the first one • j. hughes

16

"Well, well," a familiar voice says. "Kenny honey, 'bout time you came back around. Patton was close to becoming the favorite Reed."

Eddie has known me probably my whole life. In fact, I'm pretty sure he's the one who drove my mom to the hospital when she went into labor with me during a barbecue. He's the one who coined "Kenny honey". My dad always called Mom, "Orla darling". I loved it. Dad and him brainstormed for about five minutes straight to decide on the perfect one.

"Impossible. Especially not from missing two years," I say.

He chuckles and pulls me into a hug. A tight hug that feels close enough to my dad's that I make it last a little longer than it needed to. I think he got why though. Not that Eddie is even the kind of guy to end a hug first. He's like the definition of a teddy bear.

Eddie crosses his arms putting the tattoo in memory of Dad on full display. "How ya doin', kid? With Holland's wedding coming up?"

"I'm—" I don't get the honor of finishing my answer because of someone practically barreling into me while wrapping an arm around my shoulders. Not even looking away from Eddie, I sigh. "Hi, Jack."

Shaking his head, Eddie smiles. "Should have known Mr. Record Breaker wouldn't be far behind."

"Kid doesn't leave me alone," I say.

"Think you're mistaking me for Lukey," Jack retorts.

"No, definitely you."

"I leave you alone all the time."

"You don't. It's always, 'Kenny, come run errands.' and 'Kenny, come play golf.' and 'Kenny, come swim.'! Always a bunch of requests for my time."

"See, she's wrong," he says to Eddie. "I don't call her Kenny that often. It's usually Prez or Ken."

Ed rolls his eyes jokingly. "Patton's over checking out the 70's for sale."

For some reason, I look out into the rows and rows of cars to see if I can spot him. We're right at the start of the car show part with the vendors all behind us. Mom always claims I have some Spidey Senses when it comes to Penn. Not feeling it right now. He might as well be on the other side of the earth.

"He didn't bring a car to show so he could buy one, huh?" Jack laughs.

I say, "Yeah, right." just as Eddie says, "Kid would never buy something from a show."

"He'd get disowned buying anything but a fixer-upper," I state.

"Maybe he's tired of being your brother," Jack jokes. Then he gasps slightly. "I was supposed to tell you that Zegs, Luke, and Quinn are going to get lemonade already."

Eddie's eyes widen and he pretends to get swept away to a different conversation ten feet away. If I hadn't been betrayed so majorly, I would have found it funny. Lemonade is my thing. You don't get lemonade without Kennedy. That's got to be a war crime. Which means war.

I get Jack's arm off me and make my warpath toward the lemonade stand. Honestly, who do they think they are? Lemonade without Kennedy? That's like... Romeo without Juliet. Spongebob without Patrick. Han Solo without Chewie. Jay without Silent Bob. Seth Cohen without—

"Hey!" I shout. Almost everyone around me except for the boys I'm headed for turn around. They know they're in trouble. "Guys!"

Still nothing. I get right to them, grabbing Trevor's shoulder and spinning him aro—

A complete stranger stares at me like I'm a crazy person, "Can I help you?"

"Sorry. You—" I take a deep breath in a pathetic attempt in fighting off the embarrassment. "You and your buddies look exactly like three of mine from behind."

He looks me up and down. "Oh, yeah?"

"Kenna!"

Oh, thank fucking god for Quinn Hughes. I send a smile to the stranger and speed walk over to the people I was actually trying to find. Ones that won't look me up and down that way. Well. I think Quinn's the only one who hasn't. 'Cause thirteen-year-old Luke was in love with me and Trevor's Trevor.

"Go, go, go," I rush out. Walking right between and past Luke and Quinn.

"What did you do?" Luke asks as he easily falls into step with me. He holds a cup out to me. "We were getting you one, dumbass."

"Your brother didn't mention that."

He laughs. "Zegs has regular. I have mango. Quinn has limeade. You have strawberry."

"What about raspberry?" I ask.

"They ran out of raspberry. Jacky's is cherry though."

Jack. I flip around to walk backward. All I get is Trevor's dumbass face laughing. I stumble slightly and get a glimpse of Jack turning into a vendor booth. Alright, sure. I start heading straight forward for him. Z hands me, I'm assuming, the cherry lemonade as I walk past. Let's hope this one's not a doppelgänger too.

He's at the back table of the little u-shape of three folding tables covered in... kitchen stuff? Okay, not necessarily the weirdest thing he could've been checking out. It is kind of odd. It's not as if the guy is much of a cook. Definitely not enough of one to get— What the fuck?

"Big fan of Mr. and Mrs. oven mitts?"

Jack looks at me and laughs before taking one of the lemonades. "You know me."

"Exactly." I laugh. "So what gives?"

"Holly's wedding gift."

I take a long sip of strawberry goodness. "There's a registry."

"A what?"

He's got to be joking. One look at his face tells me he's not and that makes me burst out laughing. So hard my side starts hurting and it starts getting hard to breathe. Jack looks over his shoulder and tries to shush me. It takes me manually breathing deeply in and out to settle down.

"You know, you can get any of the Mr. and Mrs. things customized with your name and shipped to you," a voice says, making Jack and I turn around wide-eyed. The man frowns. "You two not a couple? My mis—"

Jack pulls me closer by one of my belt loops, ending up with my hip pressed to his. His arm wrapped around my waist. "No, we are."

"Oh my god," I whisper. Mainly because three idiots have their jaws dropped behind the salesperson. I'm surprised Z didn't drop his lemonade right then and there. I'm surprised I didn't drop mine.

"Must be a long one, right?" Luke asks.

The poor guy who just wanted to make a sale turns around in a full circle to look at Luke and right back at us. Jack says without missing a beat, "Yeah. Nearly thirteen years."

"You guys can't be older than twenty-three. Maybe twenty-four," the salesperson stammers out.

"What can we say?" Jack's way too good at this. "When you know, you know."