10
Savannah made her way down the church’s center aisle with only minutes to spare before the start of Sunday morning service.
Most of the seats were taken, but there seemed to be room on the row where the Tanner cousins were already settled.
“Hey,” she said when she approached. “Can I squeeze in here?”
“Yeah, of course!” Brooklyn replied. She smiled and moved closer to Ashlyn, then she nudged her brother with her elbow.
Drew pushed to his feet with obvious reluctance and stepped into the aisle so Savannah could slip past him.
She tried to catch his eye as she slid into the pew, but he kept his gaze somewhere over her head.
Odd . . .
When they were both seated again, she brushed his shoulder with hers, feeling his nearness like a magnetic pull.
Had he been up all night thinking about that moment on the couch?
Had he dreamed about what might have happened if Mrs. Simpson hadn’t let her dog get into the pantry? Because Savannah had.
“Hey,” she said softly. “Sorry I had to leave last night.”
His focus stayed resolutely ahead, and he grunted in response.
Savannah furrowed her brow in confusion. A grunt? Really? She thought they’d moved past that. “Rosco is okay, though,” she went on, pretending the sound he’d made had been an active response. “We gave him a slug of apomorphine, and he puked his guts up. He’ll be fine.”
Again, no answer.
“We need to talk about your sweatshirt, though,” she added, grasping at straws. “It’s super comfortable, and I’m not gonna lie, but you may have to fight me for it—even if it is orange.”
Drew’s expression remained unreadable, and Savannah felt a pang of disappointment as the service finally began. Why did it feel like they were going backwards?
His strange mood did not improve as the service went on. At one point, she felt him shift away from her when she brushed his arm—and that made her angry. He’d almost kissed her not twelve hours ago, and now they were back at square one?!
Drew jumped to his feet the moment the last “amen” was said, mumbling something about a quick lunch. He’d already turned and fled before Savannah could reach for her purse.
“What’s his deal today?” Brooklyn asked from her other side, but Savannah didn’t try to answer.
Instead, she slipped into the aisle and made her way through the growing crowd as quickly as she could.
The rumble of a truck engine greeted her at the door, and she stopped short as a familiar black pickup streaked past on its way to the highway.
His obvious desire to get away from her only made her more irritated. Not today, plowboy! she thought. Not today!
Drew was just climbing down from his truck when Savannah’s car slid to a stop in the middle of his front yard. She threw it into park and angrily shut off the engine before shoving her door open.
“What is wrong with you?” she shouted. The drive over had done nothing to soften her anger but rather had heightened it.
Drew froze like the proverbial deer in the headlights, and he didn’t answer.
So, Savannah repeated herself. “What is wrong with you?” she asked again, spitting each word at him like it had sharp edges.
He shook his head and turned toward the front porch, like he wasn’t even going to acknowledge her question.
Wrong answer.
“Andrew Tanner!” she yelled, stalking toward him. “Why are you acting like this?”
“Because it’s just going to happen again!”
Savannah stopped in her tracks, first because she’d never heard Drew yell before and second because she didn’t have the faintest idea what he was talking about. “Because what’s going to happen again?”
He whirled around, his eyes wild and his face stricken. “This!” he shouted, throwing his arms wide. “Us!”
She stared at him in disbelief. “There’s never been an ‘us’!” she cried.
“Exactly! Because you chose someone else!”
“What are you talking about?”
“In school! You had a choice, and you picked Jake, but he’s married now, so you’re stuck with second best.”
The silence that fell between them was palpable, and Savannah knew her mouth was hanging open, but she couldn’t seem to close it.
She couldn’t seem to do anything at all.
For a moment his words filled the yard and floated there, echoing among the trees; then, finally, all the hurt and loss and disappointment Savannah had ever felt because of him bubbled back to the surface—and she found her words.
“I went out with Jake because he asked me!” she thundered.
“Because he didn’t leave the room every time I walked into it!
Because I was fourteen and all I really wanted was someone who’d hold my hand and make me feel pretty instead of acting like I smelled bad!
I made a fool of myself trying to get your attention, and you barely gave me the time of day! ”
Now it was Drew’s turn to stand gaping. “What? When?” he demanded.
“All the time!”
He scoffed. “You were nice to everybody.”
“And that’s a bad thing?!” she cried. “I wasn’t making anyone else cupcakes and playlists and saving them seats everywhere!
I wasn’t planning birthday bonfires for anybody else!
I wasn’t learning their favorite songs for karaoke night!
But you didn’t care! So, yeah, I went out with Jake, but I wanted you! ”
This admission tumbled from her mouth uncensored, and she watched it hit home.
Drew’s expression faded, going slack around the edges, like his mind was too busy processing her words to worry about his face.
He stood rooted to the spot, his chest heaving, and for a moment Savannah thought he might simply turn and leave her standing there alone.
But then he moved forward, closed the gap, and kissed her.
He didn’t remember deciding to do it. He didn’t think he had decided. It just . . . happened—like the movie of their lives had been on pause for all this time and somebody, somewhere, had finally pushed play.
He rushed forward and slid his hands up the sides of her neck and into her hair, tipping her face back a second before his mouth crashed down onto hers.
Savannah sucked in a breath, and then her hands were on his chest, his shoulders, his face.
She kissed him back the way she seemed to do everything else—headlong and without reservation.
Drew wondered vaguely if she’d always done that or if this was just for him.
He chose to believe the latter.
The parts of his mind that had been freaking out ever since the night before, the ones that had kept him awake with all the reasons he’d never be good enough for her, finally stopped talking—shocked into silence.
Savannah had wanted him. She’d always wanted him, and not just as a consolation prize! It was too good to be true.
And yet, it was.
Finally.
Drew lay down on his truck bed and soaked in the last warm rays of the October sun. The engine of his combine ticked nearby as it cooled in the evening air, and Savannah hummed softly from where she was sitting on the edge of the flatbed.
She untied the elastic from the end of her braid and combed her fingers through the strands before starting the process anew.
Drew watched, fascinated, as she wove her hair back and forth through her fingers, gathering more each time, until another neat braid began to form down the back of her head.
He’d seen her do this before, but he still couldn’t quite follow how it was done.
Black magic, that was what it was; some sort of voodoo that only girls could accomplish.
When she was done, she secured the end again and lay back against his chest, using him like a pillow. “Can I ask you something?” she said.
Drew closed his eyes, more relaxed than he’d been in a long time. “Hmm?”
“On Sunday, you said I’d had a choice when we were kids, but I never knew that. If you liked me, why didn’t you ever say anything?”
He frowned without opening his eyes. “I was afraid of you,” he admitted.
Savannah’s chuckle vibrated through his rib cage. “Really? Was I that scary?”
“You were terrifying.”
She threaded her fingers through his and pulled his right arm across her stomach. “How?”
Drew sighed and scrubbed his free hand down his face.
“Well, you just were, I guess. You were pretty and smart, and you were always laughing or singing or dancing around. I never knew what to say or how to act, and every time I tried to impress you, I ended up embarrassing myself, so I just stopped.”
Savannah traced her fingertips along his forearm almost absentmindedly while she seemed to consider this confession. “And then I started dating Jake,” she added at last.
Drew nodded slowly, his attention on the sky. “And then you started dating Jake,” he echoed, “and that made sense to me because he was better at everything, so why wouldn’t you have gone out with him? It was a no-brainer.”
Savannah sat up and turned to look him in the eye. “What makes you think Jake was ever better than you?” she asked, her brow furrowed.
Drew scoffed despite himself. “Umm, everything?”
“Be more specific.”
“Well, he made the soccer team our first year in high school; he made good grades without trying; girls loved him. Then he went to college and started winning all these photography awards, and all I ever did was drive the tractor,” Drew said, the words falling out faster than he’d expected them to.
But then he faltered, not sure if he wanted to say the rest out loud, even though everybody knew it.
“He’s the golden child, and I’m just . . . me.”
Savannah was quiet for a moment, then she reached over and cupped his cheek in her hand.
“That’s funny,” she said. “You remember that he made the soccer team as a freshman, but I remember that he spent most of that year riding the bench. You remember him being good with girls, but I remember the way he had to wipe his hands on his pants fifteen times before he asked me out.” She cocked her head as she regarded him.
“It seems like maybe the person who’s built him up the most is you. ”
Drew stared at her, studying the shades of green around her irises while her words found purchase inside his mind. Was that really how it had all happened?
Savannah ran her thumb along the crest of his cheek before moving her hand to tug gently on the too-long strands of hair behind his ear. “Do you remember when I stole your hat?” she asked.
Drew nodded. He remembered every detail: the way her hair had been pulled back from her face in much the same way it was now; the way the straps of her dark green swimsuit had peeked out from beneath the T-shirt she’d worn to the creek; the slight sunburn that had reddened her cheeks.
“I thought you’d come after it,” she went on.
“I ran to that big tree by the water and waited, but you never came.” Her voice wavered a bit on the last words, and Drew instantly wished he could travel back in time and strangle his teenage self.
He’d never meant to cause her any pain; he’d never imagined he had the power.
He sat up. “What if we tried again?” he heard himself ask.
Savannah’s eyes widened. “What?”
“What if we tried again?” he repeated. “I’ll give you a head start.”
Savannah blinked suddenly, her mouth open in surprise, and Drew tried not to cringe. He couldn’t decide if this idea was incredibly corny or . . . actually good.
A heart-stopping moment passed between them, and then her arm shot out like lightning. She snatched the cap from his head and leapt to the ground before sprinting toward the woods. Her laughter flew behind her like a banner as she went.
Come and get me! it read.
Drew pushed to stand and watched her move swiftly away. Then after a moment, he took off, his feet pounding against the soft earth.
Savannah glanced back over her shoulder and nearly stumbled when she saw him gaining ground. Her delighted shriek rang out across the newly cut field, and it spurred him on. He was catching up, slowly but surely.
Savannah’s braid flew out behind her as she whipped suddenly to the left. “Serpentine!” she shouted, changing direction again.
Drew would have laughed if his lungs hadn’t been burning. He tried to grab her as she crossed his path, but she was just out of reach. When she got to the edge of the woods, she darted behind the trunk of a maple tree.
Drew whirled a second later and caught himself with his palms against the bark, caging her in on either side so she couldn’t escape.
Gotcha! he thought, but the word didn’t quite come out.
He looked down at her face—her eyes bright and her cheeks red from exertion—and wondered if she’d ever been more beautiful than she was in that moment.
Kiss her! his brain commanded, and every cell in his body wanted to dive in headfirst the way he had before, but something in the back of his mind urged him to slow down this time—to commit every detail to memory so he could replay this moment over and over for the rest of his life.
He quietly absorbed the way her perfume mingled with the scent of the wildflowers growing at the edge of the thicket and the way the birds in the branches above them had stopped singing, as if they, too, were holding their breaths.
He watched how her eyes widened the tiniest bit when he leaned down.
And then, he kissed her—softly, at first, just getting his bearings.
One hand slipped off the rough wood of the tree and came to cradle the back of her head, and he tilted her face farther up to his.
This was what he’d been missing all these years. This was what he’d denied himself every time he’d turned and run from her and all the possibilities she represented. How could he have ever been so stupid?
All too soon, Savannah pushed him away with a gentle hand on his sternum.
Her eyes danced as she pulled the old baseball cap onto her head, the bill flipped backwards.
Honestly, Drew had forgotten she’d even had it in her hand.
“I’m keeping it this time,” she said firmly, and he felt a broad grin stretch across his face.
If she wanted it, she could have it. She could have everything he owned. Everything he was. Everything he would ever be. All she had to do was keep looking at him exactly the way she was now—like he was everything she’d ever wanted—and he could die a happy man.