Chapter 27
Once the rain clears after our late dinner of SpaghettiOs, I take Winnie to the pet store in Marnmouth. She picks pink rocks, a big glass bowl and a little figurine set of a couch and a coffee table.
By the time we get back home, the fish is still kicking. We change his bowl and move him into his “new place” as Winnie calls it.
I go through the motions because all I can think about is that kiss. It lived on my lips as I followed Winnie around the aisles of the pet store. Nodding along as she explained each of her choices of tank decor.
I should be slamming on the brakes, reminding myself I’m here to focus on Lauren, but when Tanner shows back up at my door, showered and smelling like I need to run my hand through his hair and down his shirt, I have a feeling it’s over for me.
He has two bags filled with ice cream in his hands and all I can think about is when I am going to get to kiss him again.
“Alright. Mom said you guys like chocolate. So, I brought options, including one of my favorites.” Tanner lifts out a carton of Ben and Jerry’s.
“It’s called Phish Food, but it’s not actually fish food, nor is there any fish in it,” he says to Winnie, but I can hear the genuine reassurance in his voice as I stifle a laugh.
“I also got these in case you didn’t like the sound of that one.
Oh, and a bag of frozen peas. You know, to be a little healthy. ”
He unloads the bags onto the counter while Winnie looks on with an expression I can only describe as awestruck. He has bought more Ben and Jerry pints than three people could, or should, eat. He even brought toppings. Marshmallows, fudge, chocolate shell, cherries, and whipped cream.
“I was hoping that if you weren’t feeling good, this would cheer you up. And if you were feeling better, then you would enjoy it even more. Which one do you want?”
She points at the Phish Food. “Me and Fish-Tanner can match.”
Tanner looks over to the fishbowl, and his eyes widen with what looks like genuine excitement. “Fred, did you give his place a makeover?”
Winnie nods feverishly, popping up and down. “Yep. And now he has a couch to watch shows with us. And pink rocks.”
“It looks like a great place to call home.” He gives her a wink. “What toppings do you want?”
“All of them.” She smiles, and he doesn’t miss a beat. He scoops and pours every option onto her now overflowing bowl before she finds her spot on the couch.
When Ethan showed me a kindness, never like this but something resembling this, it always ended in a wager he could throw back later.
He would hold any said kindness over my head.
So, at some point I stopped believing in kind gestures as being simply that.
Something you wanted to do for someone to be kind, I learned to see it as manipulation.
A way to soften me in the moment and break me later.
But with Tanner, he has yet to throw it back at me or expect anything in return.
All he wants is for me to give this a real chance.
“Now what do you want.” He nods at the ice cream pints.
My eyes linger on his lips and then I drop them to the actual options in front of me.
“Whatever you’re having.”
He throws two spoons into a carton of Cherry Garcia for us, and we join Winnie on the couch.
We watch cartoons before Winnie falls asleep with a half-melted bowl of ice cream in her lap.
Tanner silently stands, takes her bowl and our carton over to the kitchen and begins washing up.
I join him and stand there, leaning against the counter watching his hands work.
He washes and I put away. When he sneaks a few glances over at me, a humored smirk growing on his lips.
“What?” I ask, as he hands me a now clean spoon.
“Nothing.” He smiles, shuts off the sink. His eyes never leave mine while he grabs the towel from me and dries his hands with it. “We’re a good team,” he says and flicks the towel, only inches from my butt.
“Tanner.” I snap his name in a hushed tone while my cheeks burn with a deep blush.
He kisses my cheek and pretends to be innocent. “What? Are you mad I missed?”
I gently shove my elbow into him, but he grabs my arm and pulls me into his side like it were a reflex. A reflex to touch, to be close, to feel this way.
“You guys can kiss,” Winnie says in her sleepy voice, like she’s bored of watching us flirt. “I saw you kiss already.”
“She caught us making out,” I tell him.
“Making out?” Winnie questions. “What’s that?”
Tanner laughs and raises a brow. “In that case, are we totally giving up on the rules now?”
As if the rules ever stood a chance. I nod, and he pushes his lips dramatically against mine, twisting back and forth as I laugh, but he won’t let me pull away. The whole ridiculous, silly scene makes Winnie erupt in laughter.
“Okay! Okay!” she squeals. “That’s enough!”
Tanner pulls away, smiling down at me.
“Boys are gross, huh?” I say and untangle myself from his arms.
“You’re the one who kissed one.” She scrunches her nose.
“Mom’s right,” Tanner says. “Boys are really gross.”
“Not family boys.” Winnie comes over and slips her hand into Tanner’s. “Like Grampy, Uncle Rhett, Uncle Seb, and you, Tan. You’re a family boy too.”
I hear him suck in a breath.
“You think?” His voice wavers.
“Yup.” She shrugs like it’s a simple fact and drags him back over to the couch.