Chapter 20
“That’s it.” Lauren pushes up from my kitchen counter. “I'm getting you out of the house for the night.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You just talked to me about the price of juice boxes here compared to back in Illinois for ten minutes.” She picks up her phone. “You need to go somewhere other than the grocery store. Do you trust Mayben to babysit?”
“I mean yeah, but—”
“Okay, good.” She presses the phone to her ear, then points at me. “Go put on something cute.”
I open my mouth to argue but I close it when it’s obvious Mayben has already answered.
Ethan never wanted me to get a babysitter other than my parents, and even that was rare.
Even the one time I proposed having Sebastian and Gigi over to watch her so I could go get a haircut, Ethan shut it down so fast I knew to never ask again.
Maybe I should fight this a little harder, but maybe she’s right. Maybe I do need to get out of the house. It feels like karma for when I showed up at her doorstep in Chicago almost two years ago making her go out too. The night Tanner and I ended up on a stage singing karaoke.
I throw on a pair of black denim shorts and a matching tank top that makes my boobs look good because what the hell is Ethan going to do.
“Mayben is in, and you look hot,” Lauren says plopping onto my bed. “You better do that curly thing with your hair.”
“That curly thing with my hair?”
“Yeah. You always have it clipped up. Let it down, embrace that natural wave.”
“My wave is a result of humidity. It’s not cute.”
“It’s sexy.”
“This is ridiculous.” I unclip my hair and fluff it in the bathroom mirror.
Mayben comes over after her shift at the diner armed with pie and chocolate milk in Styrofoam cups.
“Girl’s night!” she sings until Winnie comes running from her room, smiling ear to ear.
After I question her judgment the entire ride, Lauren pulls her car into a packed-out gravel parking lot. She hops out and waves me inside with her.
Morton’s is a country bar. I shit you not, a busted-out window, crooked neon sign, bass-thumping, dusty floor, worn-out billiards table, country bar.
Up on a small, questionable stage, a live band made up of a hodgepodge of musicians, calling themselves The Tchotchkes, play to the crowded dance floor. It smells like smoke, sawdust and stale beer. I reluctantly follow my sister through the crowd toward the bar.
“Lauren.” I grab her arm before we can take a step further. “What is this?”
“This,” she squeezes my hand, “is going out in Green Branch. Come on.”
“I’m coming, I’m coming.”
“Gwen!” Lauren calls to the curly haired woman behind the bar. Rhett’s sister spins and a giant smile grows across her face.
“Oh my God!” She smacks her hands down onto the bar. “I was wondering when you guys were going to come see me!”
Gwen Atwood has every pair of eyes at this bar on her, and I don’t even know if she realizes it. She has half of her hair tucked behind her ear, showing off a big chunky hoop earring and the daintiest smile lines by her eyes. She is all the beauty of her brothers in a much smaller package.
“Mayben is babysitting, so Hannah is off mom duty for the night.”
“Perfect. What do you guys want?”
“Just water. But Hannah needs a light beer.”
“I don’t need—”
“You got it.” Gwen winks and spins back to the little fridge behind her.
The band finishes a song, and the crowd erupts into applause as Gwen slides our drinks over.
“So,” Lauren leans toward her. “Any guys here you have your eye on?”
Gwen glances around, surveying her royal court that is Morton's bar. Filled tables and a crowded dance floor all backdropped by dusty wooden walls and far too many rusted signs and neon lights.
“I can’t even begin to describe how uninterested I am in everybody here. I have known all of them since childhood.”
“Not even Taylor?”
“Not even Taylor.” Gwen shakes her head. “He dated my best friend in high school. Besides, the man works like three or four jobs and doesn’t say more than four words in a row most days.”
Taylor, as if summoned out of thin air, comes from the back holding a big case of beer, and the bar rag over his shoulder.
“You work here too?” I question.
“Yes ma’am.” He sets the case down, rests his hands on his hips, and I think I hear a woman swoon next to us.
“The Hamilton brothers are required to have at least fourteen jobs at a time. Each,” Gwen chides, which makes Taylor roll his eyes.
“Not all of us were raised with a best-selling author as a mom,” Taylor jibes back.
Gwen is called away by some girls at the other end of the bar and Lauren gazes around, standing up on her tip toes.
“Who are you looking for?” I ask and she shakes her head.
“Lauren, who did you invite?”
I see the recognition on her face before I hear their voices.
“My favorite Dorada sisters.”
Tanner approaches, one hand in his pocket and the other holding two beers by their necks. He’s dressed in worn jeans, a slim fitting T-shirt, and a Detroit baseball hat. I chug down half the beer to drown the growing heat in my lower belly.
“You’re joking,” I mumble to Lauren.
She is only beaming at Rhett as he approaches. I don’t miss the wink he gives her before looping an arm around her waist and kissing her. I want to knock their heads together.
“Hannah you’ve met Bobby.” Tanner motions to the man to his right. “He works at the shop with me, and Ava is his daughter. This is Rodney Rhulig. RJ is his.”
“Nice to meet you.” Rodney shakes my hand smiling like he knows something I don’t. Or something I won’t admit to knowing.
“I didn’t know we were meeting people here,” I say to Lauren quietly when they shift the conversation to the auto shop. All the while Tanner’s eyes are focused on me.
“It’s Morton’s.” She shrugs. “You always bump into someone you know at Morton’s. It’s always the last place you look because everyone congregates here.”
“Somehow this doesn’t feel like just bumping into each other.”
A tall broad-shouldered guy with a boyish grin appears now. He is sporting a weak mustache that somehow suits him.
“Hannah Dorada!” his voice booms. “The man, the myth, the legend.” He reaches past the guys, takes my hand, and shakes it a little too vigorously. “I can’t believe you’re real.”
“This is Shelby Hamilton.” Lauren rolls her eyes with a smile. “He’s one of Taylor’s younger brothers.”
“The taller and better-looking brother, thank you.” Shelby takes his thumb and forefinger and smooths down his mustache with a smirk. “I’m just trying to lock in and get a Tanner Auclair level stache. Give me time, then no one will think of me as anyone’s little brother.”
Tanner claps him on the shoulder. “You’re an idiot and need to maybe not go out every night.”
“I agree.” Taylor adds from across the counter. “I’m tired of babysitting your ass. You should be home helping Mom with Bailey and Stacey anyway.”
Shelby chugs back his beer. “Bailey is almost sixteen and Stacey is in middle school. They don’t need me to babysit. Besides, I heard we were meeting up with the love of Tanner’s life tonight. I needed to come out for this.”
The entire group’s eyebrows hit their hairlines and mouths clamp shut, stifling laughter. I look at Tanner, he looks at me, and before he can fight the allegation, the song changes.
“Come on. I love this one.” His hand is against my lower back as he guides me away from his friends and through the throng of people on the dance floor
“Tanner—” I try to call over my shoulder to him, but there’s no use.
He spins me around to face him. “Oh, don’t tell me you left your dancing shoes back in Chicago?”
“Karaoke in a bar that I’ll never go back to is one thing, but this?” I motion back toward his friends all watching and loving the scene before them.
“I can request karaoke, I’m sure they would—”
“Tanner.” I cut him off, but my feet aren’t walking away.
He leans in and offers me his hand. “Dance with me. Friends dance.”
It’s a lie that neither of us believe.
There’s a shimmer in his big golden-brown eyes under the low lights and I let my heart and the remainder of my beer make the decision for me.
I set my empty bottle on a nearby table, take one of the beers from his hand, then let him pull my body into his. There’s no telling whose personal space is whose, when all I can feel is this cheap alcohol slowly coursing through my system and the warmth of Tanner's body against mine.
With his hand on my lower back, holding me against him, Tanner leans down, his lips brushing my ear. “It’s okay. Nobody here knows you.”
I pull back to look at his eyes. “But everybody here knows you.”
He leans back down, his smile against my ear is dangerous. “I don’t give a shit about a single other person in this room right now.” The warmth from his breath on my neck and the gravel of his voice sends goosebumps racing down my body.
I can’t find any words worth saying, so, I drape my arm over his shoulder and let him sway our bodies back and forth.
“See,” he says. “This isn’t so bad.”
“It could be worse I guess,” I admit and I turn his hat backwards.
He shakes his head and flexes his fingers against my back. “You’re going to be the death of me.”
“Yeah? How’s that?”
“The fact that you showed up, looking like you do, and act so casual about it, baffles me.”
“I’m wearing shorts to a bar. It’s hardly remarkable.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t mean just tonight.
I mean you showing up at the bar in Chicago.
Here in my hometown. Hannah, we are in the smallest, shittiest bar in the entire state of Michigan, dancing to a terrible cover band, drinking cheap beer, and yet you’re still here in my arms. I think that is the exact definition of remarkable. ”
“Those are just facts of our current situation. Nothing to do with me.”
He shakes his head and licks his lips. “Hannah, it has everything to do with you. It always has had everything to do with you.”
Suddenly a blonde elf of a person appears mere inches from us, staring up at Tanner with big eyes.