9
“No.”
Savannah gaped at Drew, who stood between her and the front door of a sports bar called Crawdaddy’s. He crossed his arms over his chest and looked down at her without smiling.
“No?” she repeated. “What do you mean, ‘no’?” His gaze dropped, and she followed it to the crimson T-shirt she’d pulled from her closet that morning. “Oh, come on!” She threw her hands in the air. “My family lives in Alabama. It’s an Alabama game!”
“No, it’s a Tennessee game. They just happen to be playing Alabama,” Drew countered.
His voice was low and gravely, but Savannah caught a twinkle in his eye and a twitch at the corner of his mouth—one that suggested the act was hard to keep up.
It was something most people probably would have missed, but Savannah knew it meant he was in an especially good mood . . . maybe because she was there?
A girl could hope, anyway.
“That’s ridiculous. I can’t be the only Alabama fan here,” she insisted. She tried to step around him, but he moved quickly to block her path.
“Trust me, you can’t come in like that.”
Savannah scoffed and planted her hands on her hips. “Well, you invited me. What do you suggest I do?”
Drew hesitated for a moment. Then he raised his arms and grabbed the collar of his orange sweatshirt before pulling it over his head in one swift motion. He held it out to her. “Here.”
Savannah took the hoodie in somewhat of a daze, trying not to dwell on the way his white T-shirt had ridden up a second before.
The glimpse she’d gotten of his stomach brought back the memory of having seen the whole thing, and it wasn’t an image she could quickly forget.
“Thanks,” she said, finally processing the garment in her hand, “but you’re overreacting. ”
“Uh-huh,” he said, clearly unconvinced. “Now put that on before you burst into flames.”
Savannah did as she was told, mentally rolling her eyes.
The shirt was much too big for her, but she pulled it down over her torso and cuffed the sleeves.
It was warm, like sinking into a hot bubble bath, and something about being wrapped in Drew’s body heat felt strangely intimate.
Plus, it smelled like sky and wind and sunshine.
There was a hint of some kind of minty soap, but mostly his scent reminded her of being outside, wild and free.
She barely kept herself from burying her nose in the collar.
An odd sort of smile flickered across his face—not quite a smirk, but not not one, either.
“TWO MINUTES!” someone announced over the speaker system, and Drew finally turned back toward the door and reached for the handle. “After you,” he said.
Savannah walked inside and stopped dead in her tracks; everything in this building was the same vibrant, retina-burning shade of orange.
The seats of every booth, the screen on every television, and, just as Drew had said, the shirt on every patron—not a scrap of red in sight!
Her fellow Crimson Tide fans were obviously watching somewhere else tonight.
Probably for good reason.
She felt Drew lean down over her shoulder.
“If you even think the words ‘roll tide,’ they will know,” he whispered.
There was a trace of laughter in his voice, and the stubborn part of Savannah’s brain wanted to scream the words at the top of her lungs, just to see what might happen.
But the other part, the part with a shred of self-preservation, was glad Drew had saved her from a public flogging.
When she didn’t move any farther, he nudged a hand against the middle of her back. “We need to sit down while we still can,” he advised.
He pointed toward one of the few remaining booths, and Savannah moved obediently in that direction.
“So, who else is coming?” she asked as they made their way across the crowded room.
When he’d invited her to watch the game, she’d assumed it was a group thing, but she hadn’t seen any sign of the rest of his family.
Drew shrugged in a vague sort of way. “Brooklyn and Ashlyn said they had better things to do, and James is watching somewhere else with his buddies from school. Jonah is here, but he met a friend on the way in, so I doubt we’ll see much of him.”
He held his hand out when they reached the booth, gesturing for her to slide in first. She picked the side closest to them and was surprised when he took the space beside her. “You don’t want your own chair?” she asked.
Drew leaned sideways to answer, though he kept his eyes on the nearest television. “Do you want me to move?”
“Well, no,” she confessed.
“Okay then.”
She watched the side of his face, scanning for any indication that he had more to say, but that seemed to be the end of the discussion.
Well, alright, she thought, unsure what to make of this.
She and Drew had spent many afternoons sitting side by side in the combine, but never this close.
In fact, the only time they’d ever been this close had been at Jonah’s party, and that had been her choice—not his.
But things have been changing, a small voice reminded her, and she bit the inside of her lip. Things had been changing!
Something started to grow inside her chest—something that felt alarmingly like . . . hope.
The first quarter got underway, and it wasn’t long before a ref called an incomplete pass for Tennessee. A low grumble rippled through the room, and a waitress wandered by to take their drink orders.
“So, why don’t you hate this?” Savannah asked curiously as the woman walked away.
Drew turned to her and arched an eyebrow in question.
“I mean there are . . . people,” she clarified. She tried to say it with the same disgusted inflection he’d used at the Hawk’s Nest, and he chuckled sheepishly.
Then he leaned his elbow on the table and gave her his full attention. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I guess because no one expects me to do anything but watch football—no talking, no dancing, and people leave me alone.”
“Hmm, then it’s too bad you have to talk to me, huh?”
Drew pushed himself back to a sitting position and raised one shoulder carelessly as he watched the next play. “You’re the exception,” he said.
It was a simple phrase, very matter-of-fact, but it hit Savannah square in the chest.
The exception?? As in, singular?
Don’t read into it, she told herself, but as Drew relaxed back against the bench seat, letting the outside of his leg lean against hers, that mantra became harder and harder to heed.
“Touchdown, Alabama!” an announcer roared from onscreen.
More than one person jumped to their feet in outrage, but Drew just shook his head. “It’s alright. We’ve still got this,” he said confidently.
Now it was Savannah’s turn to be skeptical. “Alabama is undefeated,” she pointed out. “We’ve been crushing people all season. You don’t stand a chance!”
Drew turned and stretched his arm across the back of the bench so they could talk face-to-face. “Yeah, but I have faith. Our boys can do it,” he said.
Savannah leaned toward him, expecting him to pull back, but for once, he didn’t. “Care to make a wager?” she asked. The room was loud, but they were close enough that she didn’t need to raise her voice.
He studied her with a serious expression. “For what stakes?”
“Winner gets to choose.”
His eyebrows rose. “Open-ended? That’s dangerous.”
“Only if you lose.”
There was a pause, and Drew stared her down as he considered. His focus was so intense that Savannah started to wonder if he could read everything she was thinking. Then, finally, he leaned forward, leaving only a few inches between them.
“Deal.”
Savannah felt a smile start to spread across her face, though it was instantly squashed by a wave of nerves as Drew’s gaze flicked from her eyes to her mouth.
Was he thinking about kissing her? What did that look like in his head?
Would he do it the same way he did everything else—slowly and with hesitation—or would he dive in headfirst and ask forgiveness later?
Would he put his hand on the side of her face, or behind her neck, or maybe around her—
“Alright, folks! I’ve got a Coke and an ice cream float, yeah?” the waitress said, and Savannah jumped. She’d had no idea the woman was anywhere in their vicinity! Or that anyone was in their vicinity.
“Uh, yeah, that’s me,” she blurted, at the same time Drew said “great, thanks.”
She pulled the frozen concoction closer to her and took a long swallow, hoping to cool the flush she could feel spreading up the sides of her neck.
After a moment she felt Drew’s leg nudge hers again, and he hovered close to her ear.
“Prepare to lose, Reynolds!” he taunted, and the sheer absurdity of that statement made her laugh.
Oh, poor delusional boy, she thought. You keep telling yourself that.
“This doesn’t look good for you, plowboy,” Savannah teased, dunking a fried mozzarella stick in a small vat of marinara sauce.
It was halftime, and Tennessee was trailing ten to twenty-three. Drew popped a fried macaroni-and-cheese ball into his mouth. “That’s nothing. Two touchdowns will fix it,” he insisted.
“Yeah, if we don’t score anything else, which is unlikely,” she shot back.
He shrugged, trying to act like he wasn’t worried when in reality he was starting to get nervous.
He pointed to the napkin in front of Savannah and changed the subject.
“I’m ranking the macaroni bites over the cheese sticks,” he said.
“The sticks are too crunchy, but the mac and cheese has enough creaminess to pull out the win.”
Savannah studied the bracket she’d drawn like there would be a test later. “Agreed, but if macaroni bites beat cheese sticks, then they’re up against loaded tater tots, and we both really liked those.