We Are Inevitable by Gayle Forman (read aloud txt) 📕

says. “Maybe a feather. Or a book. Book’s just a rectangle. That could be the signature foam swirl.”

“Great, can we master foam designs later?” I ask, gesturing toward Hannah.

“Aaron wants to be alone with his girlfriend,” Richie clarifies.

“She’s not my girlfriend,” I say. Hannah frowns. “I mean, she’s not not . . . It’s just . . . We just . . .”

“We can do swirls next time,” Ike interrupts, saving me.

Thank you, I mouth to Ike, and then Hannah and I retreat to the relative privacy of the porch, where she pulls out a small pouch and starts rolling a cigarette. “Don’t judge,” she says as she lights it, the flame illuminating her freckles. “It’s cliché, I know. But I usually only smoke one a day. Unless I’m at a meeting. You know how that goes.”

“I do?”

“Don’t you?” She looks confused, which makes me confused, but before I can process any of it, I spot a janky wood-paneled station wagon crawling down Main Street as if the driver’s lost. A car like that, it’s gotta be a collector.

“Hang on,” I tell Hannah, leaping off the porch stairs and waving down the car. “You a friend of Lou’s?”

“Yep. I’m Bart. Here to see the vinyl.”

“Park out front. I’ll show you in.”

I turn back to Hannah. “I gotta deal with this. Give me five.”

“Yeah, no problem,” she says.

I take Bart to the store, stopping to look over my shoulder back at Hannah. “You won’t leave?”

“I won’t leave.”

I lead him to the basement, ignoring Ike’s look. When I open the bins, his breath catches, his jaw drops. “Whoa,” he says. “This is like the Shangri-la of records.”

“Your own personal Lost Horizon.”

“Huh?” he says, not getting the book reference.

“Never mind. I’m gonna give you my number. When you’re ready, text me. We’ll settle up down here.”

“Lou already told me the deal,” Bart says absently, pulling out AC/DC’s Back in Black from the first bin.

When I get back to Hannah, she’s stubbing out her cigarette. “So,” she says. “Are you breaking up with me?”

“What? No! I mean the girlfriend thing, I just didn’t wanna . . .”

She gives me a look. “I’m kidding, Aaron.”

“You are?”

“Hard to break up if we’re not together yet.”

Yet. I cling at that yet like a drowning man clings to a life preserver.

“So, I don’t know how to broach this . . . the . . .” I point to the cigarette stub. “Whole meeting thing?”

She exhales, visibly relieved. “I’m so glad you brought it up.”

“You are?”

She nods. “It’s not like it’s a secret. But I haven’t really dated since I got sober, and a year out of the game, I’m rusty. I kept waiting for it to come up naturally, as it usually does with people in the program. Or I thought maybe we’d bump into each other at a meeting . . .”

My mind digests this in chunks:

Hannah has been sober for a year.

Hannah thinks we are dating.

Bump into me at a meeting? Why would she bump into me at a meeting unless . . . ?

Oh, fuck.

“Hullo! You must be Hannah,” Ira calls, clomping up the stairs with Bev. “So nice to meet you. I’m Ira. This is Bev. And, Aaron, look who we found!” Ira smiles broadly as he gestures to Penny Macklemore. “I wanted to show off what we’re doing with the store.”

My brain tries to process all of this: Hannah thinks I’m an addict. And Penny’s at our store. But my brain cannot process it. My brain has short-circuited.

“Can you give me like five more minutes?” I ask Hannah.

She cocks her head to the side, a little less chill this time. “Okaaay?”

I race into the store after Penny. Is she going to tell? No. She can’t tell. That was one of my conditions. But I didn’t have a lawyer or anything, as she reminded me. I didn’t put it in writing.

I try to read Penny. But she’s a closed book.

“Guess what?” Ike bellows at Ira. “Gaga’s working.”

“Mazel tov!” Ira calls.

“Who’s Gaga?” Penny asks.

“The espresso machine,” Bev replies.

“Would you like one?” Ira asks Penny. “On the house.”

“That’s very kind, but I don’t go in for those fancy coffee drinks.”

Ike offers espressos to Bev and Ira too, who both decline. “I wanna keep practicing,” Ike says.

“What about that guy in the basement?” Richie suggests.

“What guy in the basement?” Ira asks.

“Uhhh . . .” My mind is reeling to what of Mom’s stuff we might be selling. “Some guy wanting to buy the porch swing.”

“We’re selling the porch swing?” Ira asks.

“Yeah. I mean, the ramp is where the swing hung.” I glance at Penny to see if she has any opinions on the ramp, and then at Hannah to make sure she’s still on the porch. None evident, and yes. “There’s not really room for it anymore.”

“Oh, okay,” Ira says. “It’s just that Annie used to sit in that all day long.”

Bev pats Ira on the shoulder. “It’ll be good for someone to get use out of it,” she says. “A second life.”

Ira nods.

“I’ll go see if the porch-swing guy wants an espresso,” I say. I run to the basement, where Bart is in the zone. “Can you do me a huge favor?” I ask him. “Can you take that when you leave?” I point to the swing.

“What is it?”

“A porch swing. You can have it for free.”

Bart’s brow furrows. “But I don’t have a porch.”

“Can you take it anyway?” Bart stares blankly. “You have room in your car. You can sell it. Or dump it as soon as you get out of town. I don’t care.”

Bart shakes his head. “Seems like a hassle.”

I look around. “I’ll throw in a couple extra records for free.”

Bart licks his lips. “A couple?”

“Three.”

“Guess I got me a porch swing.”

Back upstairs, the shitstorm has turned into a shit tsunami. Because Angela Silvestri, she of the crumb cake with Life cereal topping, has arrived with a Tupperware full of samples.

“We were thinking of having baked goods in the café,” Ira is telling Penny. “And Angela volunteered to make a few test batches.”

“It’s not written in stone,” I interject. “I mean, none of it is. We might not