9. Saige
9
SAIGE
K nock, knock, knock.
Seriously, is one quiet night at home too much to ask for? It feels like it’s been ages since I’ve seen the inside of my house for more than five minutes.
Pulling myself off the couch, I cross to the front door, ripping it open before another knock sounds.
“Hey, Beautiful,” Bridger says, a smile pulling at his lips.
“I’ve had the longest day, and I really don’t feel like sparring with you.”
“Believe it or not, I really just want you to like me.”
“It’s not going well,” I murmur, the words not dimming the hope in his gorgeous blue-gray eyes.
“But look how much progress we’ve made since I moved in,” he says, chuckling as I narrow my eyes at him. “I’m having some friends over, and by friends I mean the guys in the band and some of their girlfriends or whatever. I’d love for you to come. My sister is here; it’s low-key, I promise.”
I open my mouth to tell him to go away but find that I really don’t want to be alone, and honestly, I’ve had worse ideas about how to spend a Friday night.
“Fine.”
“What? Really?” he says, surprised, and is he giddy ? “Wow, that’s awesome. Are you ready now? I mean it’s right next door if you want to change, not that you have to—you look great. I just meant I could wait or not, you know, whatever you need. Sorry, I thought you’d say no, so this is, yeah.” He nods, pressing his lips into a hard line as he tries and fails to tone down his excitement.
Literally no one in my entire life, Haven excluded, has ever been this excited to see me. It’s weird and possibly endearing.
“I’m ready,” I tell him, reaching back to grab my keys, my phone still in my hand as I slip on some shoes.
A younger version of me probably would have changed out of the leggings and off-the-shoulder sweatshirt I’m currently sporting. She would have checked her hair and makeup and been squealing with delight at the thought of spending time with the members of TCA.
I haven’t been that girl in a long time, and I don’t have any reason to want to impress these people, but tonight I really just don’t want to be alone. And the thought of losing myself in the music for a little while sounds like heaven.
“All right, Band Camp, let’s do this.”
I’m not sure what I expected, but a heated debate about whether a hot dog can be considered a sandwich was not it. Music plays from a speaker, and Corbin strums his guitar on the couch, sneaking glances at Lettie that no one else seems to notice.
It is weird being an outsider when the vibe is more intimate than wild house party—not that I expected that. I just thought it’d be louder, that I’d be able to drown out the day with the bass vibrating in my chest and a hypnotic melody flowing through my veins.
But it isn’t. It isn’t like that at all.
I’d taken a shot of tequila, sans chaser, as soon as we walked in before filling a glass of white wine and going through introductions. Bridger had hovered at my side for a while before blessedly giving me some space to breathe as I tried to determine the easiest way to slip back out the door without being noticed.
As if sensing my unease, Lettie pulls me into a conversation with a guy whose name I can’t remember. He stands too close as he asks about all the best things to do in Love Beach, and I fall easily into work mode. Corbin keeps glaring at him, but I assume that has more to do with his proximity to Lettie rather than anything to do with me.
It is interesting but far less so than the expression on Bridger’s face as he stares at me from across the room. Gone is his usual jovial smile and in its place something dejected and also jealous maybe? Raising an eyebrow, I watch as his lips press into a hard line, his head dipping in acknowledgment that he’d been caught.
Could he really be jealous? Do I want him to be?
This whole situation is surreal, and wasn’t I feeling a certain kind of way when that girl was falling all over him the other day?
The girl is now draped over Declan, while a girl I don’t recognize sits on Landon’s lap. Nick isn’t here, but Sam and his fiancée are curled up together in one of the recliners, their foreheads pressed together like they’re the only ones in the room.
“Can I get you another drink?” the guy whose name I forgot almost instantly asks with a dopey smile on his face. On a hunch, I place my hand on his forearm as I turn toward him and watch as Bridger’s nostrils flare, a flash of emotion in his eyes I can’t quite identify as he turns away.
Very interesting.
“No, but thanks for asking,” I tell him.
Nodding, he scurries off and I’m left with a new plan, one to see just how jealous I can make a certain bass player.
And how far he’s willing to go to have me.