Chapter 9 #2
“You’re going to give me a piggyback ride all the way home?” She laughed. Her words made it clear that she was still very tipsy.
“A whole block and a half, yeah. I’m a fucking firefighter. I’ve carried a lot more than a lightweight like you. Get on.”
She jumped up, and her arms wrapped around my neck, her legs around my waist, and I started walking.
“Do you think everyone noticed us acting sort of like a couple tonight?” she asked, her lips grazing my earlobe just beneath my beanie.
“They definitely noticed. What did you say to Scotty?” I’d been dying to ask since she’d come back to the table.
“I told him that we’d hung out the last few days, and those old feelings had returned,” she said, before nipping at my earlobe and shocking the shit out of me.
I yelped. “Hey. What was that for?”
“You always had sensitive lobes, remember?” she said, over a fit of laughter. “I used to love tugging on them and messing with you.”
“Yeah, you sure did.” I turned down my street and headed toward my house.
“Sometimes that feels like a hundred years ago.” I could hear the sadness in her voice.
I put the key in the door and walked inside, making my way to the couch and setting her down. I tugged off my coat and tossed it on the couch before dropping to my knees as she gaped down at me.
“What are you doing?” She tugged her mittens off and tossed them on the couch.
“I’m taking off your boots. You said your feet hurt.”
“Wow. You do know I’m a sure thing on this whole fake marriage thing, right? You don’t need to pamper me behind closed doors.” She chuckled as I tugged the first boot off and wrapped my hand around her socked foot and gave it a squeeze before doing the same to her other foot.
“Everything I do isn’t for something, Sav.” The words came out harsher than I meant them to.
She looked down at me, and her hand moved to the top of my head as her fingers scraped along my short hair. “It’s easier to hate you when I’m not around you.”
The admission hit me like a punch to the gut.
She’d blocked me. She was admitting that she hated me.
It was one thing to think it and another to hear her say the words.
“Why in the fuck would you hate me after everything we’ve been through?”
Her eyes welled with emotion, and she shook her head. “You left me, Hayes. When I needed you most. You crushed me, and it took me a long time to get over it.”
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.” Her being drunk worked in my favor because at least she was opening up to me.
“Oh, God,” she said, as she jumped to her feet before sprinting around the couch toward the bathroom. “I’m going to be sick.”
I made my way down the hall and heard her heaving. I pushed the door open and stood there as she hung her head over the toilet. I waited for her to finish vomiting before reaching around her body and unzipping her coat and carefully slipping it off her shoulders.
She groaned, and I moved to the sink and turned on the water, wetting a washcloth and wringing it out. I handed it to her and flushed the toilet before helping her sit back so that her back was pressed against the wall. “Sorry about that. I’m not used to drinking so much.”
I sat beside her. “So, how about you tell me why you drank so much, then?”
“Since when do you ask so many questions?” She wiped her mouth and forehead with the damp cloth.
She was right. I wasn’t usually this inquisitive because I didn’t normally give a shit.
But I gave a shit about Savannah.
“Since when are you someone who deflects every question that’s asked?”
“Fine. I’m fake marrying a man I have worked hard to hate for a very long time, and I’m lying to everyone in my life about it.
And it’s all so that I can help my father who is dying before my eyes.
And let’s not forget that I just had to say goodbye to Abe, a man who was like a grandfather to me, who also left me the money to help my father, but with all these crazy conditions.
That’s reason enough to drink tequila, isn’t it? ”
I chuckled. “I’ve known you a long time, Sav. Fake marrying a man you’ve worked hard to hate is not the craziest thing you’ve ever done.”
“That’s your answer? That I’ve done worse than being deceptive to everyone I know?”
“Just saying. I’m the only living witness who knows it was you who pulled that fire alarm our freshman year in high school.”
“You are such an asshole for bringing that up,” she groaned. “I did that for you.”
“I know you did.”
I still remembered it like it was yesterday.
I’d had a late night because my fucked-up stepfather, Barry, had come home drunk and was breaking furniture and going crazy.
I’d had a chemistry test that morning and knew I’d fail since I hadn’t studied the night before because I was dealing with family drama, per usual.
And if I failed that class, I’d be yanked from the football team because Coach did not mess around.
I’d thought it would cost me my future. But it turned out that football wasn’t my future anyway.
“And you didn’t end up taking that football scholarship, did you?” she asked, but she made it clear she already knew the answer.
“I did not. But that’s not the point.”
“What’s the point?” she asked, her voice sleepy now as she fell against my shoulder.
“The point is, as a firefighter, I could have you arrested, knowing what you did,” I said over my laughter. “A fake marriage is nothing for a hardcore criminal like you.”
She laughed, her eyes were closed now, and she whispered four little words that I hadn’t expected to hear from her.
“I missed you, Hayes.”
I miss you, too, Shortcake.