Know Your Heart: A New Zealand - Tracey Alvarez Page 0,88
for a moment or two, wondering if Savannah knew about the plug being pulled on High Rollers while he was still in Bounty Bay. “Yeah. But Savannah will get the sitcom part.”
“Little bit of you hoping she doesn’t get it? Maybe comes back to live in Auckland?”
“I don’t want to see her fail. There’s nothing for her here in Auckland.”
Jamie took a long draw from his water bottle and kept his gaze fixed on the Devonport ferry as it chugged through the glassy harbor. He swiped his wrist across his mouth. “I think I screwed things up with you and Sav.”
Glen’s head swung toward his brother so fast he nearly caused whiplash.
Jamie’s knee juddered up and down, sending tiny vibrations through the wooden bench. “That night in her house, I suggested she should dump you before you ruined your life and followed her to the U.S. I told her you were wrecked when she moved to Wellington all those years ago, and that she’d break your heart if she left you again.” He snuck Glen the hound-dog eyes. “I should’ve kept my fat mouth shut, because look at you. You’ve been a bloody zombie.”
Jamie had put the idea in Sav’s head that breaking up with him would be the kindest thing to do?
The brief flare of hope died a quick and silent death. “Sav’s audition wasn’t the reason I came home alone. If L.A. was the only problem facing us, we could’ve sorted something out. She didn’t feel the same as I did, so there was no point in beating a dead horse.”
“She told you, flat out, that she didn’t love you?”
Glen frowned. “Pretty much. She said it was just sex.”
“No suspicions she might have been lying?”
“She’s not that good an actress.” The water bottle crackled threateningly in Glen’s grasp.
Jamie stood and raised his foot to the bench seat, leaning forward to stretch his hamstrings. “You don’t get nominated for a Golden Globe for being average.”
When Glen’s mouth refused to work, Jamie continued. “The Sav I saw in Bounty Bay was just as into you as you were into her.” He sighed. “One thing I’ve learned with the whole Erin-gate mess is that we guys think women expect a level of psychic ability when it comes to understanding what they really want. But you know what? They often want what we do—attention, respect, hot sex, love…and maybe a little help to know what’s important.”
“Thanks, oh great love guru. But career is what’s important to Sav, and she has to take her shot at Hollywood.”
“Maybe other things are important to her, too.” Jamie switched to stretching his other leg. “She e-mailed me yesterday.”
“She what?” Glen’s resting pulse rate shot up to a sprint. “When? What about?”
Jamie held up a palm. “About Tom’s concert. She wanted to confirm the date and time, and to get me to put aside a ticket for her.”
Glen tensed. “She’s planning to go?”
“She says so. She’s flying out to L.A. a few days afterward.”
“She wouldn’t want to let down Tom.”
“Really?” Jamie said. “Does that sound like a woman only interested in sexing your brains out?”
Glen glared at his brother’s smug expression.
“Oh, and wait a minute,” Jamie continued, pressing a finger to his mouth in a sarcastic thinking pose. “She also enclosed the names of two respected drama teachers happy to help Tom with his performance anxiety. Plus a little mention that she hoped your book submission had gone well—fishing, of course, to see whether you were okay. No, Sav absolutely doesn’t give a shit about you.”
“What did you tell her?” Glen’s gut dropped to his running shoes.
He’d missed Savannah so bad it had taken Erin’s threat of dropping his three nephews on his doorstep to force him out on a run with Jamie today, so he hoped his brother hadn’t given Sav an accurate account.
“I told her I’d leave a back row ticket for her at the school office, and if she wanted to know how you were doing, to show up, as you’d be seated beside her.”
“She won’t come,” Glen said numbly. “She won’t go anywhere near that auditorium now.”
Jamie slapped him on the back. “Only one way to find out, little brother. And that’s to show up in three days, looking smoking hot and irresistible.”
***
Glen caught the scent of berries in the darkened auditorium moments before Savannah eased into the seat beside him. He’d sat in the back row twenty minutes before Tom’s concert kicked off, for fear he’d miss Sav if she did decide