Chapter 61
Chapter Sixty-One
Savannah
Genetics Are A Bitch
I have every intention of going back to campus on Sunday, mostly so my mom can stop looking at me with concern. She’s about to call in reinforcements, and Clay won’t let me hide under the covers like she does.
But then I get a text from my roommate.
Anna
People are literally hanging outside the dorm as if you brother is about to stop by. I’m staying with a friend and suggest you do the same.
She has never texted me before, so it’s either progress, or the first time I’ve annoyed her enough for her to tell me.
Either way, I hide my phone and Mom distracts me with Hallmark movies and baking.
By Monday morning, my parents are off to work, and I’m doom scrolling. Which is usually just a waste of brain power and energy, but this time I feel impending doom, because mine is the life that’s unraveling before my eyes.
When the doorbell rings, I answer without even looking up from my phone, fully expecting it to be Clay, but instead, I find, “Parker.”
“I called. And texted,” he shares, stepping in with an eggnog latte for me.
“I banished my phone about a minute after the school paper wrote an article about me,” I explain. “I just got it back.”
“Did you read it?” I shake my head. “It wasn’t half bad. Completely glossed over our relationship though, but I get that it would be too much hotness for one article.”
I give him a half-hearted smile, because I appreciate that he’s trying.
“I saw Kinsey’s name and stopped reading.”
“I was going to as well, but I took it upon myself to keep you safe this week, so I had to know what we were up against.”
“Tell my brothers I’m fine.”
“Dallas’ plan was for you to stay with him for the week, and Clay was either whisking you to a beach somewhere or moving home after murdering Kinsey, so I think you can deal with my stellar company.”
“You see how this just links me to more awesome athletes people will want to use me to get closer to?”
“This isn’t high school, Banana. NFL and MLB stars, yes, but no one is going to cozy up to you to get to me when I’m right here and very accessible.”
“You haven’t dated in years.”
“And you don’t have the power to change that.”
He grabs the treats I stress-baked over the weekend, putting some on a plate and others in a Tupperware for later. My life is a mess, but I smile watching Parker treat our kitchen like his own.
“These were for me, right?” he verifies.
It’s not like I was going to work up the courage to bring them to Noah’s, so I nod.
The almond pastries, however, I put back in the fridge, with the address on a Post-it on top.
My mom has decided she would rather support the arts than go to her manicure tomorrow morning.
Or she stepped in when I baked them all before realizing it wasn’t my place to make the treats for Izzie’s bake sale. Who’s to say?
“I really appreciate you being here, but I was never worried that people would be mean over this.”
“Fake kindness and friends are equally as exhausting. And I’ve been told I’m intimidating.”
“By who?” Imposing, sure, he’s a six-foot-something black dude who plays football, but he would have to not look like a cuddle teddy bear if he wanted to be intimidating.
“People.” He shrugs. “You ready to face them?”
“Do I have to?”
“I’m cool to hang out with your mom’s cooking and your stress baking, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen you skip.”
“I thought you came to make me feel better, not more pathetic.”
“Come on, let’s drive to the dorms and I’ll walk you to class.”
“That sends a message—” I go to argue.
“Yeah, that I have your back. So does the entire football team. Honestly, a lot of this could have been avoided if you’d gone for Collins.”
“He looks really cozy with Jen.”
“She’ll never be as cool as you.”
“You’re biased by my food bribes.”
“And other things,” he agrees. “By the way, Lacey Hansen asked for your number. I said I’d ask you, but she’s good people. And she’s fierce. Pretty sure she’s why they used your grad pic instead of the one Kinsey posted.”
Though we’ve removed the tags, her post is still out there, with comments like:
FutureMrsJames<3 You’re telling me this slob is related to not one, but two professional athletes? #geneticsareabitch
“Is she on the paper or did she threaten them?” I ask, remembering Friday night when Lacey took on Kinsey like it was nothing.
“She makes the crosswords. Better than the New York Times, if you ask me.”
“Because you were the answer last month,” I remember. “Do all athletes know each other that well? Because I didn’t see any of you at—”
“Apparently, drunk me told Noah not to dare let anyone know, or let on that he does.” My breath catches at that reveal, that Noah was doing what Parker asked…
but then I remember the ball’s no longer in my court, so it doesn’t matter.
“I think he either avoided us, or you, depending on who he was with first.”
“And sober you thought that was a good plan?” I try not to sound reproachful, because ultimately, Noah and I are the ones to blame. But still…
“I didn’t find out I’d said that until it was a little too late to backtrack.”
“It’s never too late to be honest,” I argue, then avoid his pointed look.
“Do you and Noah hang out after hockey games?” I hate how hopeful I sound, and pray he doesn’t notice, but maybe Noah wasn’t waiting to see if something better came along after every game, he was just making sure wherever he was safe for me and what he thought I needed.
“Not usually…unless we end up at the same parties, but your guy hasn’t been coming to any since my birthday. Probably because he’d rather avoid us than you.”
“He’s not my guy.”
Parker goes to roll his eyes, thinking I’m still in denial, before he sees my face.
“Do I need to make good on my ‘hurt her and I’ll kill you’ threats?”
“Pretty sure we hurt each other,” I argue.
“In my experience, an apology goes a really long way.”
Most of my classes have at least one football player enrolled, who would usually just smile at me when I walked in, before I’d go off to sit on my own, but today they wave me over and don’t take no for an answer.
Which feels like overkill at first, but then the whispers start, and the few words I make out feed my insecurities.
“They’ve clearly never heard your brother sing,” Manning points out when a group across from us in the library is loudly comparing me to Dallas, mostly finding me lacking.
“Or smelled his gym bag,” someone adds.
“Pretty sure just being near him after practice is enough to make you go blind.”
“You’re definitely the superior James,” Jacques assures me.
“I appreciate what you’re doing, but—”
“Way better looking,” Bennett insists.
“And Bennet swings both ways, so that means something,” Parker whispers to me.
I laugh out loud, which gets me a look from the librarian, but she’s distracted when a flash goes off from the table next to us.
“We value silence and privacy in our libraries,” she warns.
None of my notes are up to my standards, but I’ve laughed way more than I have in ages. Professors keep looking at us in ways that would normally make me panic, but someone says something under their breath, and it’s so much easier to just be happy.
Bennet and Parker walk me to my last class. The first time someone points in our direction, Parker wraps his arm around me, as if to shield me, but it has the opposite effect. People who weren’t looking at us a second ago now seem confused.
“…thought you said a hockey player,” are the only words I make out.
“I don’t think this is helping,” I tell him, assuming he’ll let me go so I can walk the rest of the way on my own, but he looks around, assessing the situation, then nods like he has everything figured out, which is more concerning than reassuring.
He walks over to Bennet and slips his hand in his. Phones that were on me quickly turn onto them, so I hurry over to the closest building, only getting stopped twice, and nearly collide with Noah.
“I’m so sorry,” I say before realizing it’s him. We’re still outside, but it feels like all the air is sucked away and all I can breathe in is him.
“It’s my fault, I wasn’t looking.” His eyes are focused on me. If I didn’t know any better, I would assume he’d watched me run into him.
There are so many things I want to say, so much I want to do, but none of it matters anymore. He’s not my Noah. He never was.
“Are you headed to Macroeconomics?” Mike asks me. It takes me longer than I’d care to admit to nod. “Perfect, I have Micro. I’ll walk you.”
“I’m sorry the world found out,” Noah tells me.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t the one who told you,” I say under my breath, but he hears and looks at me sadly, like it wouldn’t have made a difference. And that breaks my heart all over again.
The only thing I want to do after my last class is hide out in my dorm room, but our door is open, and I can hear voices inside.
This usually happens when Anna has her study groups, but those aren’t on Mondays.
I take a step closer to see if she maybe forgot to put a sock on the handle, because I never even thought to come up with that kind of a system, but just like no one is discussing academics, it doesn’t sound like a date.
It sounds like they’re talking about me.
“My dad cried after that touchdown, Anna. That’s how good he is.”
“She never brought him in here?”
“I didn’t even know they were related.”
“They have the same last name, and his picture is literally right here. Fuck, they’re all there. Clayton James was the starting pitcher when they won the world series.”
“How much do you think this would fetch on eBay? Is that where you sell stuff like this now?”
“It’s a picture of a child, no one is getting off on that,” Anna argues.