39
Tenny’s knee-deep in the story of how he met Savannah, and it’s cuter than I expected from my brother, but if I’m honest, Tennyson is starting to surprise me in general.
Tens saved her from a weird blind date at a bar in college. Pretended that he knew her from high school and intervened and began to walk her home. He took her to a movie instead, and then they were together.
“What happened with you and Maryanne?” I ask him.
“Nothing.” Tennyson says, staring straight ahead. So, something.
“It had to do with Savannah?” I ask, mostly giving him the chance to tell me himself—which he doesn’t; he just gives me an unimpressed look.
“Oh, come on.” I roll my eyes. “You were so close before and it’s different now.”
“Yeah—” He does this big “so what” shrug, and gestures toward me. “She—you know—”
I shake my head at him. “Your dynamic had changed before you found out about me.”
His jaw juts forward and I know I’ve hit a nerve, but he doesn’t say anymore.
“I like Savannah,” I tell him. I half tell him because it’s true but also because I wonder if it’ll get the truth out of him.
He peers out the corner of his eye, exasperated. “She told Mom that Sav and I were sleeping together.”
“So?” Oliver says from behind us.
Tennyson looks back over his shoulder, annoyed that more people than just me are hearing this.
“It’s sex,” Oliver tells him. “Everyone has it.”
“Yeah, well—” Tens cracks his neck. “Mer told Mom, and all the girls from church too, and you know them—” He tosses me a sorry look. “They love someone to talk about.”
Sam blows some air out of his mouth. “Sorry, mate. That’s pretty shit.”
And Ten’s brow tells me how much our stupid sister being mean to her weighs on him—even though they’ve been together four years now, he said, and he loves her in a way where it’s still fresh on his face. It takes all that is strong within me not to glance back at Sam.
I pull down my passenger side mirror so I can see if he’s looking at me. I can’t tell whether he was before, but our eyes catch in the reflection and his mouth twitches with a hint of a smile as he looks out the window.
“So check it, Tens.” Oliver drums on the back of Tennyson’s chair. “Do you know who our baby sister was dating right before she left London?”
“Who?” Tennyson looks at me, not at Oliver.
I roll my eyes. “No one.”
“A mercenary,” Oliver announces dramatically.
Sam looks at me through the mirror. I flick him a look that tells him I’m sorry for this.
“That was like, five months ago.”
“A mercenary?” Tenny blinks. “How the fuck did you meet a mercenary?”
“Through a mutual friend.” I shrug. “And he wasn’t a mercenary.”
Tennyson looks at me out of the corner of his eye. “What was he then?”
“A private contractor.”
“Of…?” my brother asks.
My mouth shrugs without my express permission. “…militias.”
“OH! MY! GOD!” Tennyson yells, staring at me in fascination.
“They were together for ages too!” Oliver tells him brightly. “Super in love.”
Through the reflection I see Sam look back out the window, pressing his tongue into his top lip.
“Oliver!” I snap my head in his direction, feeling cross.
“What?” He blinks.
“Shut up!”
“Why? You were!”
Tennyson glances over at me. “Were you scared of him?”
I give him a look like he’s being silly. “Of course not.”
“It didn’t bother you?” Tenny presses.
“I don’t know…” I trail off. “I didn’t care, really. I don’t care what people have done before they met me.” I catch Sam’s eye in the mirror and he suppresses a smile. “Or what they do, really—as long as they don’t lie. Storm has a weird job; that’s all it was to me. As long as he didn’t lie to me, we were good…” I trail off again.
Sam doesn’t know he does it, but he gives a tired sigh, and I want to climb over these seats and into his lap and tell him about how none of it matters anymore and all I can see is him.
“So.” I look at Tenny, trying to shift the conversation away from me and Storm. “Are you going to propose soon, or what?”
Ten’s face shifts to shy.
“You are!”
He rolls his eyes.
“She’s really cool,” I tell him.
“You think?”
I nod. “I thought she was maybe a bit dumb at first, but I was wrong. She’s really clever and super hot. Like, pretty out of your league.”
He gestures to himself. “I’m a catch.”
I roll my eyes exaggeratedly.
“I don’t believe in marriage,” Oliver announces.
I scoff, turning around to face him. “Since when?”
Ol’s been dreaming of a big white wedding all his life. He’s desperately wanted someone to be committed to him for as long as I can remember.
“It’s a sham.” He shrugs. “It’s just another way for society to control us—”
I blink at him a few times, tilt my head at his words, trying to find the root of them. There’s no conviction to his conviction. “Who are you regurgitating right now?”
“No one.” Oliver scowls. “I just don’t believe in marriage anymore.”
“Well,” I sigh, turning back around to face the road. “I guess that’s good, because a big chunk of America doesn’t believe in marriage for you either.”
He kicks my seat.
“No, it’s good. Saves me a lot of yelling and picketing.”
There’s a longish pause…long enough that it’s loaded.
“Sam doesn’t believe in marriage either,” Oliver says in a tone that I don’t think I should pick at.
I stare straight out the windshield, a frown breezing across my face, and I feel Tens glance at me.
Sam shifts uncomfortably in his seat and throws a look at Oliver.
“You’re taking what I said out of context.” He sounds annoyed, which makes me turn around. Sam barely ever sounds annoyed.
“Put it in context, then,” I tell him.
Sam glances cautiously out of the corner of his eye at my two brothers—a bit like, “Really? This, now?”—but I cock an eyebrow up as I wait for his answer.
He purses his mouth for a second, pausing before he speaks. “I said, I don’t believe in marriage as a form of validating commitment—like, if you’re going to cheat on someone, you’re going to cheat on them. A fucking piece of metal on your finger won’t stop you. If you’re going to leave, you’ll leave. Rings and paper, they don’t mean shit.”
“Charming.” I turn back around, grumpy.
“Vows, though…” he keeps going. “I’m okay with some vows.”
“You said you thought the institution of marriage is a sham,” Oliver announces.
“Fuck, dude.” Sam sigh-laughs, and it makes both me and Tenny turn around. “I said the religious institution of marriage is a sham.” Sam shakes his head. “In the context of people like you and other queer people. Because they don’t want you to get married, and then they’re up in arms about fucking outside of marriage. They’re just setting you up for a loss, and I don’t like it.”
Sam gives Oliver a full-stop look, and Oliver looks like a scolded puppy.
I look at Sam; my eyes flick over his face that I’ve searched so many times, who I felt like I knew in a way I’ve never known anyone, but who, actually, I still have so very much to learn about—And for the briefest second, it makes me feel like I mustn’t really be in love with him, because how could I be? How could I be in love with someone and not even know that they don’t believe in marriage? I decide to flick that though away, though, because it would be foolish to think you need to stop learning about the things you love.
Sam and I hold eyes for a second, and the tacit tension surrounding the subtext in the conversation we’re having flickers between us in the unspoken way people who’ve been intimate can communicate in ways other people can’t hear.
I think he looks nervous. I think he knows what I’m about to ask.
I tilt my head. “When was the last time you were in a long-term relationship?”
Sam presses his lips together and holds my gaze for a split second longer than what’s normal. “A while.”
I nod coolly and face the front.
“It’s not a commitment thing,” he tells the car but really it’s me.
“That’s what guys who are afraid of commitment say,” I tell him, not looking back.
“I’m not afraid of commitment,” he says, but his mouth shrugs and he doesn’t realize that what he’s doing says something else.
“That’s the other thing they say.”
He sniffs a laugh, and nods once clearly. “I’m not.”
I don’t even think he knows his body’s giving him away.
“Whatever you say.” I give the road I’m glaring at a small shrug and turn Avicii up louder.
I don’t know why I feel annoyed, but I do. Stepped on, or something. I fell in love with Sam without asking his permission—without asking him anything, really. He doesn’t need to believe in marriage, that’s fine—unideal, but fine. I don’t want to love someone who’s afraid of commitment, though. Trying to make someone commit to you who’s afraid of commitment is like trying to tie down a tarpaulin once a hurricane’s already started. I’m not doing that.
Tenny’s watching me closely, and I find it weird, having been ignored by him most of my life, to have him paying attention to me at all, let alone this much.
I snap my head in my oldest brother’s direction, giving him a look, pointing at my eyes and then the road. “Hello?” I growl. “I’d like to live to see the light of day once again!”
My big brother rolls his eyes.
“I swear to God, Tennyson, if you get us killed before I get to solve the mystery about the Homewrecker From New Orleans, I will torment you for eternity.”
“Can’t imagine it’d be all that different from the conversation we’re having right now.” He gives me a dickhead smile.
We pull in for gas about an hour and a half later, and while Oliver goes to the bathroom, I browse the aisles for snacks.
Sam follows me. He picks up a Hershey’s bar and inspects it. “Do we need to talk?”
“Nope,” I say, walking into the next aisle.
“Georgia.” He sounds tired.
“What?” I look up at him, bright-eyed.
“What are you doing?”
“What are you doing?” I emphasize the you .
He rolls his eyes. “Is there something you’re not s—fuck, spit it out.” He shrugs, frustrated. “Do you want to ask me something?”
Yep. “Nope.”
He makes a pfft sound and walks away.