“You have to stop blaming yourself, Sav. It was a heart attack, nothing you did. She knew how much you loved her. We all know that.”
“Did she?” I whisper, looking away.
After a moment, I clear my throat. “I have to go. You guys have a good night, okay.”
I get out of the Piggly Wiggly as quickly as possible, and when I get home, the ice cream goes untouched.
Not even Ben & Jerry can help this emotional hangover.
15
Jason
It’s another two days before Savannah contacts me—maybe she still has my number, that I hadn’t changed since high school, or maybe someone gave it to her—to go back and work on the house.
For someone who says they want nothing more than to sell and get out of Hale, she sure is taking her time. Though, I know how difficult it was for her to hear her mama’s name. To hear the nickname her father used to call her mother, the one we used to joke I’d call her when we got married.
Darling. Leonard Reese called his wife that for over twenty years, and when we would lie in our field, the one just past the hill up from this house, we’d dream about that being us one day. Married with a couple of kids, settled and calling each other old southern endearments like darlin’.
Since she dropped off the radar two days ago, I’ve been working day and night to get these floors done. In reality, I should be stalling the process, doing all I can to delay us and keep her here for longer. I still haven’t figured out a plan to make her stay, or if I want to.
Of course, I want Savannah. I’ve never not wanted her. I’ve been in love with the woman since I could have a crush on a girl. Still though, I’m not over her leaving me behind. What I did was wrong, but what she did was worse.
The day I tore both my MCL and ACL in my right knee was about three weeks before June Reese shockingly died. I was at a practice, a clinic of sorts for players entering the draft or being recruited into the farm system for a major league team. I was pushing so hard, whipping pitches and running through sprint and hitting drills so quick that it practically felt like my body was on fire.
Pain, hot and venomous, licked up my thigh, down to my toes, and I knew. I was done. They didn’t even have to bring the doctor in, his expression trying to remain cold and unaffected as he told me that I would never play baseball professionally. Later, I’d learn that my right leg would only have eighty-five percent mobility in it, which is why, if you knew what happened, you could detect the slight limp that now accompanies me everywhere.
After that, I couldn’t see past my own fury. I was fucking pissed at the world, at anyone who looked at me or spoke to me. I treated Savvy like shit, was a terrible patient and boyfriend, completely failed her as her human.
And then, in the middle of my depression and breakdown, June died. It was a complete and utter shock and hit the entire community so hard. No one more than Savannah, though. She was the baby, and she and her mom had disagreed about us moving in together into the tiny house by the lake.
I couldn’t be there for her, not properly. I was still so damaged from my injury, still on bedrest and awaiting surgery to repair all the broken parts of my leg. Savannah retreated into herself, lashing out at random times, and then I’d do the same. We were the worst versions of ourselves, and it was a dark time.
So you see, I was the asshole, the piece of crap boyfriend who wasn’t there on the hardest day of her life. But Savannah didn’t fight for us at all. She just threw in the towel. She abandoned me too, at one of the hardest times in my life, and never looked back. I tried for weeks to call her, I even … I went to New York a couple months after.
But I knew it was over for her.
Nursing that heartbreak took a good year-long bender, after which Beau sat me down and told me it was time to put the past in the past. He sobered me up, Rudy took me in, and slowly, I became a man worth something again.
I want to be enough for her. I want her to choose me. And I know she needs proof and coaxing before that happens, but there is this block in my head I can’t get past. She carries a grudge toward me, we all know that. But what I didn’t consider until she came back is that I have one for her still lingering on my shoulders.
When Savannah shows up, about thirty minutes after I arrive, I’m already putting the first coat of paint on the walls. There is a second roller in the tray, and wordlessly, she sheds her coat and then walks over to pick it up.
We’re basically ignoring each other, going about our work like prison inmates forced to work on the same task. It’s uncomfortable, and all I want to do is push her buttons. A yelling Savannah is better than a quiet Savannah any day.
“Are we going to talk about the other day? Or am I never allowed to mention your mother again?” I turn to her abruptly, my voice slicing through the peace of the forest and lake.
Shit, I mean, I could have led with something gentler than that. Plus, Savannah has a paintbrush in her hand, and this can only end badly.
“You had to bring her up? Really? Again? I told you no!” Savannah shouts, every muscle in her perfect body going rigid.
She’s a hurricane of anger headed straight toward me. And I love it.
“Yeah, I did. Because I miss her too, and I need to apologize for not being there for you. I was a shitty, selfish loser, and I should have caught you when you fell. To this day, it’s my biggest regret in life.” I push right back, my chest puffing out and my chin jutting.
This is it, this is where we thrive. On the brink of chaos, with lust and love and passion swirling around us in a heated, electric storm.
“You have no right! You fucked it all up!” She throws down the brush, paint splattering onto her clothes.
“Yeah, and you left!” I yell back, getting fired up.
This was bound to happen, the snap, and I brought it on. Good. I want to see her pissed off. I want to let my rage out.
“Because the one person I counted on to hold me up when she died was nowhere in sight! I’m not doing this, I’m not getting into this.” She crosses her arms and then pushes them out, as if this motion will make the conversation end.
“Then when will we do this? Jesus Christ, Savannah, you’ve avoided having this conversation for ten fucking years!” I shout.
There is so much pain between us, so much unforgiven shit and love that has no idea where to exist anymore.
“You know what, you’re right.” Her face is a mask of indignant rage. “You didn’t love me enough to put me before yourself! Before your goddamn sport!”
She screams bloody murder, the crux of the issue coming out.
My voice goes deadly quiet. “There has never been a day that I’ve stopped loving you. Over the last ten years, I’ve convinced myself I will die a lonely man, simply because I will never feel about another person the way I do about you. Then you blow back into town, and I swear to God, Savannah, my heart started beating again. And so, if I never get another chance to do this, I’m taking it now.”
Without waiting another second, I crush my lips to hers.
I half expect her to slap me across the face, or scream into my mouth. But I’m met with the same fever pitch of wanting that I pour into her mouth. We’re two humans so miserably and ill-fatedly in love with each other that each second of this kiss hurts, but also makes us feel like the world is on fire because of the flames we’re producing.
Savannah grabs the back of my neck, allowing me to haul her up and against me. My eyes are closed and I’m frantically plunging my tongue into her mouth as she returns the dance, but I walk us to the wall, needing something to steady us.
When her back collides with it, neither of us caring if it’s a section with fresh paint or not, Savannah’s hands leave my neck and search for the hem of my shirt.
Up and over my head it goes, everything moving so fast that it actually feels like we’re moving in slow motion. Like if you can’t see us with your naked eye, this can’t actually be happening.
My hands mold to
her breasts, rubbing over her nipples as they bud through the bra and thin cotton shirt she wears. I long to feel all of her, to take her under me and make love to her. Show her all the ways I’ve desperately missed her in the past ten years.
“Oh my God.” Savannah breaks off, pushing against me.
I exhale, a whoosh of energy and adrenaline deflating my stomach. My arms bracket her head, searching that beautiful face for any sign of hope. I’m shirtless, she’s mussed, and we’re both breathing like we just ran a marathon.
“We can’t … fuck, I shouldn’t be doing this. I have a boyfriend.”
“I don’t care.” I’m not even sorry for saying it.
“Well, I do! This makes me a cheater. You just made me a cheater. As if you haven’t hurt me enough.” She wipes the back of her hand across her mouth, an expression of dismay and unbelievability in her hazel eyes.
“You don’t love him. Don’t you feel this?” I grab her hand and smash it to my chest.
I’m so wrapped up in the moment, dangling off the cliff, that I might as well go for it all. If I plummet to my death, so be it.
“That doesn’t … it isn’t the only thing. Love isn’t enough.” She throws her hands up incredulously.
“Love is the only thing. If you haven’t learned that after all these years, then …” I trail off, not sure how I can get through to her.
She belongs here, in Hale. She belongs with me. But she’ll never admit it.
“I have to go.” Savannah ducks under my arm.
With one backward look, a split second where I think she might jump into my arms again, she does what she does best.
She walks out on me.
16
Savannah
“What’re you doing?”
A curious little voice comes from next to me, where Delilah, Adeline’s oldest daughter, plops down on the couch. Delilah is eleven and acts like I do at my age. She’s a fierce little thing, having the most contact with me since I came into town. The one thing my sister’s oldest child keeps saying is that she can’t wait to bust out of Hale.
“I’m trying to write a script for my show.” I smile at her, also kind of annoyed in the same breath since she interrupted an important thought I was about to jot down.
“Your soap opera?” she says innocently.
Now I really look at her, her hair the same color as Adeline and mine, passed down from generations of Reeses. She has Brad’s eyes, a dark, crystalline blue, and when she gets a little bit older, she’ll be making those boys crawl at her ankles.
“I don’t write a soap. Who told you that?” Because eleven-year-olds don’t typically know what that is.
“Uncle Noah, he said your job was to write drama for a fake soap opera.”
I have to chuckle at this, because it’s so Noah. He’s not even saying it to be mean, more likely he really doesn’t know what I do on a daily basis and was blowing the kids off with a simple answer.
“Well, Uncle Noah is wrong. I write for a primetime drama, which is light-years better than a soap opera. Don’t tell anyone I said that, though. Would make me look bad.” I wink at her.
“I won’t tell.” She pretends to lock her mouth with a key. “Can I help?”
Oh, crap. She thinks this is some kind of homework assignment, not the ever-important work of furthering a romantic storyline in subtle glances and layered dialogue between characters.
“It’s actually probably best if I just—”
I’m about to tell her to go play on her own, or do whatever eleven-year-olds do these days, but then I catch her eyes. She’s got a hunger in them, more than I saw in even myself at her age. Delilah wants a taste of the outside world, the universe outside of Texas and her family bubble.
And I’ll be damned if she doesn’t remind me a lot of myself.
I’m stuck at her house tonight because Adeline and Brad wanted to have a date night, and their babysitter suddenly canceled. I’m not sure if that actually happened, or if it was just an excuse to make me spend time with my niece and nephews. I’m thinking the latter, but I have no proof.
Not that I’m complaining. I came over and heated up the spaghetti casserole Adeline left for us, and sat down at the table with Delilah and her twin brothers, Max and Michael. The three of them were surprisingly funny, for kids under the age of puberty. Max and Michael got into a heated discussion about if dinosaurs were real, and it was rousing dinner table conversation. Delilah told me a story about the time Adeline accidentally locked the three kids in the car, and I not only laughed until my stomach hurt, but it made me feel a little better knowing my sister wasn’t one hundred percent perfect.
Then we’d washed up, gotten them in pajamas, and brushed their teeth, and put the twins to bed. I have to say, playing auntie is fun. The kids make me laugh, gave me a few tastes of my own medicine from when I was a child, and the unconditional love they feel for me even though I haven’t fully been in their lives is amazing.
At first, I didn’t want to get to know any of them. I knew it would make it harder to go back to New York. And my assumption was completely correct. I’ve only spent a couple of hours with Adeline’s brood, and they’re already attaching themselves to my heart.
Case in point, I’m allowing Delilah to stay up an extra hour after the twins, a lie I’m pretty sure she thinks fooled me when she said her mom lets her do it all the time.
“Let me just finish up this scene, and then I’ll let you help me with the next one, okay?” I tell her, passing the bowl of chocolate chips and popcorn I threw together as a writing snack.
This little girl does not need to be involved in the writing of a sex scene, of that I’m sure. Her mother would kill me.
It takes me another twenty minutes to hash out the scene, input the dialogue, and then give it my seal of approval. Hopefully, Donna will be happy with it. I’ve had another two phone calls with her in the week and half I’ve been staying down here, and they’ve been productive. But I can tell she’s not sold on the arrangement, and I know that anyone in the show business arena is replaceable. Even a writer as good as I know I am—they’ll find someone to do it cheaper and faster.
My fingers go to my lips as I write the last word of the sex scene, and damn him to hell, I can still taste Jason on them days later.
Why did he have to go and kiss me? I was so furious at him for bringing my mother up again, for pushing into concrete boundaries I’d set long ago. Jason was trying to address old wounds, ones I never wanted to talk about again.
And then he’d gone and broken all the rules, taking something that was off-limits to him now. And I’d been stupid enough to match him, kiss for kiss.
But lord, did it feel like I was alive for the first time in ten years. Like I’d been a caged bird, kept from the light for a decade, and he was finally opening the door. The feel of his mouth on mine, the connection that ran between us like pulsing electrical currents, it shocked my heart into beating the correct way for the first time since I’d left Hale.
I hated him for that. For showing me that my prim, proper little life back in New York was nothing compared to what we had. I also hate myself for still thinking about the kiss. For wanting to do it again. For keeping it from Perry, because what am I supposed to tell him about my high school sweetheart he doesn’t even know exists?
Guilt and frustration are just a constant sickness in my gut these days, and if I don’t deal with it, I’m going to explode.
“Can I help now?” Delilah interrupts my thoughts.
Shaking my head, I plaster on a smile. “Yes. Okay, so I’m going to start a scene about a new patient coming into the hospital. Basically, the show I write for is about a bunch of doctors who work as surgeons, and how their patients and cases affect them.”
Delilah nods her head, biting on her lip as if she’s thinking. “What if we wrote about this girl in my class? She and her family went on a cruise to the Bahamas, and when she came back, they found out she had an actual fish living
in her stomach!”
And just like that, I realize my niece has more of a mind for this than I ever thought she could. I assumed she’d come up with some childish idea that I’d have to morph, or just change later, but this was actually interesting.
“Gross.” We giggle together, and then I ask, “How did she get it?”
“She and her cousin, who was on the cruise, were in a truth or dare battle. Her cousin dared her to swallow the fish while her family was snorkeling, so she did it. She thought she’d just poop it out!”
That has us laughing again, and I start to type, the scene coming alive in my head. “Okay, I’m going to have her parents rush her in, and then the whole family will come running in behind her like … you know the airport scene in Home Alone?”
Delilah nods. “Of course! They’re all running around like crazy people!”
I point at her. “Exactly! It’ll be chaos, and then the actress who will play your friend will be real quiet. Then she’ll barf on one of the doctor’s shoes.”
She cackles, and I know she sees the scene, too. “And then she can yell at her cousin. Maybe she can say something like ‘I wish I made you eat that starfish!’”
It’s actually pretty funny, and on brand to the scene, so I put it in. We spend about twenty more minutes plotting the scene together and creating dialogue, and then I have to bribe Delilah up to bed with another chocolate chip cookie from the jar on the top shelf of the pantry.
Hanging out with my niece, hearing her thoughts and seeing the world through her eyes, it’s been one of the best highlights of my year.
Hours later, after the kids are asleep and I’m basically seeing tunnel-vision at the contracts and scripts I’m looking through, the lock on the front door clicks. Adeline and Brad quietly walk into the living room, goofy smiles on their faces. It’s kind of refreshing to see how in love they are, even after all these years.
“Hey, thanks for getting them to bed. Did they give you much trouble?” she asks, sitting down beside my pile of papers.
That's the Way I Loved You Page 7