Chapter 11
With our few bags and extra groceries sent with us by Lauren, Winnie and I drive the minivan over to the apartment.
“Alright Win. You ready?” I ask over my shoulder as we sit in the parking lot.
The morning sunlight comes peeking in over the building, streaking through the clouds.
We made the best of our last night at Lauren’s by staying up way too late, eating too much ice cream and watching whatever Winnie picked on Netflix.
Now she yawns from the back seat as she grabs her blanket and nods.
I’m pulling open the back trunk when I hear the footsteps approaching.
“Hey Dorada.” Tanner’s eyes sparkle, then he looks down at Winnie. “Mornin’ Fred.”
“Morning Tanny.” She giggles, pink cheeked.
“You’ve been talking to Ms. Dollie, haven’t you?” He chuckles and begins grabbing bags out of the car. “I’ve been assigned move-in duties.”
“By who?” I grab a bag too, and he laughs.
“Dollie. Rhett. Your sister. But I promise I was already planning on helping.”
“I don’t have much to bring in,” I admit. “I would have packed more if I realized I was going to stay longer than a week.”
“Next time.” He winks and turns, following Winnie upstairs.
“Come on Tan,” Winnie calls back. “You’re going slow.”
“Oh, I am so sorry, ma’am.” Tanner picks up the pace, much to Winnie's amusement.
His long legs stretch up the stairs, and his jeans pull at just the right places. His eyes flick back to make sure I’m keeping up, catching my wondering eye with a smirk.
Inside, Winnie marches right to her room, and flings the door open.
“You can put my things there.” She points next to the door.
“Would you like help unpacking?” I ask and she shakes her head.
“Nope. You can go now.” She ushers both of us out of the room and closes the door after us.
“She sure knows what she wants, huh?” Tanner brings my bag over to my room.
“She always has. She did not get that from me.”
With my bags on the bed, Tanner looks around, flicking the door frame and knocking on the walls.
“Looking for something?” I ask and lean up against the doorway, watching him work his way around. Through the thin fabric of his shirt, I make out the lines of his toned back. The shirt pulls at his shoulders and stretches around the peak of his biceps.
He turns to look back at me, my eye dart back up to his now smirking face. “Just checking the bones.”
Just him standing in this room, my room, feels tantalizing. I cannot tear my gaze away his frame as he moves about, popping his head into the bathroom then leaning back to me saying, “Your shower is a good size.”
I shouldn’t be blushing at his words, but he’s got that smirk and of course I am.
“Want a warm beer on the balcony?” I offer, needing fresh air to put my brain and body back in check.
“Absolutely. I’ll bring up your last couple bags.” He brushes past me, and I think maybe, he hesitates for a moment before he moves swiftly out the front door.
I fish the beer out of the grocery bag, fill a bowl with some ice water and shove the beers inside for even a slight improvement in temperature. I throw open the windows to get some air moving.
“This is quite the contraption.”
I turn to find Tanner over my shoulder, just a breath away, a damn muscle twitch away. One or both and we’d be touching.
“I’m chilling the beer.” I force the words out and will my back to stay straight. No muscle twitches, damn it.
He leans back against the counter, his shoulders squaring and his biceps flexing. I shove a bottle opener in my back pocket.
“I felt bad giving you a warm beer after helping us.”
“You’re sweet.” He reaches around me and pulls the opener back out.
Like when we were back in Chicago, I’m on the move the moment this feeling starts bubbling up. The feeling that has me wanting to kiss him.
“Come on.” I tilt my head, motioning for him to follow me to the balcony.
He sits and opens us each a beer then leans back.
“Look at us,” I say, crossing my leg over the other. “Having beers. As friends.”
He doesn’t say anything back. His eyes just dance around my face like he’s looking for something. A lie, maybe?
“So.” I zero in on him. “The lady at the Y said Winnie's fee was taken care of.”
He sips his beer but doesn’t say a thing.
“Do you know anything about that?”
He shrugs. Guilty.
“Tanner.”
“It’s the Auclair name.” He shrugs. “But also, they owe me.”
“What on earth do they owe you for?”
He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees, his eyes settled on the bottle between his calloused hands.
“I have cash in my purse right now,” I tell him when he doesn’t reply. “I'm literally about to pay you back—”
“No.” He snaps his dark golden eyes up to mine. “Absolutely not.”
“I have more than enough money. In fact, I have enough to cover all the kids in the summer program just from the divorce alone. Let me get my wallet—”
“No.” He grabs my hand before I can walk past him. But the tone in his voice is really what stops me. “Don’t worry about it. Please.”
“Well Winnie is mostly excited for the T-shirt. So, thank you. For that. And for getting me set up here.”
“If you need the moon, I’ll rope it for ya.” His voice is low and honest as his eyes lock on mine.
Instead of acknowledging that truth, I just shift the conversation away from a road I can’t go down. “We are going to get dinner if you would like to join.”
“I would. But it’s Taylor’s birthday and I have to be there. I got in trouble for missing drinks last time.”
Taylor? A bite of jealousy sneaks up on me, but I sip my beer and fake an interested smile to stifle it.
“You’re jealous.” There’s an undeniable sparkle in his eye. A smile. A laugh. Almost like he enjoys the way this shade of envy looks on me.
“No.”
Tanner leans in. “Taylor is a guy. His dad owns the auto shop, but Taylor and I run the place. We graduated together. His brothers are Shelby, Bailey and Stacey. I promise you I'm not ditching you to go get drinks with a girl at the bar.”
“You can,” I say quickly, and I regret it as soon as the words tumble out of my mouth, yet I can’t stop them. “In fact, you should. Make a whole night of it. It’d be good for you.”
He leans even closer now, his eyes searching my face, looking for the crack. “You’re saying I should take a girl to the bar, have a beer with her, then take her home and make a whole night of it?” Challenge drips from every word.
“Yes,” I lie. The jealousy I’ll never admit to, burns deep and hot.
“Alright.” He sets the beer down, leans back in his chair and folds his hands over his abdomen. “What are you doing Saturday?”
“What—"
“Saturday night,” he continues. “I’ll take you to the bar, we can get a beer, then we can go back to my place and make a whole—”
“Mommy and Tan. Come look at my room.” Winnie’s voice in the doorway is a bucket of cold water over my head.
“Should I close my eyes?” Tanner asks Winnie, but he doesn’t take his eyes off me, leaving me pinned to my chair.
“Yes,” she giggles. “Mommy you too.”
I set my beer down on the table and follow her to her room.
Winnie has messily filled the dresser with her clothes. Little corners of fabric peeking up through the mostly shut drawers. She has her blanket laid out across the bed and her stuffy propped up against the pillow.
She opens her arms wide. “Ta-da!”
“Wow, Fred.” Tanner crosses his arms and inspects the room like a true critic. “I’m impressed.”
Winnie stands proudly next to her bed.
“Winnie, it looks amazing,” I tell her. “I think I may need you to unpack my room too.”
“Right now?”
“How about after dinner?”
“Okay, but I don’t want to put your panties away.” She grimaces then flops onto her bed.
“I’ll do it,” Tanner says so quietly, I'm not sure if he even meant to say it out loud. I spin around and he looks as shocked as I am.
“Tan, are you eating dinner with us?” Winnie asks him with every ounce of hope in her chest as she sits up.
“I wish I could,” he replies. “I have to meet some guys for a boring birthday party. But another time.”
“You promise?”
Tanner kneels in front of her so they’re eye to eye and he holds up his pinky. “Promise.”
Her pout melts into a smile and she locks her tiny pinky with his.
“Okay. I should head out.” He ruffles Winnie’s hair then follows me to the door.
But before I can open it, he reaches around me and places his palm against it.
“Tanner—” My words dry up as he brushes up against me.
I’m caged in, with his one hand against the door, the other on my hip. At first, his touch is feather light, almost ghostlike, but he leans his lips down next to my ear and his fingers grasp me tighter.
“My offer was serious.”
“Putting my panties away?”
I can feel his smirk against my ear. “That. And taking you out. Just think about it.”
Winnie calls for me, and without another word, Tanner releases his grip on me, moves me aside and slips down the stairs and to the parking lot.
“Mommy?” Winnie asks again as she comes up behind me. “Is Tanner your boyfriend?”
“What?” I whip around to face her like a damn kid with her hand in a cookie jar. “What makes you ask that?”
“Mila from dance said her mom has a boyfriend. That they kiss and stuff. And that he helps her with things.”
“No sweetheart. He’s Uncle Rhett and Aunt Laurey’s friend. He likes to take care of his friend’s family too.”
She frowns but doesn’t say anything else.
After dinner and a bubble bath, I tuck Winnie into bed, and she hands me the book she chose from her bag. Where The Wild Things Are.
“This one.” She snuggles in.
I turn off the big light, crack the window, flip on the lamp and lay beside her on the bed. The faded book cover has dented corners and scratch marks. The pages are a bit water damaged and ripped in places where Winnie turned them too quickly. The story is worn and loved.
When I think of everything I have lost in the past few years, then think about this moment with my daughter and this book, I know I have truly not lost anything worth keeping. Even banged-up and well-read books with ripped pages can still be enough, and loved.