their beauty, I hadn’t noticed him step closer, and I didn’t have time to pull back my hands. Truth be told, at the moment, I wouldn’t have. But instead of grabbing my hands, he grabbed my wrists and lifted them high above my head.
“Merry Christmas, Savvy Sutton. I wished this for you.”
I had to turn around in fear I would kiss him, or he would kiss me, and that would quite possibly ruin the most perfect moment I had ever experienced with any man in my life.
I didn’t stop when my back was to him. I looked up and continued to turn in circles as I watched it float down.
Lying in bed at midnight on December 25th, I got a message from him with dozens of pictures he had taken of me while I had been lost in that moment.
I hold the phone to my chest and sigh as my body starts to tingle from the tip of my toes all the way to my nose.
He didn’t wait by the Jeep afterward, which I could seriously be upset about, but how could I? It hasn’t stopped snowing since then either.
This has been, hands down, my favorite holiday season.
“Are you going to tell me why you’re so damn happy?”
I jump when Chloe startles me, and my phone falls to the floor.
“Shit, I’m so sorry,” she says as she picks it up. “Oh, Savvy, the screen … Wait—who’s Trish? Is she the reason you’re smiling?”
I snatch the phone from her. “Mind your business.”
Trish? I think, and when I see the screen, I can’t help but laugh. At a brief glance, with the way the glass shattered, it totally looks like it says Trish instead of Tricks.
For the next few days, as some of the bitches return, the halls are buzzing with the news that Kiki Steel, the oldest of the Steel crew, is with Brandon Falcon, and that his IG post, that he posted on Christmas morning—also his birthday, apparently—said, She Said Yes. #myfirstmylastmyeverything #childhoodsweethearts #brandedsteel.
I already knew. He brought her Christmas gifts to Patrick’s house when I was there. And Patrick had told me the whole sordid story of Katy, aka Kiki, being the reason Truth flipped out at their old school on the nuns. Told them, and the priest in charge, that they were drunk and that’s why Kiki had thrown up. At the time, Kiki didn’t even know she was pregnant. Long story short: that’s why they are here. That’s also why Patrick punched Brand. He felt like Brand used him to get to Katy after she had blocked him on her phone and all her social media. He had told Patrick he wanted to start dating her … when he had already more than dated her. He had gotten her pregnant.
All this information came to me over cutting what ended up being seventy snowflake-shaped sugar cookies. He asked me to keep it to myself, which I laughed at because, as I said to him, “Who the hell would I tell and why?”
I’m learning that I actually like to know some little tidbits of information about others, learning that not all men, and not all people with money, are assholes, and that it didn’t matter who you were—everyone had their own issues to deal with.
I have since learned that Patrick seems to be the buffer between not only Brand and Kiki, but the entire Steel crew.
Even though I want to stay as far away from all of it as I can, I do think Patrick should know. So, send him a text.
3:27 p.m. - The bitches have returned, and not that it’s any of my business, but they’re speculating that #brandedsteel and the Thanksgiving video is a hint to who he proposed to. Just wanted to give you a heads-up, because it’s apparent that’s kind of the thing you’d need to know.
Two hours go by, and he still hasn’t replied.
After another hour, I’m sick to my stomach. I scroll through and see if he told me that he had plans today. He didn’t.
I mean, it’s not like he has to, but it is odd. Hell, I haven’t even gotten a pic today. The only text I got was from this morning.
So what? You aren’t the boss of him, I tell myself, and he’s not the boss of you.
“Savvy, will you please talk to me, or at least listen?” Chloe pleads.