“YMCA,” Tanner calls out.
“Is Tan what we are calling him now?” I ask.
“He called me Fred.” Winnie shrugs.
I think about a summer spent here and I know Lauren is right—when will I ever get a chance to be in my sister’s life like this again?
“Go ask Tanner what his favorite part of the YMCA was.” I spin her and push her in his direction.
Tanner stays squatting and smiles as she approaches.
“I’ll think about it,” I tell Lauren.
That, though it isn’t much, is enough for now. My sister wraps her arms around me and puts her head on my shoulder.
“I thought I heard Hannah was in town!” a man’s voice callsout from the house behind us. Now, out walk Rhett’s brother, Jackie, and his wife, Mayben—Tanner’s sister.
We all say hello and are catching up when Gwen pops her head out the back door. “Where’s the whiskey?”
“In the pantry behind the saltine crackers and pickles,” Lauren answers.
“Did you invite them all over?” I ask her and she shakes her head.
“No. They show up like this a lot. I did invite Tanner, which usually means Mayben and Jackie are close behind and Gwen behind them. This kinda just happens.”
Ethan and I weren’t allowed at his parents’ house without an invitation, or a multiple week heads up at least. Even Mom gets stressed if she doesn’t have a few days heads up.
“Got it!” Gwen calls back.
Then she pops out of the house in a blur of brown curls with a glass of whiskey in her hand. She is wearing a Morton's Bar T-shirt, cut-off denim shorts and is barefoot with bright blue toenails.
Gwen is Rhett’s sister, and a hell of a personality. The one time I met her, it was clear she is the center of every room she enters. People lean in just a little closer to hear whatever she’s going to say next, or linger a little longer in whatever room she’s in.
“Oh my God, Hannah!” She hugs me from behind, then tosses Lauren a beer. “I thought I heard you were in town!”
“I just got here last night.”
“Well, you need to come by Morton's while you’re here. I work the bar, and I need some new faces around there. These regulars, I tell you what.”
“People literally go just to see her,” Lauren adds.
“Oh please.” Gwen rolls her eyes. “People would go to seemy dad if he put on some lipstick and a tight T-shirt too, I’m sure. Oh, you must be Winnie!”
Gwen then pops down into the grass. “I'm your Uncle Rhett’s sister.”
“Uncle Rhett has a sister?”
“He does and I ammuchcooler than him. That over there is Jackie. He’s our brother too. Rhett, Jackie and Gwen. And Jackie is married to Tanner’s sister Mayben.”
I watch Winnie try to place these faces and names amongst each other and she only looks extraordinarily confused.
“Don’t worry.” Gwen pokes her side. “You’ll get used to us. You’re family now.”
My eyes find Tanner’s, and he has a hand in his pocket and a smile on his face. He just tilts his head back, summoning me over and maybe it’s the speed in which I drank my beer, but I am up in an instant. All I can think about is him wrapping those arms back around me.
“You okay?” he asks playfully.
“Yeah, why?”Never better, I think.
