to show her how to exist without Nathan controlling her every thought and action.
“You want her.”
“Everyone wants her.” I shot back, suddenly feeling confused and so fucking tried. “That’s what you said, right?”
“You can’t keep her, Jeremy.”
I nodded, getting to my feet for another refill. “I don’t intend to.”
***
I blamed it on the beer. It had to be the beer, and maybe a little bit of the hormones. I tapped on Savy’s window, then waited precariously on the limb of a tree for her to wake up and let me in. I was surprised when Nathan had come home a few hours ago, went straight to his room and didn’t come back out. I’d assumed that when he and Savy left the party, he’d be spending the night at her house again. Uninvited as fuck. I leaned forward, the branch bouncing under my weight as I tapped again. Harder. I was horny. I missed her, and I was too buzzed to care that me missing her, was a bad sign. I raised my hand, about to tap again—”
“What the hell are you doing?”
I fell forward into Savy’s bedroom, the momentum from my almost knock making me crash onto her carpet and take out a stack of books with my head. “Ouch.”
I rolled over onto my back, peering up at her. She was wearing a t-shirt and nothing else. Her hair was braided to the side, her face scrubbed clean. I eyed her legs, taking my fill. They were bare, and my fingers inched to trail up to the apex of her perfect thighs.
“What are you doing scaling the side of my house?” Her hands were on her hips as she glared down at my prone form. “You could have been hurt. Or worse. Caught.”
I held my hands out to her, and when she went to help me up, I pulled her down next to me instead. “I wanted to make sure you were all right. Make sure everything had gone okay after Nathan brought you home.”
We were both laying on our backs, staring at some glow in the dark stars on her ceiling. She sighed and leaned her cheek against my arm. “Well, I was embarrassed, being led out of a party by my best friend like I was a child. Then when we got here, he tried to kiss me.”
I propped myself up on my elbow. My eyes had gone wide and my mouth was hanging open. “What?”
She turned on her side to face me, mirroring my position. “Yep.”
My heart sank, along with my stomach, and my buzz evaporated. “Did you, um, did you kiss him back?”
The thought of Nathan kissing Savy made me a little crazy and incredibly sad. If he kissed her, and she liked it, if he turned her on I was obsolete. Nathan would give Savy anything she desired, except freedom, of course. But if her heart was set on experience and a causal hook-up, he’d do it. No questions asked. On the flip side, if Savy shot him down, his ego would be bruised, his heart no doubt hurting. While any scenario where Savannah was with another guy got under my skin and made it crawl, at the end of the day, Nathan was my little brother. I didn’t want him to be in pain.
“No.” Her voice was quiet and sounded miserable and tortured. “I moved and he got the corner of my mouth. He played it off like that was where he intended to kiss me. But it wasn’t. Nate has never gone in like that. He said something over lunch the other day about wanting our relationship to change. I think he wants more.”
“Why now?” I glanced from her beautiful eyes to her gorgeous lips. Did he know? Could he tell there was someone else occupying her time and her mind?
She mirrored my gaze, lingering on my mouth as she answered me. “I don’t know.” She smiled when I reached out and placed my palm on her smooth cheek. “Maybe because we’re done with school. Maybe because I’m pushing separate colleges. Maybe he can tell I’m changing. Pulling away. Maybe he can sense I’m happier.” She shrugged one shoulder. “Any of those things, all of them perhaps.”
“Are you happy?” That was all I wanted for her, to be happy. Sitting in her attic, listening to her talk about her life, it’d been depressing. I’d wanted her to live, to breath easily, to shine. I never wanted to fuck up her life, make