starfish style. Then rolled his head to the right and inhaled. The faintest trace of perfume curled into his nose. He sniffed again, not too proud to stick his nose on the sheet where she’d been sleeping.
With a sigh, Glen climbed off the bed and hauled on jeans and a long-sleeved tee shirt. Cracking open the bedroom door, he peered into the hallway. Voices rose and fell from the kitchen. Tom’s—and bloody hell, the boy was talking in actual sentences—and Savannah’s, her laugh as sweet as a chorus of bells.
Chorus of freakin’ bells? He was losing it.
Savannah had burrowed under his skin, like one of those little Amazonian fish that’d shoot up your dick given half the chance. He winced and padded down the hall into the bathroom, latching the door behind him. It was an unappealing yet accurate comparison of how Savannah had somehow gotten her hooks in him, he thought, splashing cold water on his face. She’d targeted the part of his body that men were often prone to think with.
“What’s your band called?” he heard Savannah ask as he walked into the kitchen, following the siren call of brewing coffee.
He didn’t catch Tom’s response. A few remaining brain cells dribbled out of his ears at the sight of Savannah, perched on a bar stool at the end of the counter, dressed in his baggy clothes still, her long hair in a single braid, and smiling with such guilelessness his heart felt like a bear trap had sprung on it. Even wearing Tom’s fleece, in the ugliest shade of orange known to man, she looked stunning.
In an instant, Glen flashed back to the first time he’d spoken to her. It’d been in the flat he’d shared with four other students, and they and some friends had been in the middle of a twenty-six-hour-and-counting game of D&D, crowded around a coffee table in their tiny, junk-food scattered living room. Yes, he’d been a geek. He’d worn a tie-dyed tee and jeans that should’ve been laundered two days ago. His hair hadn’t been cut for a couple months as a small sign of rebellion against his father, who refused to step one polished loafer inside what the old man referred to as Glen’s “hovel”.
That Saturday morning, Nate bowled into their flat as he always did, without knocking and with a favor to ask. “Coop, can I borrow your car? I’m almost out of gas, and I need to get Savannah to an audition in the city.”
Seven sets of eyes, including his, looked up from their character sheets and dice at the mention of a female’s name, and seven young men gawked. That day, Savannah had channeled a 1960s Audrey Hepburn, dressed in skinny black jeans and a tight black shirt, with a pink scarf tied around her slender throat. Her huge green eyes were framed only by naturally long lashes, and a neat braid of hair the color of aged honey trailed down over her shoulder, the end tied with a matching pink ribbon.
They weren’t that geeky, and Nate’s younger cousin was that beautiful. Maybe he’d been the only one imagining Savannah as a ranger, complete with kick-ass bow and skin-tight leather armor, but he doubted it.
Glen had cleared his throat and laid down his die. “Sure.” He dug in the pocket of his jeans and pulled out the key to the ten-year-old bomb he’d scrimped and saved to buy with his own money. “Here.”
He tossed the keychain, but in his sudden nervousness, cocked up his aim. It flew over Nate’s shoulder, and a small fist snatched it out of the air.
“Thanks,” Savannah said, her gaze summing up the seven of them in the room as quickly as a calculator summed up a simple equation.
Nate gave them a narrowed stare and then jabbed a thumb behind him. “If you haven’t met her, this is my little cousin, Savannah. She’s in her last year of school, and she’s trying out for the lead in Pygmalion.” Emphasis on the words cousin and school. They all understood the subtext.
“If I get it,” Savannah said behind him.
“Course you will.” Nate turned and wrapped a comforting arm around her shoulder. “You’ll get it since you don’t have to sing”—Savannah jabbed him in the ribs for that—“and later on, this bunch of losers can cough up twenty bucks to see you as Eliza Doolittle. Right?” His gaze switched back to the group, as if daring them to contradict him.
Seven guys nodded at Nate like bobble-heads. Yep,