Chapter 69
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Noah
Grand Gesture
“You’d think we’d be used to the monkey suits after every single away game, but somehow it feels worse wearing them here.” Colt walks over to where I’m fussing with my tie, probably looking as uncomfortable as I feel.
“Just itching to leave,” I argue with a sigh, but most people aren’t done with dessert yet, and there’s still the silent auction.
Leaving my bed this morning was absolute torture, but Savannah didn’t want to get caught, so we were at the table as if nothing happened by the time Izzie stumbled out of bed.
We barely had time for Savannah’s French toast breakfast I had to get here to help set up the fundraiser.
I left Savannah at her dorm with my notes on her book, promising her I’d be over as soon as this was done, but now I’m counting down the minutes and I’m not sure I’ll last.
I sigh as I look around the room, dangerously tempted to pull the fire alarm.
“Looking good, Callahan.”
I tense at the sound of her voice. Some girls call themselves puck bunnies because they’ll sleep with any one of us without discrimination, but others make it their goal to cross every player off their list before the season is done.
“Hey Tish, thanks for coming.” I give her a polite smile.
“How could I not after hearing about your broken heart?”
“That’s sweet, but I’m not interested.”
“The way I hear it, neither is she.”
Savannah and I didn’t discuss it, so although I want everyone at Wynchester and in the goddamn world to know I’m hers, I understand that things I say can end up on gossip sites, and don’t want to make her the center of attention again.
At least not without her consent. And even if Sav never took me back, I still wouldn’t be desperate enough to let Tish use me for her roster bingo card.
But I’m not an asshole, so I don’t tell her that.
“The heart wants what it wants.”
“And yours wants her? Really?” Tish is skeptical, like she thinks I’m using Sav as an excuse to play hard to get with her.
“More than anything,” I agree before deciding I feel a migraine coming on. Or I left the stove on. Anything to get me out of here.
I scour the room for Coach Benson, because I’m pretty sure that if he’s with his wife, he’ll let me go, but before I find him, Tish lets out a gasp the entire room mimics.
There’s silence, then an excited buzz as bodies converge on the entrance.
“Oh my God.” Tish completely ignores me and joins the crowd.
Luckily, I’m pretty tall, and most of my teammates are staying back, so I can make out the people at the middle of the mob.
The men are taller than the people lining up to talk to them, and I’d recognize their faces anywhere, because they have Savannah’s smile.
She’s a foot shorter, but I spot her brown curls, and my body is moving closer before my brain even registers what’s happening.
“Who the fuck is that?” Darren asks me.
“Clayton and Dallas James,” I say without stopping. “She came,” I add to his confused expression.
By the time I’m close, Coach Benson has convinced most people to act civilized and wait their turn, but my eyes are focused on Savannah, who looks so beautiful my chest hurts.
She stands between her brothers with a resigned look on her face, searching for someone.
My heart stops at the smile when her eyes land on me.
She whispers something to her brothers, then walks through the mob to get to me, nodding in response to questions, but her eyes are locked on me.
I meet her halfway and immediately pull her into a hug, taking a shuddering breath that feels like my first one in days, even though it’s only been hours since I last had her in my arms. She relaxes into it, and I swear, it’s like all the weight is lifted off my shoulders.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, brushing the hair from her face, searching her eyes for something being wrong, but she’s smiling nervously, and she doesn’t look like she rushed over in a panic.
Her hair and makeup are done to accentuate all the features I love, and her body is killing me in that dress.
“This is my grand gesture,” she explains, looking around at the people who have now seen her with her brothers, and with me. “You’re worth it.”
“You don’t need one, baby. You just need to let me be yours.”
She shakes her head and takes a deep breath.
“After the Kinsey incident, I worked at a summer camp, where I met Ethan.”
I’ve heard about the asshole boyfriend who made her doubt herself, so my nostril is flared, but I hold it in to let her keep going.
“He lived in Boston, so it was just a summer fling, but then Clay surprised me on the last day of camp and took us to one of his games.” She looks guilty, so I use my other hand to take hers in mine.
“Ethan wasn’t an asshole. He was the perfect secret boyfriend until he went from wanting to spend all his time with me to stringing me along for weeks after camp ended because he was a diehard baseball fan and couldn’t turn down free tickets.”
My anger flares, but she puts her hands on my chest and looks up at me, so vulnerable.
“When I realized that I liked you as more than a friend, I kept it to myself, because I wanted to keep spending time with you. I wanted whatever I could get. And the more time you spent with me, the more I thought you might want that too. That as long as we didn’t label it, and I didn’t interfere with your sister or your hockey…
I was yours. Then you said all the things I wanted to hear, but…
You’d known since the night I would pinpoint as the one where I thought things changed, and I was terrified.
Because I’m too trusting and I’ve been blindsided before, and you went and made me feel like I deserved better than to accept scraps of—”
“I would never, Savannah. All I care about it you.”
“I believe you. And you were right. I hide behind my characters, because I can control who hurts them and I know the outcome. But I don’t want to hide anymore.
Not from my feelings or from everything that comes with my last name.
I want to wear your jersey to your games and not care about the girls who think I don’t deserve you.
I want to wear my brothers’ on their game days and not be afraid that none of my friends like me beyond what I can give them.
I want you to meet my brothers, and I want to trust you with all my secrets, just like I want you to trust me with yours.
I want to come here and support you at this fundraiser, where you look so handsome in your suit, and I want to slow dance with you and make out in a closet and take my brothers up on their offer to use their names to get the funds you guys need so we can all go home early. ”
I kiss her because I can’t help myself.
“You lost me when you mentioned making out in closets,” I tease, and she shakes her head before pulling me down to kiss her again, like she truly doesn’t care who’s watching, which is good, because half my team whooped for the kiss.
“I wish I could bring you back to Ivy right now and never let you leave.”
“So much yes, but I was kind of hoping you’d come to Sunday Dinner after your game tomorrow. My brothers will be there. Maybe with some teammates. Because my mom loves company.”
“I would love to meet your brothers,” I tell her, and she smiles like she understands I mean as her siblings, nothing more.
“Speaking of, I should rescue them.”
“How likely are they to murder me?”
“I already asked Dallas not to.”
“But he offered?”
“I was pretty sad.” She shrugs.
“I never want you to be sad again,” I say, knowing how impossible that is.
She shakes her head at me, but she’s smiling like she can’t help it.
“They’re also not assholes,” she assures me. “Even with their teammates, it was never ‘touch my sister and die’, it was always ‘hurt her and I’ll rip your balls out with my bare hands’.”
“Nice visual.”
“Do you plan on hurting me?”
“I’d rather die than do that again.”
“Then you have nothing to worry about.”