Chapter 40 #2
Dad was looking between us, gauging my reaction. “While this wasn’t what I had planned, when I called your mother to come here—”
“Wait. What?” I shook my head. “Dante called Mom.”
“I asked your mother to be here—”
“Well—” my mom gave my dad an almost apologetic smile — “you did ask, Maxwell. But when her boyfriend called me and said she was practically assaulted by a member of your staff that you had spying on her . . . That’s what made me get a flight last night and not next week as planned.”
“You left surgeries?” I asked doubtfully.
“You think I wouldn’t want to see you were okay, with my own eyes?”
Yes. But she was saying it . . . I didn’t know what to do with that.
Dad checked his watch. “I need to get back.”
“You’re taking me to lunch. Savannah, are you coming?” my mom asked. She was already heading to the shed door.
Dante’s squeeze of my hand almost broke it. “Um . . . no,” I told her. “I need to be here.”
She looked disappointed, but she said nothing. “I’ll mail you some surgical steel.”
“Why?”
“For the sculpture, of course. Surgical steel is less brittle; you should be able to incorporate it.” She looked back at my bench. “And a miter saw, you’ll need one.”
“I . . . Thank you.”
She smiled at me, warm and fleeting, but real.
“And you will return to your dorm.” She gave Dante a pointed look.
“You can be a hero on the field, and take as many risks on it and off it as you like, but you will not risk my daughter’s education because of an unplanned pregnancy.
Keep it wrapped up, Mr. Spence. I know a hundred different ways to bleed you out and make it look like an accident.
And a thousand more, including a particularly fascinating technique with the scrotum and a scalpel, to make it look completely intentional.
” She smiled at him, but there was no warmth.
“Remember that, if you ever think of skipping protection.”
Dante looked slightly green.
“I’ll see you at dinner, Savannah?” my dad asked, looking slightly exasperated at my mom’s bluntness, and I wasn’t sure if it was the mention of me having sex or bleeding scrotums that had done it. I nodded, and then they were both gone.
Dante watched the door. “My balls may never drop, your mother is so scary.” He looked at me. “What do you think? I don’t know if that makes anything better,” he admitted thoughtfully. “The program’s still shit.”
“Forget that for a moment. What the hell were you thinking?” I demanded. “You cannot make decisions like that for me, Dante! You took my phone?” I hit his good arm. “You called my mom!” I hit him again. “Are you out of your freaking mind?”
He caught my hand and twisted me around so that my back was to his chest.
“When you calm down, you’ll thank me for this,” he said with that charming smile he wore so well.
“Your mom was calling you — people who don’t care don’t call.
I took a chance. And she helped. You get to do art, you get to keep your shed, you get to have a say in your education.
” His lips skimmed my ear. “You now know your Dad isn’t a dick . . . I mean—”
“Do not finish that sentence,” I warned.
“Fair enough.” He kissed my cheek. “You get to go back to your dorm, with the soundproofed walls where your boyfriend, who loves you, will make you scream with pleasure, again . . .” He turned me to look up at him and kissed me. “And again . . .” He kissed me longer. “And again.”
“I’m still mad.”
“I know.” He kissed along my jawline. “I will happily make it up to you.”
“I will not be that woman who bends and forgives a guy just because he makes her insides mushy.”
Dante paused. “I make your insides mushy?”
“I hate you right now.”
He kissed me. “I know, Sav.” He lifted me and carried me to the workbench.
“What are you doing?”
“Remember I said I wanted to eat your pussy out on this workbench?” He was already unsnapping my jeans. “I feel like you deserve this.”
“Dante! The door isn’t locked!”
He grinned up at me as he pulled my jeans down my legs. “I’m willing to risk it, are you?”
* * *
The silence after we told Noah and Dustin was heavy, thick enough to press on my ribs.
“He’s not protecting the boosters?” Dustin asked again, calmer this time, as if repeating it might force him to believe it. “He’s been digging. Like you?”
“Yes,” I confirmed. “Only quietly. For a lot longer.”
“Dean Cole isn’t the enemy here,” Dante added, his eyes sharp and clear on me, on all of us. “It runs deeper and for longer than the last few years. It’s more than one sports program. But if the football team goes down alone, the rest of them get away scot-free. I guess it’s all or nothing.”
I glanced at Dustin, who’d gone still in the corner, jaw tight. Noah scrubbed a hand down his face, muttering something low under his breath.
“So, we go back to just ignoring it?” Noah asked slowly.
“Which is what we thought we would do anyway,” Dustin confirmed. “Right?”
I wanted to remind them that my dad needed proof, but Dante shook his head only slightly, and I kept quiet.
“Anyone else hungry?” Dante asked instead. “I could really eat some tagliatelle, with a nice, thick, creamy sauce, crispy pancetta, and a buttery slice of garlic bread.”
Dustin groaned, dropping his head into his hands. “No! I can’t listen to you and your obsession with noodles again.” He looked up at me. “Please, Savvy, make it stop.”
Noah was looking between them, a grin on his face. “We could order Italian?” he suggested. Dante looked delighted, Dustin looked resigned, and I wondered what had happened to have the conversation be this.
“I need to go to dinner with my dad,” I spoke over them as they huddled around Noah’s phone. “I kind of said I would be there.”
Dante pointed at Noah. “You’re in charge, I trust you! Don’t get anything healthy, don’t listen to Slater!” He grabbed my hand. “I’ll walk you.”
We left the apartment, hand in hand. I could still hear Noah yelling over Dustin that noodles were Asian, spaghetti was Italian.
“What just happened?” I asked cautiously.
“They’re reeling,” he said simply. “Like we were. They needed a distraction, like we did.”
“You’re saying sex with me in the shed was a distraction?”
“You’re no longer hating me, are you?” He looked far too smug.
“I’m telling your nutritionist you ate unhealthy carbs.”
“Evil.”
We walked in silence, but I wasn’t as mad at him as I had been — he was right. We got to the path that led to the dean’s house, and the lights were on. I wasn’t ready to go in yet.
“We’re going to be okay,” I told him. “But you can’t do that again. You can’t take my phone like that again. You can’t make a decision like that and not discuss it with me first.”
He nodded. Serious. No charm, none of his usual cockiness. “I won’t.” His eyes crinkled at the corner. “But also, you need to change your password. Your own birthday? I mean, aren’t you a straight-A student?”
“God, you’re infuriating.” I stepped closer, close enough to see the heat still burning in his eyes and feel the lingering warmth of his hands. I caught one, steadying it against my chest.
“You don’t have to protect me,” I said quietly. “You don’t have to risk so much.”
“Maybe not.” His mouth twitched, almost a smile, almost a challenge. “I love you, Sav.” He pulled me closer. “I won’t do it again, but I will always, always protect you, no matter the risk.”
“Let’s agree to protect each other.” I reached up, pulling his head down to mine, my forehead touching his, the weight of everything pressing down on both of us, both acknowledging without saying it, that it felt a little bit lighter.
“Deal,” he murmured, his lips brushing mine in a kiss that sealed it, soft but unshakable. “You protect me, I protect you.”
“I love you,” I whispered, and he exhaled, like he’d been holding his breath for a long time, and tucked me closer.
We didn’t say anything for a moment. He just curled his fingers into my jacket like he wasn’t letting go.
“I’ve been thinking—”
“Why am I scared?” Dante groaned as he leaned back.
“I want to find the blogger, Hadley.”
“Why?” Dante asked, his brow furrowing.
“Her site got taken down, she was digging, there’s no way she let it go. Would you?” He shook his head. “I want to find out what she knows, and how we can use it.”
His eyes gleamed. “That’s brilliant. Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Too many concussions probably.”
“So savage,” he murmured with a chuckle, dropping a light kiss on my lips. “You sure? You could leave it to your dad.”
I glared at him. “Are you leaving it to my dad?”
He grinned. “Nope.”
“Exactly.” I looked toward the house, knowing Dad was inside, waiting for me so we could have dinner.
“You don’t have to go tonight,” Dante said quietly. He glanced back toward the path. “Let’s go to the shed. I’m still waiting to find out why you’re building a windmill.”
I huffed out a laugh. “Because I want to.”
“See how that works? So you can do what you want,” he teased. “Do you want to go eat dinner with your dad?”
“Not tonight,” I admitted as I pulled my phone out of my pocket. “I’ll text him.”
Once it was sent, we walked away from the house, hand in hand.
“Hadley might know even more than we think,” Dante mused as we walked.
“Yeah. I hope so.”
He squeezed my hand, pulling me to a stop and turning to face me. “This is how we’re going to do it. We’re going to win.”
“Win what?” I whispered.
Dante leaned down, his mouth curved against mine, eyes steady on me. “Everything.”