The Way We Are

by Shandi Boyes

  Besides, this feels right. Her rose scent lingers into my nose, and her cheek rests on my chest. Perhaps I shouldn’t have hidden in the shadows last night? Maybe I should have manned up and stood up for our relationship when I had the chance? Because even if this crazy kinship we’re struggling to reform never steps over the friendship line, I’m okay with that. I’d rather have her in my life as a friend than not have her at all.

  Savannah glances up at me with glistening eyes a short time later when I say, “Thanks for fixing my truck.”

  Her tongue peeks out between her teeth as she struggles to hold in her smile. “I didn’t do anything you couldn’t have done yourself.”

  "You know mechanics and me," I say with a laugh. "I fuck them more than I fix them."

  Savannah screws up her button nose as she steps away from my embrace. “So my ploy to bring you here to fix my pool pump was pointless?”

  “Your pool pump is broken?” I ask, glancing over her shoulder.

  I’m no maintenance guy, but with the water in her excessively large pool crystal blue in color, I doubt she has an issue with the pump.

  “If a broken pump increases the chances of you removing your shirt, I can arrange for it to break.”

  My eyes rocket to Savannah so fast I nearly have an aneurysm. As her bottom lip tucks into the corner of her mouth, the playful gleam in her eyes spreads, leaving no doubt she's flirting with me. Although I'd like to pretend her flirting is because she can't contain herself around me, I'll shelf my ego for a minute to admit she’s trying to ease the tension in the air. Not all of it—just some.

  Savannah is the prettiest girl I've ever seen, but she's not good with her emotions, so letting me see her cry twice in less than a twenty-four hour period would be hard on her. She hates being seen as weak, so she will do everything in her power to appear strong.

  “If you want me to remove my shirt, you don’t need an excuse.” When I step closer to her, filling the sliver of air between us, the rise and fall of her chest doubles. “You just need to ask.”

  The late afternoon sun pelting my shoulders turns blistering when Savannah smiles. No joke—her smile could stop traffic. It's the perfect response to showcase her talents. Sweet and wicked at the same time—just like its owner.

  “I’ll be sure to remember that.” Savannah nudges her head to the pool I was glancing at seconds ago. “Let’s go dip our feet in the water.”

  Not waiting for me to reply, she spins on her heels and saunters to the pool, hoping a little bit of distance will cause me to miss her mumbled, “I need to cool down before I combust.”

  She isn’t the only one. The hotbox I’ve been working in the past nine hours has nothing on the heat bouncing between us.

  “The maintenance crew power washed the marble yesterday in preparation for summer,” Savannah explains when she notices my inconspicuous gawk at her empty patio and pool house. The vast size of her property will always be impressive, but the blank canvas gives it a bland, generic feel a family home should never have.

  “If you saw the hideous furniture my mom purchased in the month leading up to her move, you’d understand my dad’s eagerness to get rid of it,” Savannah adds on with a roll of her eyes.

  I smile when memories of Kath’s poor interior design skills filter through my mind. I don’t know if she is colorblind, or just has bad taste, but even a twelve-year-old boy knows floral-covered cushions don’t belong on a zebra-striped couch.

  “So I take it your family get-together wasn’t held here?” I ask Savannah when we reach the edge of the pool.

  “Family get-together?” She sounds confused.

  “Yeah... remember? You had plans today.” I keep my tone disinterested, not wanting to remind her of my snooping ways.

  “Oh...” She pauses for a moment, contemplating the remainder of her reply. “I didn’t technically have plans today...Well, not ones I could share with Axel.”

  Now I’m the one stumped for a reply. Even though she didn’t say she ditched Axel for me, the guilt in her eyes says it, as does the thrumming of the vein in her neck.

  “You generally work nights, so I didn’t factor in a change in your schedule when I told him I was busy,” Savannah adds on. Her “family” excuse meant me.

  “One of the regular cooks moved to Georgia with his fiancée a few weeks ago. I’ve been filling his shifts every weekend since. A new guy started last week. Once he learns the ropes, I’ll be drop back to my standard hours,” I explain.

  Savannah’s smile competes with the low-hanging sun when she replies, “Okay, good. I’ll let my dad know. He’s been grumbling about a lack of flavor in his burger since your shifts changed to mornings.”

  “You eat at Bob’s?” The shock in my tone is uncontained.

  The last time I dined with Savannah’s family, we ate butter garlic snails and some weird fish meal that was as salty as the waves crashing on the coastline at the elegant restaurant where we dined.

  “Every Saturday night,” Savannah answers, her voice not what I anticipated. I thought it would come out with a gag—not excitement. Don’t get me wrong, Bob’s burgers are the best in town—it just isn’t an establishment you’d expect a millionaire family to dine at.

  “Do you remember my dad ordering us cheeseburgers when we refused to eat those disgusting snails?” Savannah asks, her voice picking up with excitement.

  When I nod my head, she says, “Those where from Bob’s. That’s when his obsession started.” She's laughing so hard, her words come out choppy. “For years, he snuck out every Saturday night to fulfill our cravings. He passed the baton to me a little over three years ago.” The silly grin on her face is replaced with a more contrite one. “I lost count of the number of times I’ve watched you work the past few years. You’re always in your own little world, doing your own thing.”

  I attempt to deny her statement, but no words leave my lips. I’ve never been good at lying. When I am working, I do get caught up in my thoughts. Unsurprisingly, most of them center around Savannah, so it’s fitting she witnessed my lost-in-space composure.

  “You should have come and said hello.” I keep my tone friendly, deciding to go down a smooth track instead of the bumpy one. Although I’ve known this girl most of my life, our friendship is only just getting off the ground, so I’m treading lightly.

  Savannah’s lips purse as she weakly nods her head. “I will from now on.”

  Hating that she’s gone from grinning to pouting, I ask, “Speaking of your dad, where is he?”

  Savannah hit the jackpot in the family lottery. Not only did her mom dote on her obsessively during her childhood, she was awarded a father any kid would love to have. Savannah’s dad is a large, brutish man with shoulders nearly as wide as my height, but he has the biggest heart. Anything his girls wanted, he gave them. That’s another reason I was shocked to learn her parents separated. Thorn loved his wife as much as he does his daughter, so I’m sure the end of his marriage was hard on him.

  Savannah shifts her eyes to the colossal mansion standing tall and proud on over an acre of manicured gardens. I remember the first time I visited her new house. Drool pooled in the corner of my mouth when her dad gave me a personal tour of his recently constructed eight-bedroom, five-bathroom home with three tennis courts, a nearly Olympic-sized pool, and a game room that was bigger than my house. I swear my brain exploded. I felt like a kid visiting the North Pole, unable to decide which toy to try out first.

  After rolling up her sleeves, Savannah plunks her backside on the white marble lining the pool, then drops her eyes to the crystal blue water. “Dad’s golfing. He won’t be back for a few hours.”

  “Your dad plays golf?” I ask, joining her poolside.

  Since I have boots on, I face my back to the water. It's better this way. Instead of only seeing Savannah’s profile, I can see her entire face.

  Keeping her eyes on the downlow, Savannah nods.

  “Since when?” Shock reverberates in my
tone.

  Savannah giggles, taking my playful comment as I intended. Her dad is as sporty as I am mechanical—we’re both shit.

  “Everything can be taught, Ryan.” Faster than I can blink, the cheekiness reddening her face drains. “Even love,” she whispers, her voice so low, I strain to hear her.

  “I’m calling bullshit,” I reply with a shake of my head, quoting one of her favorite sayings when anyone tries to slip a white lie under her nose. “That’s like saying someone who hates cheese will love it if they just keep eating it. That’s not true. If you hate something, you hate it. If you love it, you love it.”

  I want to say more, but it isn’t needed when Savannah glances at me through a set of incredibly thick lashes. “Still not a lover of cheese?” she asks, the quirkiness in her voice shifting our conversation back into calm waters.

  Happy to keep our exchange lighthearted, I fake a gag. “Nope. Still disgusting.”

  Savannah’s gaze shifts to her feet kicking in the water, hoping to conceal her competitive grin as she pledges, “I’ll convert you one day, Mr. Carter. Just you wait and see.”

  We sit in silence for several moments, the blistering sun not the only heat bristling between us. It has always been this way with us: a thousand words could be spoken, but since they aren’t needed to express our feelings, we remain quiet.

  This is why I’m so terrible with words. I took such advantage of Savannah knowing what I was thinking, I never bothered expressing my thoughts. I guess that contributed to our downfall as well. Perhaps if I had been more vocal five years ago, years wouldn’t have passed in silence.

  "What about you? Still afraid of the water?" I ask a short time later, my finger tracing the scar responsible for Savannah's fear.

  Savannah never said what caused the scar melded with her left brow, but her hands darted up to the mark any time I coerced her into the water when we were kids. I don’t know if anything has changed, but Savannah was so afraid of drowning, she never learned how to swim.

  Keeping her eyes planted on the water her feet are swirling in, Savannah nods. “This is the first time I’ve sat poolside in years.”

  Fearing I may be revealing my cards too soon, I stand, yank my shirt over my head, then tug at the button on my jeans. The faint flutter of Savannah’s pulse turns dangerous when the sound of my zipper lowering breaks through the silence teeming between us. She's so quiet, the metal zipper descending sounds like a roaring tornado.

  Smugness engulfs me when she doesn’t attempt to hide her ogle of my body as she drinks in my naked torso. Her eyes even bug when my I yank my jeans down my thighs. Although she's wearing a long-sleeve shirt and a pair of cotton shorts, the visual of her blushing cheeks and wide eyes could only be better if she were naked. The tight fit of her clothes leaves nothing to the imagination.

  After throwing my jeans and shirt a safe distance, I walk down the stairs Savannah is sitting next to. With her watchful eyes heating up every inch of my body, the water is cooler than it should be—thank god.

  “I can’t,” Savannah whispers when I hold out my hand in offering.

  “Yes, you can,” I assure her, my eyes never leaving hers. “You trusted me when we were eight. You can trust me now.”

  The width of her pupils doubles as anxiety envelops her. “I didn’t bring you here to teach me how to swim, Ryan—”

  “I know,” I interrupt, grinning. “You wanted me to fix your pool pump.”

  The panic clouding her eyes dulls when she rolls them sky-high, the cockiness in my tone too extreme to ignore.

  “I wanted you shirtless,” Savannah corrects, her voice as witty as mine.

  I glide my hand down my torso, still visible since I’m only in waist-deep water. “Your wish is my command.”

  I’m glad for the chilly water when Savannah smiles at my response, or she’d witness firsthand the effect her grinning face has on my body.

  When her teeth graze her bottom lip, revealing she's contemplating my offer, I pledge, “Trust me. I promise I’ll never let you drown.”

  Savannah is a sucker for promises. Whether it's a pinkie promise or one made for life, if Savannah issues you her promise, you can be assured she will do everything in her power to keep it. Although this isn’t quite the same thing, I’m hoping she accepts my promise with the same confidence I accepted hers last night.

  “Did you say down or drown?” Savannah asks, the worry in her tone picking up steam with each syllable she speaks.

  I slant my head to the side and cock a brow. “Whichever one will get you in the pool quicker.” My last two words come out in a hurry when Savannah splashes me.

  “It’s not funny, Ryan. People can drown in less than a bucket of water.”

  It's the fight of my life to hold in my chuckle. The only reason I do is because of the panic flaring in Savannah’s eyes. She's genuinely terrified. The constant raking of her teeth over her lip has made them extra plump, and her eyes are nearly black since her pupils are filling her corneas.

  "Can I have both promises?" Savannah questions a short time later, the plea in her voice unmissable. “I don’t want to drown, but I also don’t want you to let me down.”

  I wait for our eyes to meet before nodding. “You can have anything you want if it will get your sexy ass into the pool.”

  I wasn't supposed to say the lewd remark out loud, but I'm glad I did, as it gives Savannah the confidence needed to lunge forward.

  After wiping away the water from her splash, I band my arms around her back. “I’ve got you,” I say when her arms flap out wildly, her panic rising as steadily as my heart rate from having her body plastered against mine.

  “Please don’t let me go,” Savannah pleads.

  From the way her bottom lip is quivering, you’d swear she's immersed in an ice bath instead of a semi-heated pool.

  "Never. I'll never let you go," I guarantee.

  Thankfully she’s too focused on not drowning to hear the massive sentiment in my tone.

  My plans to teach her how to swim go to shit when she curls her legs around my waist and flattens her chest against mine. As we bob up and down in the water, her erect nipples drag against my pecs, and the warmth radiating between her legs is heating my stone-hard dick.

  If her clutch on my throat doesn't drown us, I'm set to drown myself—in a pool of fucking misery.

  Having the girl of my dreams so close I can feel every inch of her delectable body plastered against mine but being unable to touch her is the worst form of torture. But I'll do it; I'll suck it up and act like a man, because after witnessing Axel’s shameful display last night, she has enough guys playing tricks on her—she doesn't need another.

  “You need to loosen your arms, or we’re both gonna drown,” I warn when Savannah clutches my neck so firmly my airways compress.

  Not hearing the jeer in my tone, she tightens her hold, ensuring there's no way she could miss the stiffness in my boxers. I swear to god, I’ve never been as hard as I am right now.

  "I'm joking." About us drowning, not my dick. It's as hard as stone. "We're in the shallow end. No one drowns in the shallow end."

  Savannah's breath flutters against my neck when she cranks her head to view the depth etched on the edge of the pool. Satisfied we are still standing in water shorter than her, she loosens the chokehold she has on my throat. Mercifully, the remainder of her body stays glued to mine.

  “I thought you were taking swimming lessons the summer after your pool was installed,” I say as I shift her to sit higher on my hips, easing the pressure throbbing between my legs.

  “I did. They didn’t work out.”

  I don’t know if the disappointment in Savannah’s tone is from her failed swimming lessons or because her pussy is no longer grinding against my raging boner. When the lust in her eyes fades for vulnerability, I realize it's a bit of both.

  “Do you remember Kenny Truman?” Savannah asks, her tone curious.

  My teeth grit. “How could I forg
et him?”

  Savannah smiles, loving the jealousy laced in my tone. “His older brother Peter was the swim instructor. We didn’t make it past lesson one.”

  I stare into her eyes, wordlessly asking if I need to have a word with Peter.

  My anger is nipped in the bud when Savannah giggles, “Rumors around school were that he didn’t walk straight for a week after our lesson.”

  “Ah... you’re the reason he’s called limpy Pete?” I laugh.

  Savannah screws up her nose as the color in her cheeks drains. “Eww. No. Whatever happened between him and Lucy Glines at summer camp had nothing to do with me.”

  “What happened at summer camp?”

  I don’t give a fuck about anything that occurred between Lucy and Peter, but since Savannah is so caught up sharing school secrets, she has failed to notice we’ve merged into the deep end of the pool. Even her legs aren’t as tightly wrapped around my midsection—goddammit!

  9

  Ryan

  By the time Savannah relays the story of a joint school camp gone wrong, we’ve been in the pool nearly forty minutes. Although her legs remain clamped on my hips, the top half of her body is floating freely. Her lips have stopped quivering, and the fear on her face is basically non-existent. She looks like the Savannah I used to know, just a few years older.

  “Hmm?” I ask when Savannah’s voice breaks through the fading childhood memories filtering through my mind.

  They aren’t vanishing because I am forgetful; they are disappearing because they are being replaced with new, more important ones.

  Savannah asked me years ago to teach her to swim. I never took up the task until today. It's only now do I realize what she said last night was true. River Phoenix’s DVDs were more accessible than me. Until I lost Savannah, I didn’t comprehend how accustomed I had become to her just being there. I’m not saying I took advantage of our friendship, but I certainly didn’t put in as much effort as Savannah did.