Accidental Mile High Vows (Forbidden Silver Foxes #7)
Chapter 1 Savannah
SAVANNAH
Lizzy’s car is in my driveway.
I stare at the beat-up Honda Civic as I pull up to the curb, my freshly manicured nails tapping against the steering wheel.
That’s weird. She wasn’t supposed to come over today.
I specifically told her I needed tonight with Mason.
Date night. An actual effort to feel like a functioning human being instead of the cave-dwelling hermit I’ve become.
The pedicure took two hours because my feet were basically horror movie material. The manicurist kept making these little concerned noises, and I wanted to explain that when your mother dies, personal grooming becomes surprisingly low on the priority list. But I just smiled and let her work.
My hair looks good, though. Really good. Soft waves that actually cooperate for once, and I even let them talk me into highlights. Mason’s going to lose his mind when he sees me.
I grab my purse and head inside, already planning what I’ll say when I find Lizzy here. Maybe she brought wine. Although that’s unlikely since she knows I don’t drink. Well, can’t drink. There’s a difference.
The house is quiet.
“Mason?” I call out.
Nothing.
I drop my purse on the hall table and kick off my shoes. My toes look cute. Worth the money I probably shouldn’t have spent.
Then I hear it. A sound from upstairs. Low and breathy, followed by Lizzy’s unmistakable giggle.
My feet carry me up the stairs before my brain catches up. Each step feels surreal, like I’m watching myself in a movie. This isn’t happening. There’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for why my best friend is in my house making those kinds of noises.
The bedroom door is wide open.
Mason is on the bed. On his knees. His face buried between Lizzy’s legs, but not where I’d expect. No, he’s got her flipped over, and he’s eating her ass like it’s his last meal on earth.
I stand there in horror and watch my boyfriend do something he’s never once done for me in our entire two-year relationship.
Every time I even hinted at him going down on me, he’d wrinkle his nose and change the subject. “I’m not really into that,” he said once, like oral sex was some weird fetish instead of basic intimacy.
But here he is. Face-first in my best friend’s ass. In my mother’s house.
Lizzy spots me first. Her eyes go wide, and she makes this squeaking sound. Mason pulls back, and his face is flushed, his lips wet, and I’m going to be sick.
“Savannah.” He scrambles backward. “This isn’t what it looks like.”
The laugh that comes out of me sounds deranged.
“No? Because it looks like you’re tossing my best friend’s salad in my bedroom. The bedroom in my dead mother’s house. Is that not what’s happening?”
Lizzy grabs for the sheet, her face red. “Sav, I’m so sorry. We didn’t mean—”
I cross the room in three strides and slap Mason across the face before she finishes the sentence.
The crack echoes in the quiet room, and my palm stings. He touches his cheek, stunned, and I head straight for the closet.
His stuff is shoved in the corner. A duffel bag. Some shirts on hangers. A pair of sneakers. That’s it. That’s all he has here after a month of “staying over to help me through this difficult time.”
I yank the duffel bag out and start throwing his clothes in. The shirts come off the hangers in one sweep.
“Savannah, please.” Mason is pulling on his jeans, hopping on one foot. “Let me explain.”
“Explain what?” I throw a shoe at him. It bounces off his bare chest. “That you accidentally tripped and fell face-first into her ass?”
“You’ve been different since Isabella died.” He gets his pants zipped. “You won’t talk to me. You barely let me touch you.”
“My mother died two months ago.” I’m shaking now, rage making my voice sharp. “I’m so sorry my grief isn’t sexy for you.”
Lizzy is crying, trying to get dressed while still wrapped in my sheet. “We didn’t plan this. It just happened.”
“Oh, it just happened. Multiple times, apparently, based on how comfortable you both looked.”
I haul the duffel bag into the hallway and down the stairs. It’s not even heavy. This is all he has. A month of living here, and he has one bag of stuff.
They follow me down, Mason still shirtless. Lizzy is wearing her dress inside out.
I throw open the front door and toss the bag onto the lawn. The sneakers follow, one landing in the bushes.
“Get out. Both of you.”
Mason reaches for me. “Baby, please—”
“Don’t touch me.” I step back. “Don’t ever touch me again.”
Lizzy is full-on sobbing now. “I’m so sorry. You’re my best friend. I never wanted to hurt you.”
“And yet.” I gesture to the door. “Out!”
They leave. Mason loads his bag into his truck, and Lizzy gets in her car, makeup running down her face. Neither of them looks back.
I close the door and lock it.
The silence rushes in. Just me and this house full of my mother’s things and the ghost of a life I thought I had. I pace the living room. Back and forth. Back and forth.
“I need a drink.” My voice cracks. “I need a drink.”
Tears are streaming down my face now, hot and fast. I head to the kitchen and start opening cabinets. There has to be something. Wine. Vodka. Anything.
Nothing.
Of course there’s nothing. Mom never drank. I never drank. Well, except for that one time in college when everything felt magical and perfect until I woke up in the ER with doctors explaining that I have some rare neurological condition that makes alcohol do weird things to my memory.
But God, before the ER, before the memory gaps, it felt amazing, like I could finally breathe.
I need that feeling. Just for tonight.
My phone is in my hand before I realize I’ve grabbed it. I open the voice memo app, and there they are. A whole list of recordings, timestamps spanning years.
“Okay, drunk Savannah, you hooked up with that guy from your study group. His name is Tyler. You’re going to be embarrassed tomorrow.”
“Future me, you sang karaoke. Badly. Like, really badly. Everyone has videos.”
“You told Professor Martinez his toupee looks like a dead animal. You have a class with him on Monday. Good luck.”
I scroll through them, a chronicle of every time life got too heavy and I needed an escape hatch. The last one is from three years ago. I promised myself I was done.
But that was before Mom got sick, and I watched her disappear piece by piece. Before I buried her and realized I was completely alone.
I hit record.
“Okay, future Savannah. Today is March twenty-third. If you’re listening to this, it means you drank tonight and need to know what happened.
Mason and Lizzy were having sex. Well, not sex exactly.
He was eating her ass. In our bed. The bed in Mom’s house.
Apparently, it wasn’t the first time. I didn’t get all the details because it wouldn’t matter.
After all, they’re both lying, cheating pieces of shits. I threw them out. They’re gone.”
My voice is steadier than I feel.
“I know what happens when I drink. I know about the condition. But I can’t be sober right now. I can’t sit in this house and feel all of this. So I’m going out. Just a few drinks. Nothing crazy. I’ll be fine.”
I save the recording and head upstairs to change.
The outfit I’d planned for date night with Mason is hanging on the back of my closet door. A pretty dress that I wanted to pair with strappy heels. I stare at it for a moment, then grab jeans and a top instead.
In the mirror, my hair still looks good. My makeup is smudged from crying, but I fix it. The manicure was definitely wasted on today, but at least my hands look nice as I request an Uber that’ll take me away.
Away from the life that just blew up in my face.
Murphy’s Tavern is across town. Far enough that I won’t run into anyone I know.
The job offer from Kryla Holdings flashes through my mind.
New York. A fresh start. Triple my current salary, not that I have a salary right now.
I quit my marketing job a month before Mom got sick, thinking I’d find something better.
Then she died, and I couldn’t bring myself to do anything except survive off my savings.
Mason kept pushing me to take the New York job.
“You should go,” he said. “We can make long-distance work. I’ll visit all the time.”
Now it makes perfect sense. He wanted me gone.