[New Year’s Eve: Hannah & Jeremiah]
She was beautiful in the dress and he'd known that she would be. That had been obvious to him the instant that he'd seen it, the color bright and cheerful had reminded him of Hannah too, and he'd known that it would look amazing against her skin and her hair, and Jeremiah had good taste when it came to fashion, typically, and Hannah struck him as someone that would appreciate it, which hadn't been true of every person he'd dated over his entire life, but this woman would, which had made the gift more fun to buy for her, hoping for smiles and light, and it seemed as if he'd gotten it.
"You know, I don't think I'd care if they did," Jeremiah glanced over as they pulled up to a stoplight and his eyes glanced over the lines of her face. "I think we could just wander in as if we belonged, and buy something fabulous," and leave a tremendous tip - probably, "and we could dance however we like, like a musical or an old film. Like White Christmas maybe." Because that was how the old musicals always seemed to work. People dancing and singing in the strangest places, and perhaps all musicals worked that way, but the older ones seemed to do it without being too conscious of what they were doing.
He reached over, turning his hand so that he could meet her palm - palm to palm, and his fingers slid through hers, and he squeezed gently back. "You're very welcome, Hannah," he told her. "But thank you too, because this is ever so much better than sitting home alone brooding on the past year's choices."
He knew who she was, more than she knew that he knew, and there was a discomfort to that, not because he was worried about that, it was strange perhaps, but what in Repose had not been, but he wondered if he should be up front with her about his knowing. It made him wonder briefly if he should be more up front with her about a dozen things over the past year. His name, for starters, the name that would pull a thread into learning so much else, because it was there on the Internet, in the papers... it held more than he wanted to admit to, but someday he would have to. It occurred to him, leaving a somewhat incredulous sense to it, that when she called him Jeremiah he didn't hate it. That was new and a little startling to uncover.
"I think we should go to the party," he decided. "Unless you really want to go to the bistro and dance in the aisles, and then we can do it. I don't think anyone will look askance at us, and if they do, we'll ignore it." The nice thing about money, he'd decided, was that people did mind less. "I suspect that there will be appetizers on fancy silver trays, and probably amazing champagne, and we can head off any hunger with those things while enjoying lights, and a dance floor full of important people that we don't know at all."