“Ummm, when you were in the shower Sunday?” Abbie offers as an answer as she zips up her jacket with a quick motion. “You wrote it forever ago on the calendar on the side of the fridge and I saw it when I flipped it to October.” She looks back up at Hannah, giving her a smile that reveals where one of her final visible baby teeth had fallen out just last week. “I figured you forgot ’cuz you didn’t ask me if I wanted to stay with anyone for the weekend.”

“I… I guess you’ve thought of everything, then,” Hannah’s voice reflects the bafflement on her face. “And you sure you want to go to grandma and grandpa’s for the weekend?”

“Yup!” Abbie pops the p and turns to Caroline. “When are you leaving?”

“Saturday morning. Coming back Monday afternoon,” she answers slowly as she shifts her gaze to Hannah, lifting her eyebrows in question.

Who holds her eye contact as a slow smile tugs at the corners of her lips. “I guess I’ll be joining you.” Her smile grows wider, as does Abbie’s, when she says, “I haven’t even really left the city at all in years.”

And even if it might mean some steps back in her Getting Over Hannah plan, Caroline really can’t care much in the face of that smile.

***

Hangout Weekend is always a good time, a mini vacation from real life.

They stay up later than they typically do in their respective lives and they drink a little more, too. They implemented it in their last year of undergrad, with the goal being to take advantage of the long weekend to help maintain their friendship even when they were having to live their lives out of college and in the real world. All of them – Caroline, Kris, Jess, Lacey, and Miranda – go up to Jess’s family’s house on Lake Winnipesaukee and let loose for two days.

They’re the last to arrive on Saturday and her friends all cheer when they see her. “Ay! Always the last one to the party!” Miranda is the one to declare with a laugh as she runs over from her perch on the deck to throw her arms around her shoulders.

Caroline rolls her eyes good-naturedly. “After bringing the majority of the alcohol for the weekend, I feel like I should be getting less shit.”

Miranda winks at her. “You know I love you.” But her attention is already on Hannah. “You came! I’m so glad!”

The tentative smile Hannah has on her face shifts into a more real one, albeit surprised. “I am, too.”