The Heartbreaker I Adore (When In Waverly 2)

Seth

I’ve never been this nervous for a date in my life. And I know this woman. I love this woman, and she loves me. But what if we go out on this date tonight and it’s absolutely horrible? What if I can’t think of anything to talk about the entire time, and we’re just sitting there in awkward silence for an hour before we decide to call it quits? Oh gosh, I’m going to ruin this before we even have a chance.

I knock on Colby’s door, and he answers holding his shotgun that usually stays locked in a safe and is only pulled out on the rare occasions that he decides to go hog hunting. He ushers me inside and has me sit down on the couch. “Have her home by eleven. It’s a weekday, and she has to beg Ol’ Gertie for her job back in the morning. And remember, I’ve got eyes everywhere, so no funny business, young man,” Colby says in his deepest, most intimidating voice.

I roll my eyes and say, “Yes, Mr. Stuart.”

“I’m glad we understand each other, son.”

“Really? Son? I’m older than you,” I say, crossing my arms across my chest.

“Only by two months. I don’t know. It seemed like something my dad would say.” He shrugs his shoulders and goes to put the gun away before Hannah sees it.

A moment later, Hannah steps into the living room, fresh-faced, hair hanging in loose waves to her shoulders, wearing a floral-print dress. She’s a babe attack. “You ready?” she asks with a small smile on her face. Suddenly, I’m not so nervous anymore.

I help her climb into my Jeep and then hop in on the driver’s side. I sit back for a moment and just look at her. She notices me staring, and she stares right back.

“Hey,” I say because it feels like something you should say to someone when you know you’re standing at the precipice of something monumental.

“Hi,” she whispers. It sounds like a sigh, and my heart does a flip flop. All of these feelings that I’m experiencing cannot be good for my health. I might need to schedule an appointment with a cardiologist.

I take her to a quiet restaurant in a town thirty minutes away so we can have privacy. Millie told me about it, and I’ve never been more grateful. If we stayed in Waverly, the whole town would be abuzz an hour later. The gossip would run rampant for days.

We pull up to the restaurant, and Hannah gasps. “I’ve wanted to come here for so long!” she says. I can see why. It’s a beautiful place. The restaurant is a huge log cabin situated right at the edge of a small lake with a wraparound porch filled with rocking chairs and tables for people to sit and enjoy the peaceful ambiance.

As we walk side by side toward the building, I take her hand in mine. Her soft intake of breath makes me wonder if it’s too soon for holding hands. Maybe she wants to move slower. We’ve already kissed, though. It seems like the time for taking it slow has come and gone. She’s not taking her hand out of mine, so maybe she’s fine with it.

“Is this okay?” I ask as I lift our hands slightly.

Her cheeks turn rosy pink, and she nods her head. “Definitely,” she says before biting her bottom lip and looking away to hide her face.

The hostess seats us at a table overlooking the lake, and it occurs to me how well I know Hannah but don’t know her at the same time. I know all of her silly quirks. How she loves banana pudding but hates bananas. How she can’t leave anything on an odd number—the thermostat, TV volume, number of chicken nuggets on her plate. How her bed has to be made before she gets into it for the night, even if she’s gone all day without making it. These are little tidbits of her life I’ve observed over the two decades I’ve spent in her home, hanging out with her brother. But there’s so much that I haven’t been privy to.

“Do you want kids?” I ask her seemingly out of the blue. I’ve seen the way she is around kids, so I assume she does. She would be the best mom. She turns her head away from the lake to look at me. Her nervousness is etched in every line of her face.

“I do. Is that a problem for you? I know you don’t really like kids,” she says.

“It’s not that I don’t like them… I just find them terrifying. I always assumed that my own kids wouldn’t feel so scary to me, though. Like, if the kid is fifty percent of my genetic makeup, it’ll feel more natural, you know? How many do you want?”

“Oh, at least a dozen,” she jokes. At least, I think she’s joking. Please tell me she’s joking, because looking at her right now, I think I’d give her anything she wants, even twelve kids. And I don’t know how I’d support twelve kids on a firefighter’s salary. That bookstore better make it big.

We end up talking about everything under the sun: our dream homes, what we imagine our family looking like when we’re old and gray, how politics is the best way to ruin a peaceful family dinner. She admits to using that tactic whenever she wants to get rid of Colby: he states his opinion, and she takes the opposing side of the argument, whatever it may be, just to make him angry enough that he storms out. I make a mental note to use it on him, since driving him crazy is one of my favorite pastimes.

We find that we agree on all of the important things. The things we don’t agree on are insignificant, like is Die Hard a Christmas movie? She says no, but she agrees to watch it with me during Christmas anyway as long as I’ll sit through The Family Stone with her. See, we're already compromising on things.

Talking with Hannah is like a breath of fresh air on a rainy day. It’s relaxing, fun, and invigorating all at the same time. She makes me think about things in a way I had never thought before. She makes me want to do better, be better. She makes me laugh at my own insecurities.

We sit at the table, talking and staring out at the lake for hours, long after our plates have been cleared away and our remaining coffee has grown cold. I was planning to take her to a movie, but I didn’t want to end our conversation. Movies are a horrible first date, anyway, if you ask me. How are you supposed to get to know someone when you’re sitting in a dark room, surrounded by hundreds of other people, staring at a screen?

No, sitting here with her in the cool night breeze, getting to know her on a deeper, more intimate level has been the perfect date. I’ve fallen even more in love with her, and I didn’t think that was possible. I don’t want this to ever end, and why should it have to? Why can’t we continue on like this for the rest of our lives? I already know I want to marry this woman. She is it for me. There is no one else. And I’m pretty confident she’s feeling it, too. So, what are we waiting for?

Do we really need to follow societal norms and date for the standard two-and-a-half years, get engaged after an elaborate proposal, and then spend a year planning an extravagant wedding that will put us deep in debt? It sounds exhausting, and that’s not for me. I’ve never been one to sit around and wait for something when I already know what I want. And what I want right now more than anything else in the entire world is Hannah Stuart. I want her to be mine. I want her moving into my life, filling it up with all of her old, musty books and pictures and dancing. I want to marry the woman—and not three years from now. I want to marry her tonight, tomorrow, as soon as humanly possible.

“I think we should get married,” I blurt out before I can think better of it. Her eyes grow round, and I think I’ve made a huge mistake. I’ve totally freaked her out, and now she’s going to run for the hills and want nothing to do with me. Colby is always telling me that just because we think something, doesn’t mean it should be said out loud, and this is likely a wonderful example of that.

“Yeah, I want to marry you, too,” she finally says, completely stunning me. It takes my brain several moments to compute the words I’ve just heard.

“Let’s do it. Let’s get married tonight.” Her mouth falls open. She opens and closes it several times, like she wants to say something, but the only sounds coming out are short gasps. Her eyebrows draw together as she thinks about my suggestion.