Loathe to Love You by Ali Hazelwood

            And, apparently, Ian and Hannah are about to have this conversation right in front of it. Perfect.

            “Excuse me?”

            “Nothing.” He shakes his head. “Let’s just go home. Forget that I—”

            “Did you just ask me why we are not married?”

            “No. Well, yes, but . . .”

            “In response to me asking you if we should get Thai tonight?”

            Ian scratches his temple and looks at his feet. “Perhaps not my best segue.” His hand lifts to her back, and he tries to nudge her toward the parking lot. “Let’s go home.”

            Hannah stays put. “Where’s this coming from?” she asks, just as NASA’s deputy administrator strolls in and out of Ian’s field of view, waving cheerfully. Hannah’s eyes fall on the phone in his hand. “Aah.”

            “Aah?”

            “Aah.” She nods knowingly. “You’ve been talking with Erik and Liam.”

            Ian frowns. “What does that have to do with it?”

            “You get like this when you talk to them.” She grins and grabs his sleeve, pulling him into the parking lot.

            “I get like what?”

            “Homey. Marriagey.”

            “I don’t.”

            “Yeah, you do.”

            “I’m pretty sure I’ve never mentioned marriage before.” In fact, he’s been very careful not to mention anything that’s even remotely connected. Everyone knows that Ian and Hannah are together, but when Ian’s manager asked him if he’d be taking his “wife” to her barbecue—Dr. Arroyo, right, who leads the A & PE team?—he made sure to say, Yes, I’ll bring my partner. When Sadie pushed her bridal bouquet of Danish lilies into Hannah’s very unreceptive, mostly slack hands, he made sure to nod while Hannah listed the reasons marriage is an archaic institution grounded in a capitalistic landscape.

            It’s not that he doesn’t want to get married. It’s more that he knows her, and her issues with commitment. She’s already come so far, and it’s not like Ian doesn’t feel how much she loves him every minute of every day. Which means that he can accept the way she is, and the fact that she’d laugh in his face if he bought a ring, went on one knee, and proposed.

            “You never mentioned marriage, and yet here you are.” Hannah’s eyes are inscrutable as they walk to his car. “Thinking of proposing because my best friend is having a little ginger baby.”

            “The baby might not be ginger—”

            “It will be.”

            “Okay, it will be. But it was an unrelated question. I was just wondering if . . .”

            “If?” Ian’s car is . . . well, Ian’s car. But Hannah plucks the keys from his fingers and slides in on the driver’s side.

            “Hypothetically,” he continues, settling for the passenger seat.

            “Hypothetically?”

            He looks straight ahead. Swallows. Swallows again. “If I were to ask. Hypothetically. What would you say?”

            There is a thick, suspicious silence on the driver’s side of the car. Not at all auspicious. And when it pulls his gaze in Hannah’s direction, her expression isn’t serious, or annoyed, or anything else that he can discern.

            “I guess you’ll have to try and see,” is all she says.

            Ian presses his lips together and smiles. “I guess I’ll have to try and see.”

            But her free hand slides into his immediately as they drive away, and he thinks that maybe, maybe, he knows what the answer will be. And maybe, maybe, he should ask soon.

            So they pick up Thai that night. And Ian doesn’t look at his phone again.





Acknowledgments


            Like 99.9 percent of my writing output, these novellas originated as fan fiction, and their journey to what they have become involved approximately 999 wonderful people. First of all, each novella started out as a gift for a friend: thank you to Becca for the perfect roommates prompt, to Marie for liking small spaces, and to Celia and Sheppy for being into . . . polar bears? Yes, polar bears. Also, infinite thanks to Celia, Kate, and Jen for beta reading the original fics—and to Jen for slogging through the expanded versions. Guys, I do not deserve you and I know it.