When We're Thirty Casey Dembowski (the chimp paradox .TXT) 📖

When We’re Thirty

Red Adept Publishing, LLC

104 Bugenfield Court

Garner, NC 27529

https://RedAdeptPublishing.com/

Copyright © 2021 by Casey Dembowski. All rights reserved.

Cover Art by Streetlight Graphics

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

Table of Contents

Copyright Page

Dedication

Part 1

Chapter 1 | Hannah

Chapter 2 | Hannah

Chapter 3 | Hannah

Chapter 4 | Hannah

Chapter 5 | Will

Chapter 6 | Hannah

Chapter 7 | Will

Chapter 8 | Hannah

Chapter 9 | Hannah

Chapter 10 | Will

Chapter 11 | Hannah

Chapter 12 | Hannah

Chapter 13 | Will

Chapter 14 | Hannah

Part 2

Chapter 15 | Hannah

Chapter 16 | Hannah

Chapter 17 | Will

Chapter 18 | Hannah

Chapter 19 | Hannah

Chapter 20 | Hannah

Chapter 21 | Will

Chapter 22 | Hannah

Chapter 23 | Hannah

Chapter 24 | Hannah

Chapter 25 | Will

Chapter 26 | Hannah

Chapter 27 | Hannah

Chapter 28 | Will

Chapter 29 | Hannah

Chapter 30 | Hannah

Chapter 31 | Hannah

Chapter 32 | Will

Chapter 33 | Hannah

Chapter 34 | Will

Chapter 35 | Hannah

Chapter 36 | Hannah

Chapter 37 | Will

Chapter 38 | Will

Chapter 39 | Hannah

Part 3

Chapter 40 | Will

Chapter 41 | Hannah

Chapter 42 | Will

Chapter 43 | Hannah

Chapter 44 | Hannah

Chapter 45 | Will

Chapter 46 | Hannah

Chapter 47 | Hannah

Chapter 48 | Hannah

Chapter 49 | Will

Chapter 50 | Hannah

Chapter 51 | Hannah

Chapter 52 | Hannah

Chapter 53 | Will

Chapter 54 | Hannah

Chapter 55 | Hannah

Chapter 56 | Hannah

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About the Publisher

 

For my husband

Part 1

Chapter 1Hannah

Sometimes being a Jersey girl in New York City had its benefits, like approval from her boss to order a six-layer vanilla rainbow cake from New Jersey’s own Cake Boss for her office birthday celebration. She only turned thirty once.

Hannah’s phone buzzed with yet another notification: You have memories with Kate Novack, Stephanie Lansford, and 32 others...

She’d been waiting for that to pop up between all the texts and birthday posts. After twelve years on Facebook, there was a lot to reminisce over. And today, there would be plenty embarrassing memories to scroll through.

She glanced around the small office, but the interns and staff writers were still enjoying birthday cake. Only the section editors—like Hannah—were back at their desks, scrambling to finish layouts. Hannah had finished her section the day before, affirming her New Year’s resolution to have her section in before deadline every issue. She took a bite of cake. Sugar coursed through her, fortifying her for the mortification that was sure to follow as she clicked on the Memories notification.

Kate... Kate... Kate and Stephanie. She scrolled further, bypassing graduate school and going straight for the college memories. Kate... more Kate... Kate and Will. She paused on a picture from her twentieth birthday where she was smooshed between Kate and Will, each of them kissing one of her cheeks. Their eyes were glassy, their skin glossy with sweat. She remembered that birthday. The same couldn’t be said for her twenty-first, though the pictures told quite the story. Hannah, Will, and Kate—the three musketeers. God, they were so unoriginal and so drunk.

She stopped on the last picture in the thread—her eighteenth birthday, two months into freshmen year of college. She and Kate, newly best friends, sat in their dorm room, a pilfered bottle of booze between them. She squinted at the photo—Jägermeister. Gross.

Saving the picture to her photos, she added it to a text to Kate. We were so little, she typed.

Kate’s reply came quickly, a series of scream emojis followed by: My eyebrows. Your hair. What were we thinking?

Hannah snorted, looking around again to make sure no one was paying attention to her. Things were laid back at the Deafening Silence New York office, but she didn’t need one of her interns seeing a photo of her when she was younger than them. In the photo, Hannah’s hair had been a dark auburn, a look that didn’t suit her complexion at all, and Kate hadn’t yet learned to love getting her eyebrows waxed. But still, they had been so cute and little and skinny.

We were adorable, Hannah typed back. And skinny. Omg!

Kate sent several more distressed emojis. I prefer being thirty, flirty, and thriving. Skinny thighs be damned.

The ding of a new email pulled Hannah’s attention back to the office. She glanced at her computer before taking another bite of cake. Skinny thighs be damned indeed.

Re: Arctic Monkeys Feature.

Great. Edits on her birthday. She would look at them later.

“Hannah?”

Hannah straightened at the sound of Riley’s voice and swiveled her chair to face her boss. “Are you here to tell me how awesome my section turned out this month?”

Riley held a plate in one hand, and in her other, she gripped a bouquet of white carnations.

“No, but it was definitely awesome. These came for you,” she said, holding out the flowers.

Hannah stared at them for too long. White carnations were her favorite, but her boyfriend wasn’t the flower-sending type. In fact, she was pretty sure Brian wouldn’t have remembered her birthday had Kate not mentioned it at least four times the last time they were out at McMahon’s.

“Did it have a card?” she asked, clearing a space on her desk.

Riley put them down. “No card. I asked.”

“Oh.” Hannah fingered the petals and breathed in their familiar scent. They had to be from Kate. “Thanks for dropping them off.”

“No problem.” Riley shifted on her feet. “Listen, I have to go. CeCe’s school just called, and she’s running a temperature again. Can you assign the Atlas Genius concert to one of the interns?”

Hannah put a comforting hand on Riley’s arm. Daycare was kicking CeCe’s butt, and it wasn’t even winter yet. And soon, Riley would have two babies to care for. “You mean, you’re giving