“Thank you,” I whisper as we close her door.
“No problem. She’s a light thing.”
I smile. “I mean for everything tonight. I don’t think she has ever had someone work so hard for her before.”
Tanner tilts his head to the side. “Hannah, you work hard for her every day. Winning her a stuffed sheep and a goldfish is the least I could do.”
“Her dad missed her fourth birthday because he had a business trip in New York. I found out later that he had his mistress with him. He didn’t even buy Winnie a present. Trust me. Sometimes the little things are the biggest things.”
He smiles and turns to walk away and all I want to do is reach for him and tell him that he would be an amazing father. That Poppy would have been lucky for him to be her dad, and that Winnie too, would be lucky to have him in her life. But all of those words are too much. Though true, they’re bigger than I can manage, so I let him wish me a goodnight.
He pauses at the bottom of the stairs and looks back up at me while a curious grin stretches across his face. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the pink fuzzy handcuffs from earlier.
“I got them. So, if CPS comes to search your house, you’ll be in the clear. If you want them back, you just need to ask, and I’ll show you how to use them?—”
“Goodnight Tan.”
I spy the blush on his cheeks as he smirks. “Goodnight Han.”
24
Iam eating left over pizza for a late breakfast while I stare at the poor fish swimming in the giant glass serving bowl it now calls home.
After I watch it complete a sad half lap, I decide on taking a ridiculously long shower. I am halfway to the bathroom when I hear a buzzing coming from the floor somewhere. I dig around in the mess of blankets until I find my phone that has twelve missed calls from Riley.
I click on the most recent voicemail she left.
“Hannah? It’s Riley. I’m with Winnie. We’re in an ambulance going to the emergency room in Marnmouth. Someone brought sushi for snack, and she tried some. I am so sorry. Please call me back.”
Immediately, my body is flushed with a white-hot panic, and I am up with my keys and flying down the steps only to crash into a body coming up to the door. There isn’t a single other thought in my brain other than getting to her.
“Baby, what’s wrong?”
Tanner is standing there with yellow flowers in one hand and holding me with the other.
“I— it’s Winnie, she had sushi, and she went by ambulance to Marnmouth and I missed the calls?—”
“I’ll drive,” he says and we run to his truck.
“Last time she had it, her throat started to close, and she knows to be careful, and I have no idea what she was thinking.” I scroll through my phone. “Oh my God Riley had been calling me, and I didn’t have my phone on me, it was on the floor and I should have had it with me and?—"
“Hannah.” Tanner’s tone stops me, and I realize he has his hand on my knee. Yesterday, this would have sent every butterfly in my belly into flight, but right now, I think it’s the only thing keeping my feet on the ground. “Breathe. This isn’t your fault or Winnie’s. Accidents happen. Let’s get you to the hospital and see her. They called the ambulance. They have her.”
“But what if they didn’t get her in time and if I had answered my phone she would have been?—”
“No. Don’t catastrophize. That’s not helping you or her.”
We are flying out of town and over to Marnmouth and I’m praying we don’t get pulled over while also wishing he could drive faster. He lifts my hand and presses his lip against the back of my hand. Not quite a kiss but maybe more than just a kiss.
Tanner pulls up to the curb of the emergency room and is unlocking the door before he even fully stops.
“Go,” he says. “I’ll find you.”
I leap from the car and run to the lady at the front desk.
“Can I help?—”
“Winifred Forrest,” I gasp. “My daughter, she was just brought in, fish allergy, she’s five, and I?—”
