Chapter 37
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Savannah
Savvy tried so hard
“Banana!” Dallas exclaims, taking me in his arms when he gets in on Christmas Eve.
“What am I, chopped liver?” Clay asks, pretending to be offended since Dallas walked right by him to get to me.
“I saw you two weeks ago.”
One thing I don’t love about Dallas going pro is that I no longer get to go to either of my brothers’ games anymore.
“Speaking of, since when are you into different sports?” Dallas questions.
“You guys made sure I was well-versed in all sports.” I try to play it off, but the lack of surprise on Clay’s face tells me they’ve been talking about me. Probably with Parker.
“Not hockey,” Clay argues, looking to Dallas for confirmation, as if they don’t both already know.
“It’s research. For a book.” I feel the heat rising up the back of my neck at another kind of research we’ve been doing, and try very hard not to think of it.
“That’s what mom said.”
“Shouldn’t you be too busy with football to worry about what I’m up to?”
“You’re my sister and I love you,” Dallas says like it’s all the answer he needs.
“And I’m in my off-season, so I literally have nothing better to do than worry about you,” Clay teases. “So, this boy—”
“We’re friends,” I say simply, but the last thing Noah and I are is simple. Not if you’re trying to define us, but the past few days with him at the Ivy House were simple, comfortable…perfect.
“You’re blushing,” Clay calls me on it. “If you were a cartoon, your eyes would be hearts.”
“He’s nice. I like him as—”
“You like him like him,” Dallas cuts me off from a lie before turning to Clay. “What was his name again?”
“Pretty sure I never mentioned it.” I shrug, nonchalant, yet very aware that Parker knows Noah. If he’s holding out, I owe him so much food.
“I’ll text Parker.”
Shit.
“So you can what? Show up at school and tell him to be nice to me?” I try to make it sound as ridiculous as possible, but neither of them would have any qualms about doing just that. Or sending Parker.
I’m expecting an immature response that says as much, but instead Dallas sighs and asks, “Does he know about…us?” He points at himself and Clay.
I was justified and indignant a minute ago, but the fight leaves me.
“Not yet,” I admit.
“You embarrassed of us?” Clay is teasing, but there’s also a hint of hurt he isn’t great at hiding.
“I’m happy now,” I tell them, my hand subconsciously going to my chest, right over my heart, because that’s where it’s coming from. “Like really happy. But the second I tell him…” It’s another layer of insecurity I have to fight.
Clay nods like he understands, but then he delivers an emotional blow that has no right to hit that hard.
“There’s a difference between fielding the ones who only want to use you to get to us, and the ones you’re too afraid to let in.”
It hurts because it’s true. That I’m terrified of letting Noah all the way in, because the closer he gets, the more it’ll hurt when he’s gone. But this isn’t my lack of confidence making up scenarios. I have the emotional scars to prove it.
“Like Ethan?” I remind him.
I feel bad when he flinches, but there’s a reason I’m guarded.
“He was a jerk,” he says vehemently, which I know is so I don’t blame myself.
“He wasn’t,” I argue. “He was just a summer fling who stuck around too long because you entered the equation.”
Clay looks guilty, which was not my intention, but Dallas doesn’t back down.
“So that’s your plan? We never meet another person who’s important to you?”
It’s his turn to think I’m ridiculous, and he’s right, that would never work long term. But Noah and I…
I shake it off, not wanting to go there.
“Is that an option?” I tease instead. My brothers dislike arguing as much as I do, so they roll their eyes and give half-hearted chuckles.
“It’s new, okay? I was helping with his sister, he was teaching me hockey, then he offered to show me how to skate, and…
” I want them to understand how delicate it all feels right now.
How fragile. “We’re friends now and I really enjoy spending time with him, but he’s busy and I’m socially awkward… ”
“So you don’t want a ticket for him on Sunday?” Dallas thinks he has me, which he probably would, because it’s not like I don’t want to see Noah.
“He’ll be in Florida.” I stop myself from adding a ‘Ha!’ at the end, but my smug look definitely conveys it.
“And if he wasn’t?”
I’m about to tell Dallas that Noah isn’t into football anyway, which is silly, because I’m sure even someone with no knowledge about any sports would have trouble saying no to the VIP Box with us, and I don’t want to give my brother a reason to dislike him.
But Clay asks, “Doing what?” and there’s a slight edge of protectiveness to it, even though this isn’t spring break.
“A hockey tournament.” It should be obvious, after the amount of sports things we’ve crammed into our Christmas holidays over the years.
But then my face drops. Because it’s the first time I see Noah being in Florida as more than just not here with me.
We haven’t firmly established what’s going on between us after…
everything. It was fun having his house to ourselves, and he said he wants to see me once we get back, but I meant it when I said I had no experience with this, no idea how to be a friend with benefits.
Can we date other people? Will he sleep with bunnies in Florida?
Are we dating? Is the benefit orgasm-centric, or can we also be each other’s default plus ones?
Even with his assurances about being friends and wanting to keep doing this, a huge part of me still expects him to end it before we get back to school.
We both set boundaries before this started, and it keeps evolving, to the point that we’ve broken almost every one of them.
Which I’m okay with, but I’m not sure he is.
“We’re just friends,” I say, but absolutely no one believes it. Especially not me.
They both look at me like they want to argue, but Brenda Crowley walks in the front door without knocking, like she has been doing since she and mom moved in across the street from each other and became best friends decades ago. “Merry Christmas!” she calls out.
I go over to say hi and get the casserole she brought, pasta by the looks of it, but it isn’t until she takes me in for a hug that I notice her daughter is with her and freeze.
I should have expected it, at least as a possibility, but I’ve been so lucky since everything happened that I was lulled into a false sense of security.
“Kinsey, you made it,” Mom says brightly from the living room. “I feel like we haven’t seen you in ages.”
“Not since summer,” she agrees, with a saccharine smile for my mom and a complete dismissal for me.
“Looking good, Dallas,” she acknowledges, her hand lingering on his bicep longer than he looks comfortable with, but he won’t say anything for the same reason I haven’t.
We’re like family. And my hope is that one day she’ll get over my brother and stop being a bitch, but the more I look back on our friendship, the more I think the bitch was real, and being nice to me was the act.
Because I have insecurities instilled from years of suspecting that maybe she doesn’t really like me, and I’m too much of a burden, but in the months since the change, I don’t think I’ve seen an inkling of remorse, or that she isn’t thoroughly enjoying making me feel less than and miserable.
The Crowleys go to the living room with my parents while I hang up the coats they left me, some more kindly than others.
“You okay?” Dallas asks me.
“I’ll be fine.” I shrug it off, trying to convince myself as much as him.
“Have you seen her since…”
“I’ve managed to avoid her since last spring,” I answer Clay. I was at camp this summer, then Kinsey went to Europe right before school started, and did Thanksgiving with her boyfriend’s family.
“Wanna go out for Chinese? Or you can teach me how to skate?” Dallas teases.
“Mom will ask questions,” I argue, but if it wasn’t Christmas Eve, I would already be waiting in his car.
“I can answer them.”
“Don’t you dare,” I warn. We decided, after Kinsey made her feelings about me very clear, that we wouldn’t ruin Mom’s friendship with Brenda over it.
“Video games downstairs?” Clay offers.
“I can survive a couple of hours,” I say more confidently than I feel.
“Not sure I can.” Dallas sighs.
“Isn’t she still in love with you?” We both ask.
“I meant survive hours of someone hurting you without being able to do anything. And before you argue, I see your face just from being in the same room as her.”
“I’ll use my poker face,” I assure him.
“I’m not sure you have one,” Dallas argues before the three of us go into the living room and take the couch across from the Crowleys.
“How’s it going with that football player you brought for the Fourth? Kevin?” Mom is asking, completely oblivious, because I can’t bear to tell her. Contrary to what my brothers think, I have an excellent poker face when needed.
“That’s over.” Kinsey waves her hand dismissively. “Most footballers fit a little too well into the whole dumb jocks stereotype, so as fun as they are to look at, I wanted someone with a little more substance.” She sighs. “Present company excluded, of course.”
“Forgive her, she’s a little heartbroken and is taking it out on football players in general, which is an upgrade from when I last had my heart broken and blamed the entire male population,” Brenda defends her daughter.
“Don’t give up hope, sweetie. You’re beautiful, you’re smart, you’re kind, and if that idiot couldn’t see that, it’s his loss,” Mom assures her. “Are you in town all break?”
“I’m on the cheerleading squad, so I’ll need to be back just before New Year’s. You know the drill.” She speaks to my mother, but eyes my brothers.
“That we do.” Mom laughs warmly and my heart aches. “You girls should go to the mall or the movies while you’re both here. Lord, I remember you practicing routines for those cheerleader tryouts.”
“Savvy tried so hard,” Kinsey manages to make it sound like praise, but I cringe at the nickname she knows I hate.
I spent an entire summer helping Kinsey perfect her routine, but I’d never actually planned on joining the squad. I much preferred cheering from the sidelines, even before I was told I got too distracted by the game.
“I wasn’t letting my sister get pawed by all my teammates,” Dallas points out, as if that was why I never made it.
“Always so protective.” Kinsey shoots Dallas a look I can’t quite decipher, but for once she sounds more hurt than catty. “Speaking of, I was so sorry to hear about Ethan. He sounded so…nice.”
My blood turns to ice, but Clay clenches his fist so hard his knuckles are white.
“I never liked him,” he growls, which isn’t true. He just – unfortunately – knows why we broke up. I gently place my hand on his leg and give him what I hope is a reassuring look before he breaks something.
“Summer flings and long distance are so hard to navigate.” Brenda gives me an encouraging smile.
“He goes to MIT,” Kinsey reminds everyone. “A stone’s throw from BU, so we often run into him at parties. Especially when I was still with Kevin, given how much he loves sports. He’d do almost anything to score tickets to games.”
I wince, because either Ethan told her what happened, or she just knows, which feeds all my insecurities.
“Oh, I remember he loved meeting Clay’s teammates. I thought he might faint.” Mom smiles, completely oblivious to the fact she just supported Kinsey’s allegation that he was only ever with me for my brother, which isn’t true. It’s just why he stayed with me.
“He didn’t deserve Sav anyway.” Dallas wraps his arm around my shoulders, as if that could save me from the thinly veiled attacks.
“Oh, hush, Sav broke that poor boy’s heart when she ended things,” Mom argues, because she only caught the tail end of our conversation, and only my side, so it probably sounded like he was begging me to take him back, not hoping I’d still let him and his two best friends keep their tickets.
I did, then Clay put me in the WAG box so I wouldn’t have to sit with them.
“You tell that boy we say hi next time you see him.”
A bunch of different conversations take place over the next hour, my mom popping in and out to check on the food, so I spend a lot of time helping her so I can avoid Kinsey.
After dinner, Kinsey takes my seat, speaking softly to Dallas, who looks like he’s struggling to stay polite, while Clay discusses his team’s prospects with Mr. Crowley.
I’m about to pretend I’m tired so I can go upstairs and write, but Brenda calls me over.
“How’ve you been, Savannah? I feel like I haven’t seen you since last Christmas. I’m just getting the CliffsNotes from your mother.”
“I’m good,” I assure her. “Just busy.”
“I hear you love that summer camp, and something about not upsetting you while you’re holding a bow and arrow.”
“I was a bit of a menace at first, but I improved. They have a lot of activities that are empowering or just fun to blow off steam, and the camp is amazing at making everyone feel welcome and capable. Most of the kids come back for years, which is nice.”
“So I’ll miss you this summer as well?”
“I’ll try to stop by.” I give her a sad smile, because she’s right.
Brenda was my second mom all through…most of my life.
Kinsey has been terrible to me, but she hasn’t shunned my mom, and I’ve missed Brenda.
It’s just hard when I’ve become the girl who can’t trust herself not to fall for assholes who will hurt her, so she instead hides away and doesn’t let most people in.
Except Izzie and her brother, who will most likely break my heart, yet I can’t seem to stay away.