“You have that much faith in me?” I ask, and she smiles shyly and nods her head. I don’t know if it’s the dust or the fact that it’s been a really shitty couple of days, but all I want to do is kiss her. My head moves closer to her. “Thank you,” I whisper, and she just looks at me. “For being on my side,” I say right before my lips land on hers. I don’t know if she’s shocked or not, but her mouth opens just enough for me to slip my tongue into her mouth. I swear this has to be the sweetest fucking kiss of my life. Her tongue touches mine, going around and around, and just when I want to take it deeper, I step away from her. I open my eyes just in time to see her eyes flutter open. She puts her fingers on her lips as if to make sure this really happened.
“You kissed me?” I don’t know if she’s asking me or she’s telling me.
“Yeah,” I say, ready to go in for another kiss but not wanting to push her. “I’ve been wanting to do that for a while,” I tell her, and she just blinks, not sure how to handle what I just told her.
“I should get you home,” I say, pretending I didn’t just kiss her in the middle of her bar. “It’s getting late, and I have emails to go through.” She remains standing in the middle of the room, trying to mentally take everything in. “I have the bag of food. You get the lights.” Turning, I clean up the food bags while she turns off the lights, and then we walk to the door. I watch her lock the door and then walk her to her truck.
“Thank you, Beau,” she says softly as the light breeze sweeps through her hair. She gets up on her tippy toes and kisses my cheek. “Thanks for being you.” Turning, she gets in the truck, and I watch her drive away.
Getting into my truck, I start to drive home but end up making my way to Savannah’s house. I park in the driveway and ring her doorbell. She answers after a couple of minutes, and I can see that she just got out of the shower. “What are you doing here?” she asks, stepping aside so I can enter.
“I didn’t want you to be all alone tonight,” I answer her honestly, “so I thought I’d come keep you company.”
The smile forms on her face so fast. “I am not admitting this more than once,” she says, “but I was kind of scared to be home all alone.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me that?” I ask when she turns and walks into the house.
“Because then you would worry, and I don’t want you to worry about me.” She walks into the kitchen to the fridge. “You have enough to deal with.” She takes out a water bottle.
“I’m going to go take a shower,” I say. “Want to watch a movie before bed?”
“No.” She shakes her head. “But I’ll sit with you and probably fall asleep.”
I laugh. “You do that anyway.” Turning, I walk down the hallway to the bathroom I usually shower in. After turning on the water, I open the cabinet and grab my shorts that I keep here.
When I’m finished and walk back out there, I find her already asleep on the couch. I don’t bother turning on the television. I just cover her up and walk back to the spare room and fall into bed. The next morning, the alarm wakes me, and I find her still sleeping. I get dressed and leave her a note before going home and getting ready for the day.
I’m in the middle of drafting up an email when she texts me.
Savannah: You left, and I didn’t even have to cook you breakfast. Thanks for yesterday. You always know what I need.
I smile and answer her back right away.
Me: You owe me breakfast, and I’ll collect it soon. I don’t know if I can get over to you today, already have a commitment.
Savannah: Have fun on your date.
I’m about to answer her when the knock on the door of my office has me looking up. “I have all the documents that you asked for,” Bonnie says. “Also, the bridge club ladies are requesting you for their annual luncheon.” I look at her. “They do it every year. Your father has always gone, even if it’s only for a couple of hours.”
“With all these teas, lunches, and dinners, it’s a wonder he got anything done,” I mumble, and she just smiles at me.
I go to lunch where I spend two hours doing nothing productive. Then I’m sucked into a meeting with a bridge club member’s husband about some tradition that was done for over five hundred years, and when I finally walk into my house, my ass is dragging. I open my fridge to grab a water bottle, and I’m about to call Savannah and see where she is when my phone rings.
I walk back to the kitchen in search of my other car keys when the phone rings again, and I pick it up and see it’s Jacob.
“Hey.”
“Where are you?” he asks, and I can hear in his voice that he’s frantic.
“I’m home,” I answer, stopping what I’m doing. “What’s wrong?”
“I just got off the phone with Savannah.” His voice goes tight. “Someone just trashed her house.”
Chapter Ten
Savannah
“Don’t touch anything!” Jacob says loudly. “Grady is going to be there in five minutes.” I close my eyes and sit on the step in front of my house. “Did you call Beau?”
“No,” I say softly. “He’s on a date, and I don’t want to disturb him,” I say, ignoring the burning in my stomach and wondering if I can wake up and have a redo of this day. Actually, if I can have a redo of the past week, that would work also. I mean, not the whole week because I don’t want to take back the kiss. The kiss that I’ve been waiting for all my life, the kiss to end all first kisses. To say that I was in shock is an understatement … and then when he told me he’s wanted to do that for a long time? My heart went pitter-patter while my stomach did the wave as I tried to think of how to respond. I should have just come right out and told him that I have also wanted to kiss him for a long time, but instead, I stood in the middle of the dance floor just touching my lips. “It’s fine. Grady is going to be here, and we’ll handle things.”
“I’m so sorry I’m not there,” he says softly. “If you want, we can come back. I know Ethan would understand.”
“No,” I snap. “This is going to be good for Ethan to enjoy the mountains. He doesn’t need to be here for this shit.”
“Okay, but if you change your mind …” he says.
“Thank you, Jacob.” My voice is still low, and I’m trying not to sound or feel defeated, but at some point, you just have to say fuck this shit and move on. It’s becoming very clear to me that this is the line. Forget that my bar was trashed but now someone has broken the front windows of my house. I just got off the phone with the insurance agent, and he basically told me that I’m not covered with my bar since the alarm was tampered with, and I could have done it. “Not just for this but for—”
“No need to thank me. I’ll call you when I get the report from Grady,” he says and hangs up. I sit here on the step, looking out at the other houses around. I’ve been here for seven years, and none of my neighbors have ever smiled or waved at me. Let’s not forget how they go out of their way to come out and wave at Ethan when he gets here. But me? Nada.