Chapter 8 Savannah
Savannah
“Okay, there’s cookies, candy, popcorn, chips, pizza rolls, a charcuterie board, and sangria for you cruel bitches who requested it,” Anna said out of breath, her hands rubbing her lower back. “My work is done.”
I stared at the spread she had laid out on her kitchen island for our girls’ night.
It was a lot. I should’ve been thankful that she’d gone to all this trouble so late in her pregnancy, but truthfully, I wanted to go home.
I didn’t feel like snacking on junk and socializing with the girls.
I wanted to bury my head in the sand and pretend that my life wasn’t imploding.
But when I tried to fake a migraine, Delilah threatened to cut up my gold under-eye patches that were seventy-five dollars a container.
So here I was.
“It looks amazing, Anna,” Brittany said, giving her a side hug.
“Thanks,” she said. “I’m gonna go sit now, my back is killing me. Y’all can hand-feed me like we’re in the Roman times, though.” That earned a few giggles.
I poured a huge glass of sangria, popped a few Sour Patch Kids in my mouth, and went to the couch to sit next to Tess. She was staring at the ground, looking about as miserable as I was. “You okay, bug?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I just hate leaving Luke. You think he’s okay with Emmett?”
I scoffed. “Please. They’re probably having the time of their lives.” They had become obsessed with each other in the month Tess had been home, and I knew she was secretly happy about it, no matter how much she wanted to hover.
“How’s the custody stuff going?” I asked.
She straightened. “Oh, you know, not very fun.” She tucked her hair behind her ears, her cheeks a little pink.
“But Levi is great, which you know of course since you see him all the time. I’ve only met with him a few times, but every time we’ve talked since, he’s been really kind and informative about everything. ”
I bit back a smile. Pretty sure that was the most she had said in one sitting since she moved back. But my sister always ran her mouth when she got nervous.
“Yeah, he is great,” I said. “Cute, too.” He had that whole preppy look going for him. Personally, I liked them a little rougher around the edges. Which didn’t make a lot of sense, considering I had been dating Stewart for the last two years and he was as clean-cut as they came…
Tess’s eyes nearly popped out of her head, and she looked anywhere but at me. “Did Anna say there was popcorn? I’m gonna get popcorn.”
As she got up to leave, my eyes locked with Claire, who had just seen all of that based on the stunned grin on her face. She settled in next to me. “Do you think she likes Levi?” she asked, voice low but excited.
I glanced at our sister over my shoulder. She was chatting with Delilah now, her eyes wide in horror. Delilah was probably telling her about one of her latest sexcapades.
“I think so,” I whispered, grinning. Tess needed this. Needed something positive, something to look forward to. And Levi was a nice guy despite being a Hollis. He had been so much help with the lawsuit against Sterling and Preston throughout the week.
We were able to determine it wasn’t the water, but the grass. There were fine pieces of alfalfa hay scattered around that caused the cattle to get sick. We had to burn the fields to get rid of it, which sent Beau into a blind rage, but we hadn’t lost any cows since.
“I think someone like Levi would be good for her,” Claire said. And after spending the last week with him, I couldn’t help but think she might’ve been right.
“It’s movie time!” Brittany said, queuing up Netflix.
Two hours later, we were all drunk and teary-eyed, watching Taylor Schilling and Zac Efron cruise down a river with her TV son, the three of them now a happy little family.
“That was so wholesome,” Anna wept, blowing her nose dramatically.
I glanced over at Tess, her eyes glassy and full of something a lot like hope while she clutched the third sangria pitcher we’d been passing around.
Brittany turned on the lights in the living room. “I need emotional support pizza,” she said, her voice a little slurred and weepy, while she started tapping on her phone.
“And garlic bread,” Delilah added.
“And one of those pizookie things,” Claire said from next to me.
I couldn’t help but smile as I took in the five women surrounding me. They were so sweet, so beautiful, and supportive. True sisters. I mean, they basically were. I’d grown up with all of them aside from Brittany, but she fit in so seamlessly that she might as well have been there all along, too.
They weren’t like my friends back in Dallas, who were obsessed with their Instagram follower count, how many calories they were consuming, or when their next Botox appointment was.
They were real women with real personalities and real problems, just like me.
They didn’t judge me, they didn’t talk behind my back, they loved me, and I loved them.
“I’m so glad I’m here,” I said, and everyone turned to look at me. I froze, my eyes wide. “Did I say that out loud?”
“You sure did, babe,” Delilah said from the other end of the sectional. She tipped the sangria pitcher towards me in a toast. “We’re glad you’re here, too.”
Claire sat up straight as an arrow, slamming her bag of Kit Kats onto the coffee table. “I need to say something,” she declared as if she were reporting the six o’clock news.
“Say it then,” Brittany said with an amused grin.
My sister’s head whipped towards me as if it were on a swivel, a determined look in her eyes that made every muscle in my body tense. “You’re going to tell us what happened with Weston. Now.”
My mouth popped open, and I pressed myself further into the couch, hoping it’d swallow me whole. “I’m not drunk enough for this.”
I swore to myself that I’d never tell anyone, and even made Weston hide it too. But if I told them now, it would make it real. Real in a way I could never go back from. Real in a way that would force me to admit I couldn’t stop thinking about him and what that meant.
“Oh my God, please,” Anna groaned. “I’ve been dying to know.”
“Even I don’t know, so it has to be good,” Delilah added from the kitchen.
“Y’all, he freaked out yesterday when he heard she was with Levi,” Claire said between giggles, looking around the living room. “You should’ve seen it. He was all, ‘I’m coming with you,’” she mocked in a deep voice, earning a few giggles.
“You were with Levi yesterday?” Tess asked me.
I chuckled. Yeah, she was definitely crushing. “I’m working with him, Tess. I’m with him every day just about.”
“We don’t care about you and Levi Hollis, Savvy!” Delilah said, prancing back into the living room with a tray of shot glasses full of vodka. She shoved one up to my mouth. “Drink so you’ll be drunk enough to tell us what Weston’s dick looks like.”
I choked, spilling the vodka all over myself. I wiped my chin, laughing. “I’m not telling you what it looks like.”
Brittany squealed. “But you know!” She waved her hands around, rocking on the couch while she looked around at everyone else. “Oh my God, y’all fucked!”
“Shit,” I mumbled, falling back into the cushions, covering my warm face. I guess I was busted. Nobody seemed upset, though. If anything, they were happy for me. But maybe that was the sangria talking.
Delilah sat in front of me on the coffee table, grinning like the devil. “I’m gonna move my hands out, and you just tell me when to stop. Okay?”
She started spreading her hands out, but I smacked them away, laughing. “Stop it, you maniac, I’m not telling you how big it is.” It’d be easier to say I didn’t remember, but that’d be a lie.
“Seriously, though,” Claire said louder, getting all the girls to quiet down. “What happened? We were all at the rodeo, and that was…you were…I’ve never seen you like that.”
“Me neither,” Tess said.
And with that, the happy atmosphere burst like a bubble.
I sat up. “Ugh. Fine.” I took a shot, the room so quiet I could hear my pulse thundering in my ears.
And then I opened my mouth and told them everything. Every. Single. Thing. From our first kiss at dawn, to how I couldn’t stop thinking about how he cornered me yesterday.
When I was done, it was so quiet you could’ve heard a pin drop.
Claire was staring at the ground like she’d just been slapped. Delilah’s jaw was hanging open. Brittany was stunned into silence. Tess was watching me like she was waiting for me to fall apart. Anna had her hand over her mouth, shocked.
It felt like I’d just confessed to a cold case that had been closed for a decade. But that was because, in a way, that’s exactly what it was. Except after the accident, when Weston grinned at me from that hospital bed, the file got ripped back open.
Anna was the first one to say something. “Holy fucking shit.”
I swallowed roughly. “Yeah.”
“I just want to know what the tattoo looks like, honestly,” Brittany said.
“You and me both.” It was driving me nuts.
“More importantly, what are you gonna do about this? Because he clearly still loves you, and I hate to break it to you, but I think I speak for everyone when I say you obviously still feel something for him,” Claire said.
I fell back into the cushions, running my hands over my face. “I don’t know,” I groaned. My head was spinning, or maybe that was the room.
“What do you mean, you don’t know?” Delilah asked, staring at me like I was crazy. “You have Weston Tate pouring his heart out to you, and you’re just gonna—what? Ignore it?”
“I’m not ignoring it. It’s all I’ve been able to think about for weeks.”
“Then what are you waiting for?” Anna asked, resting her hand on her rounded stomach. “If I could’ve started earlier with Jo, I would’ve jumped at it.”
“It’s…complicated,” I said, knowing what I said next was going to have them spiraling. “I might be engaged,” I admitted quietly, dragging the words out.