle being a town curiosity so she made those decisions for all of us.”

He felt like he’d downed an entire pot of coffee, the strong stuff they brewed at those fancy coffee shops in Providence. He was jittery and too aware of every prickle on his skin but he also felt like he was teetering on the edge of a crash, a comedown so epic he could see it from a mile away but was powerless to stop it.

And he couldn’t stop talking. Why couldn’t he stop talking?

“So now you know.” He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned away from her. “That’s my sordid little story. I fucked up when I was sixteen and no matter what I did I couldn’t put it right. I couldn’t make us a family. I lost out on most of my daughter's childhood because I was always going to stay and Steph was always going to leave.” He blew out a long breath, shaking his head. “Bet you’re glad you let me tag along with you today.”

“I am, actually.” She stepped towards him again and wrapped her arms around his middle, pressing her cheek to his shoulder.

He tensed under her touch, but only for a moment, before he hugged her back, as though she could hold together the pieces of himself that were threatening to rip apart at the seams, the old doubts and fears bubbling to the surface. Hannah brushed her lips over his bicep and, as she did, some of his tension seeped away only to be replaced by a new kind of ache, a longing not for what might have been but for what could be.

For the first time in a long time, he let himself consider what it would be like to have what he wanted, not because it was the right thing or what someone expected of him or because it would fix anything, but because he wanted it.

He wantedeverything.

With her.

Maybe this could be his second chance, one he hadn’t dared to hope for. An opportunity to prove to himself—and the town —that he could do things right. He could love someone enough for them to choose him. He could have the picket fence and the kids and the life he’d forfeited when he was still a dumb kid.

Hannah lifted her head, her eyes studying his. “I want to know you, Ethan Hart. Even the messy, sordid parts.”

Chapter Eleven

Hannah wasn’t sure when Ethan had taken her hand in his, but she liked the feel of his rough palm against hers as they made their way from the Museum of Everything to Plot Twist, a used bookstore a few blocks away. As they walked, Ethan pointed out Tessa’s bakery, Kyla’s boudoir studio, and a large colonial home that handed out full-size candy bars on Halloween when he was a child. She collected each small piece of him, the glimpses of the life he’d led, as though they were precious gems, wrapped in her affection and tucked away for safekeeping.

The bookstore was nestled on a side street not far from the main downtown area of Aster Bay. Bookshelves stretched nearly to the ceiling with sliding ladders placed periodically throughout the too-narrow aisles. In the back corner of the store, a wisp of sheer fabric had been hung like a canopy over a half-height bookshelf stuffed with children’s books, the floor beneath strewn with mismatched pillows and cushions. An elderly orange tabby cat prowled the aisles, casting disdainful glances at any customer who dared get too close.

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