Chapter 43
Chapter Forty-Three
Noah
Downgraded
We don’t have practice on Sunday, but I coach Izzie’s team, and somehow use the promise of writing in the stands to convince Savannah to come with me.
The kids arrive and we skate laps to warm up, but every time I look over, Savannah’s eyes are on us. Or on me, but she follows Izzie too. It’s…nice. Really nice.
I have to wait around until all the kids are claimed, but by the time I find Sav and Izzie, my sister is explaining how she watched LaLa Land over the holidays and thinks she might want to be a pianist when she grows up.
“You can do anything you set your mind to,” Sav encourages her.
“Noah says that too. I just need to find somewhere with a piano so I can try it out.”
“You’ve never played?”
“We’ve just used recorders so far.” Izzie gets a fearful look on her face. “Do you think I’m too late?”
“Not if you love it and that’s what you want to do,” Sav assures her, biting her bottom lip.
“Ready to head out?” I make my presence known and give Savannah an Are you okay? look.
“Are we still going to eat? We had Mama Joy’s last night, but I can go again if that’s what you want,” Izzie tells Savannah. “Unless there’s one of those fancy restaurants with a piano we can go to?”
“Not that I know of.”
Sav is still gnawing on her bottom lip, and while my first instinct is to kiss her to set it free, I can tell something is on her mind.
“What’s up?”
“I know a place with a piano. And knowing her, she made more than enough food.”
“Can we go? Please?” Izzie asks me.
“Your cousin’s?” I ask, remembering the recital I thought she was making up.
“Stevie lives too far away, but my mom was the one who taught her. We do Sunday night dinner, and she cooks as if she thinks everyone is bringing their five closest friends and leaving with leftovers,” she shares.
“Do you play?” Izzie’s eyes are wide.
“I like to press on the keys and pretend I know what I’m doing, but one of my brothers learned a few songs to impress a girl, so it can’t be that hard.”
“Please, Noah, please?”
“If Savannah’s parents say it’s okay.”
Sav’s clearly wrestling with herself, which would make me turn her down, even if she insisted, which she would for Izzie’s sake, but I think her reluctance is entirely rooted in not wanting us to find out who her brothers are, and not only do I already know, I really don’t care.
Rather, I care more about what they’ll do to me for what I do to their sister than what they do for a living.
Because I’d kill anyone who touched Izzie, and I’m not sure that’ll change much over the next decade.
Especially if he’s a fucking asshole who won’t even date her. Fuck.
Savannah and Izzie are both looking at me like I should be answering a question, but I was spaced out.
“Are you good with fried chicken?” Savannah repeats.
“Yeah, that’s perfect,” I assure her.
Savannah spends most of the drive biting her bottom lip in between giving me directions, which means that by the time we reach a nice yellow house with blue shutters and an actual fucking white picket fence, I want nothing more than to round the car and push her up against the side of it before letting Izzie out. Thank God for child lock.
Unfortunately, a woman steps onto the wraparound porch as I’m killing the ignition, waving and smiling like she hasn’t seen her daughter in years. Her hair might be blonde, but her smile matches Savannah’s, and her two sons.
“I told them I know you because I babysit Izzie sometimes,” Sav whispers to me while I open the door for my sister.
“Downgraded from friends?” I wink like it doesn’t make a difference, but it kind of sucks being relegated to her friend’s relative. Her employer?
“If I say you’re just a friend, she’ll break into a happy dance and the family text group will announce I have a secret boyfriend.”
“Wrong trope,” I say, getting the tiniest of smiles.
“Now you, young lady, must be Izzie. Or should I call you Isabelle?”
My sister’s face lights up at the woman in front of her.
“Izzie is good. Are those musical notes?”
Sav’s mom’s earrings are a clef de Sol and a double.
“Sure are. I hear you want to learn piano?”
“Try it,” Izzie agrees with a look over at me.
“You must be the brother?”
She gives me an assessing look, and even though she smiles, as warm as ever, it hits me that I am meeting Savannah’s parents, and my heart is beating with nerves I haven’t felt since last year’s Frozen Four.
It makes me feel suddenly grateful that Savannah downgraded me to nothing more than Izzie’s brother, but Mrs. James is looking at me like she knows way more than I’m comfortable with, and it feels infinitely worse than being her daughter’s boyfriend.
“Noah Callahan,” I introduce myself with an extended hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. James.”
“Aren’t you cute, but you can call me Donna. Even my mother-in-law didn’t go by Mrs. James.”
“Understood,” I assure her. “Thank you for having us.”
“The more the merrier. Savannah can tell you, my sons often brought their entire…friend groups with them.”
She was going to say teams, but stopped herself, and now gives Savannah a reproachful look, which I stupidly want to protect her from, but it’s not something I can fix unless Savannah trusts me enough to tell me. Which she clearly doesn’t.
“If we’re less than a dozen at the table, Donna starts ringing up the neighbors.”
I think, no matter where I ran into him, I would have known he was Sav’s dad.
The curly brown hair, the hazel eyes that sparkle, which is not something I’ve ever thought of another man’s eyes, but that’s just how bright they are.
Where he’s unlike Sav is that he’s at least a foot taller, and while my girl is slightly on the curvier side, her dad is what Izzie would call a fridge.
If I didn’t know why Sav was so nervous, I’d make a joke that he must have played football.
“Robert James,” he introduces himself. “But everyone calls me Bobby.”
“Noah Callahan.”
His handshake is strong and firm, but he doesn’t try to break my fingers, which I take as a good sign.
Iz tugs on my sleeve, nodding to the large piano that’s impossible to ignore, but no one’s acknowledged it yet.
“You must be starving if you’re coming from practice,” Donna says knowingly. “We eat at 5:30, but there are appetizers on the coffee table.”
“Thank you,” I say, which Iz parrots, but she looks miserable.
“Unless you’d like to play a little something first?”
Iz nods fervently, then takes her seat while Donna lifts the cover.
The house is big but cozy, probably the same one Sav grew up in, but I’d bet the fancy piano is a recent gift.
Donna lets Izzie play around first, making up melodies as she goes along, then she teaches her a few notes and strings them together to play a song.
I clap when it’s done. “Look at you, Iz. A modern-day Beethoven.”
“This is fun.” She beams.
“One of my favorite things is to watch the chords,” Donna shares, letting Izzie stand on the bench to watch under the hood.
“That is so cool.”
“What made you interested in piano?” Donna asks.
While Izzie tells her all about the movie she saw, Bobby asks me about my team and how I got into hockey, which I answer extensively for the former, and without going into details for the latter.
I also avoid asking him about his athletic endeavors, because I don’t want to lie, and don’t know how else to avoid the elephant in the room.
“Does he still play?” Bobby asks of my dad.
“He died when I was fourteen,” I share. “But he was in beer leagues and coaching little kids until the end.”
“I’m so sorry for your loss.”
“It was a long time ago,” I dismiss it, but he nods like he understands, that it never really goes away.
“Do you plan to keep playing after college?”
I’m grateful for the subject change, but this one isn’t easy either. Even without considering that he might be asking not about me as a college athlete, but as the guy who’s clearly very into his daughter.
“I guess if they’ll have me somewhere close, but being picked at all is a long shot. I’m not counting on it.”
“You shouldn’t count yourself out, either,” he argues, then looks around as if to make sure no one else is listening before he says, “We saw one of your games last month in Florida…hockey isn’t my sport, but you looked like you knew what you were doing.”
Izzie and Donna return before I can comment, and Savannah, who has been in and out of the kitchen since we arrived, appears to have set up a feast on the breakfast island.
“Help yourselves,” Donna ushers.