Not Even Close (A New Generation)

by Elizabeth Reyes

  “Show me now.”

  “But I still have to edit—”

  “Now.”

  “Okay.” He pressed his body against hers even harder. “Okay!”

  As usual with Savannah the laughter was ever going, but even Byron couldn’t help smiling now too. He was just too damn relieved. “First, let me close this out.”

  He let her squirm out of his arms just far enough to reach for her phone. She picked it up and spoke into the screen. “Alright y’all, so this was a success. We got him good. Something tells me this won’t be the last time he’ll be a victim of the Sizzling Sisters.”

  “It better be.” Byron squeezed her.

  She cackled loudly but then just like her cooking, she was completely back in her element as she went on. “You know the drill. Hashtag Team Vannah, hashtag Sizzling Sisters. Like comment and share below. Stay tuned for more videos and that new intro we’ve been working on. Out!” She hit the screen still shaking her head. “Oh my God, I can’t wait to see it.”

  “First the intro, Savannah.”

  A part of him was already convinced this had in fact been a prank. A cruel and dangerous prank, given that she already knew what his reaction might be to something of this nature, even way back before much had happened between them. But a very small part of him needed to be absolutely sure she wasn’t just that good. For a few agonizing moments there, he’d truly believed he’d been completely blindsided. He’d already begun having visuals of slamming the door behind her when she walked out, then his fist into the wall.

  He pulled her to him, her back against him and she leaned back, so he could see her phone over her shoulder. She tapped away at the screen quickly as she explained more.

  “Like I said, this still needs to be edited. My parents used to have to okay every one of these before we posted, but once we hit eighteen, they lost interest in monitoring them. Just gave us the spiel about being responsible and how the internet is forever, even if you do delete, blah, blah blah. You heard my mom the day we had dinner with them. I don’t even think they watch our videos anymore. There’s too many for them to keep up with. But I’m still gonna edit out the part where you mention rubbing yourself against me.”

  She was laughing again when Byron brought his arm around her neck and started to squeeze with a groan. “That was the worst part. You had to say his name right when I did that?”

  “I was afraid things were about to get hot and then I’d have to start a whole new video. I was already so nervous as it was. So, I just went for it.” She turned to look at him over her shoulder. “I almost lost it when you questioned me saying his name right when you were rubbing against me. It’s why I turned around, so you wouldn’t see me laugh. My dad cannot see that part. I mean he knows we’re adults now and all—”

  “Wait a minute. You can’t post this!” He’d been so riled up, then overwhelmingly relieved, he hadn’t even thought of that. “I cussed at you, babe. I’ll look like a douche. Your dad and his army of Moreno’s will come after me one by one.”

  “No, they won’t.” She laughed. “Given the circumstances I think you reacted like most would. Especially my dad and uncles. Trust me.” Her laugh went higher pitched again as she shook her head. “I was with him a week ago.”

  This time he bear-hugged her squeezing her much tighter than he had earlier. “Ugh. If I were a real douche, I might’ve put my hands on you when you said that. That was such a slap in the face.”

  When she finally caught her breath again, she turned to face him and explained she didn’t think she’d be keeping it going for that long, so she’d begun to scramble for things to say. “When I blurted out that I could explain, I had no idea how I possibly could. I hadn’t thought that far ahead, and it was already getting so intense. So, my saying I’d been with him just a week ago came out of nowhere. I couldn’t even think straight at that point anymore. I grasped and spat out the first thing that came to me.” She pouted touching his face despite her still playful eyes “Oh my God, the look on your face when I said it. It was all I could take and had to call it.”

  Savannah kissed him even as he tried to dodge her lips. But she continued giggling then went back to her phone. She began to cue it up but explained something else first.

  “After the weekend of the anniversary and watching Manny’s hilarious video’s, Nena called me all excited saying we had to do some challenges. Seeing your reaction to Richard being there, and how you didn’t even attempt to mask the annoyance despite Nena standing right there, she thought you’d be a perfect candidate for something like this.”

  She went back to cuing the video and Byron watched it. It was of her setting up the whole thing. Explaining how her boyfriend could be very intense, but Nena had begged her to do this and she was so nervous about it.

  They watched together as she explained what was about to go down. The video then moved on to her Taz and Xochitl sitting in her dorm. “I’m waiting for him to call me back and then we’re gonna do the Richard thing. “Seeing her clutch her heart made Byron smile. “Oh, my God my heart is beating so hard.”

  Byron squeezed her tight. “Damn right you better be nervous about something like this ever happening for real.”

  Just watching it, had her squirming even more in his arms still. They watched as she talked to him on speaker and then loudly moved the latches on her already opened dorm door. Her brother leaned into the phone and suddenly Byron knew why the “Vannah, I’m glad I caught you.” Line from Richard had sounded like he was talking right into the phone.

  She very obviously muffled the phone making silly faces, and now Byron was laughing with her. “I can’t believe I fell for this shit.”

  Savannah laughed again turning to him. “You have no idea how freaking nervous I was about this.”

  They continued watching the footage of her talking to Byron on the phone. When she told him, Richard had broken up with his girlfriend and mentioned him still having feelings for her, she covered her face and leaned her elbow against her steering wheel.

  Good.

  Apparently, she was completely aware of what just saying that would mean. While hearing it again was annoying, seeing her reaction to it was the satisfaction he needed. She literally squeezed her eyes shut when she referred to the whole fucking hanging out shit.

  “That was all Nena. She knew that would piss you off. So was the Richie thing,” she added then laughed. “Just so you know. This is what I meant about her being evil for fun.”

  The segment explained the build up to the big blowout. It wasn’t video it was just audio of the conversation between her and Nena as she drove to the market.

  “I can tell he’s already annoyed by the whole Richard thing.”

  A very similar snigger to Savannah’s was heard then Sienna started speaking. “This is perfect but call him Richie. Oh, my God!” Sienna went on with more damn squealing so like her sister’s earlier. “Just imagine Vannah if he had an ex, say her name was Samantha and you knew this, then one day you two are being all cutesy and he calls you Sammy? How pissed would you be?”

  Savannah gasped but laughed. “I’d cry!”

  “I know! It’s why it’s so perfect. You calling him Richard at that most inopportune moment will piss him off, but you calling him Richie will nauseate him.”

  “She is fucking evil!”

  Savannah laughed loudly doing the dancing in place thing, even as he pulled her tightly against his hardening erection again. “Seriously. I was fucking nauseated!”

  The next part was of her setting up the phone in the kitchen, and it suddenly made sense why she’d acted so weirdly when he’d walked in.

  “Who were you on the phone with just before I walked in?”

  “Nena!” Savannah turned to him wide eyed. “After that hot but sweetest reception I got from you, I called to tell her I couldn’t go through with it. But of course, she begged me to just do it.”

  They watched the rest of the video, with her fast forwarding m
ost of their talking. Though there were a few parts she slowed so she could turn to him and kiss him. Byron knew why too. The parts she slowed were the parts where he wasn’t just all over her, but he gazed at her like a lovesick sap. If he had a prayer of trying to deny it before, there was no chance of it now. This was absolute proof of how bad he had it for her. “Geez, can I look any more sprung?”

  It was one of the first moments since she pranked him that he’d felt like kissing her deep. She’d apparently paused it because the kiss went on forever. “Don’t play with me,” she whispered when they finally pulled away.

  Byron couldn’t help scoff. “Are you kidding me? Watch the video. You had me losing my shit—”

  Her lips were on his before he could finish. She stopped for a moment just to look into his eyes, touching his face as she tilted her head. Like so many times since he’d met her, Byron felt the air sucked out of him. Without saying another word, she went back to the video. It wasn’t until she fast forwarded it to the intense part of their video that it even registered. At that moment in the video, he was too damn fired up and feeling completely blindsided to catch it then, but now he did. She referred to him as baby when shit got real and he’d been ready to throw her the fuck out. Just like hearing her refer to him as her boyfriend, for all the world to hear no less, she’d never even called him babe before.

  “Rewind that,” he said, and she turned to him with a wince.

  “You really wanna hear that part again?”

  Byron turned to her, his smile flattening. “Not the part about you being with him a week ago, Savannah. I never wanna hear you say something like that to me again.”

  She stared at him, her eyes threatening to go all bright again, but when he didn’t smile, she didn’t either. Instead, she bit her bottom lip and nodded. He stared at her hard taking a deep breath because all kidding aside, the heated blood in his veins hadn’t completely settled. He needed this to be perfectly clear. Especially after today. This may’ve been a prank, and he’d let her slide despite what she’d put him through, but only because the prank had inadvertently served a purpose.

  Before this stunt, he thought he’d been being petty about his constant niggling concerns. Given the way she acted in that set up video, clearly, she already knew what she was in for when it came to this kind of shit with him, and she seemed okay with it. But he needed to be sure.

  “I wanna hear the part where you call me your boyfriend in the set up again.” He stared into her surprised eyes with a purpose. “Because I wasn’t sure before and your sister was right. That whole hanging out shit, did piss me off. So, I wanna be clear about this. Was that just for the camera, or is that what you consider me now? Because you introduced me to everyone in your family as your friend.”

  Her troubled expression, followed by her pressing her lips together surprised him and just like that, his heartbeat sped up again. But she spoke up before he could question it. For all the giggling and smiling she’d been doing earlier, she looked almost anxious now. “That feels like a trick question, Byron.”

  “Trick question?”

  “Yeah.” She took a deep breath but glanced away as if she couldn’t look at him anymore. “I was so nervous when I was setting that video up. Taz kept messing up, and each time we had to do a retake I’d remind myself not to say boyfriend, but then it’d just come out that way. So, when we finally had a good one, I decided to just leave it in. I figured I could maybe edit it out later before you saw it, but then you asked to see it immediately.” She stopped and stared at him with that still troubled expression.

  “Why?” he asked as the disappointment of what her explanation did to him seeped in. “Why would you edit it out?”

  “Because. Oh my God, you’re so . . . “

  Byron held his breath bracing himself for her to finish her comment. So over-the-top? So ridiculously demanding? So incapable of keeping his cool when it came to her and shit like this?

  “So much more mature and put together than my eighteen-year-old freshman ass. You’ve said it yourself in more ways than one, that I’m so young and innocent which translates to young and dumb. Here you’ve already graduated from college, have your own apartment and are part owner of this place and I still can’t even decide on a major.” She shook her head looking away. “I could hardly believe you’d be interested in even hanging out with me. But after what happened with Taz, I was hopeful. Then we had the conversation where you confirmed you were fine with me focusing on school and that you didn’t have time for much anyway. So, I decided to leave well enough alone and despite things feeling like they were getting more serious, you started talking about the reality show happening, and how much busier you were going to get. I didn’t dare ask—”

  “Didn’t dare ask?”

  “Yes, because what if this was your way of warning me, you’d have even less time for anything serious?” She shook her head again frowning—something so unlike her. “After what happened at the gym way back, my mom asked me why I hadn’t told her I had a boyfriend. I said because you weren’t. It’d only been a week but after that day I was pretty sure things had progressed. She agreed but warned me that some men are just territorial, and to not confuse the two. Mostly, she urged me not to be afraid to talk openly.”

  Byron pulled her to him again unwilling to keep from holding her anymore. She glanced up after what felt like her avoiding eye contact with him for too long. So, he made it a point to obviously search her eyes as she went on.

  “My parents.” She looked right at him as her brows pinched. “They were sweethearts really early on. My mom was still in high school even. I’ve heard the stories many times. Basically, they could’ve just saved themselves a lot of heartache and time apart had they just been open about their feelings instead of just assuming things. My dad kept a lot from my mom because of his Jurassic sized pride and she assumed the worst.” She shook her head. “Anyway, every time we hear the stories Nena and I have always been quick to say we can’t believe they almost didn’t end up together because they were afraid to just talk—afraid to admit their real feelings. Now I totally get it. When you’re on the outside looking in, it’s so easy to believe asking a guy you’ve fallen so hard for to clarify what he’s really feeling for you is so simple, but when it happened to me it was terrifying.”

  Byron peered into those beautiful but troubled eyes. “What were you afraid of?”

  “What I just said. That I was being delusional. That a man like you couldn’t possibly be taking a silly college freshman like me seriously, and maybe you were just being territorial when you reacted to thinking you saw me with someone else. So, I figured I’d just enjoy this while it lasted, and hoped I wouldn’t be too devastated when you finally moved on.”

  “Silly college freshman? Move on?” This time Byron shook his head and did the frowning. “Savannah, what are you talking about? I was pretty damn sure I’d been so fucking transparent from day one.” Determined to just be completely honest now despite the risk, he went on before she could respond. “Look, you know I haven’t had a girlfriend since I was fifteen. But—”

  “Tell me about her,” she said searching his eyes. “You’ve mentioned Lizette before, but the subject always felt so off limits. Can you share now?”

  Without thought or understanding of why, his breath hitched as he stared at her, heart pounding madly.

  Twenty-Six

  Exhale the Past Inhale the future.

  Vannah

  Strangely, her heartbeat even more erratically now than when she’d been pulling the prank on him. At least then she knew what to expect. She knew he’d be livid, and she knew exactly why. But she didn’t know what to make of his deadpan expression now. Was he upset? Was this too personal of a subject for her to be asking about, even after over two months of them seeing each other?

  Staring into his eyes she squeezed his forearm. “I’m sorry you don’t have to—”

  “I’d known her most my life,” he said before she c
ould finish. “We went to the same grade school. At fourteen she was my first kiss ever and at fifteen she became my first everything else. We were probably way too young. But I’d gone over to her house like I’d often done when she was babysitting her younger sisters and like we’d been doing for weeks, once her sisters fell asleep, we started making out and it just happened.”

  Swallowing hard, Vannah listened, squelching back the unreasonable jealousy. This was over ten years ago and the girl he spoke of was dead now. Even so, judging by the still pained expression, unarguably this girl had meant a lot to him.

  He chuckled humorlessly, lifting, and dropping a shoulder. “You can imagine what that does to a boy at that age. I was completely hooked. I thought I was in love.” For the first time since he started talking about Lizzette, the pained expression morphed into a smirk. “Even though I fumbled my way through it each time we had sex. I had no idea what I was doing and at fifteen none of my friends did either.” The smirk withered suddenly, and he glanced away. “Then three months later she and her dad were killed when a drunk driver hit them head on. I was devastated. In those past three months before her death, she was all I could think of and suddenly she was just gone. My world changed like that.” He snapped his finger. “I was just a kid and thought my life was over. Thankfully, my mom was there and got me through it. It was then that I first learned that forgetting was the best cure to any heartache.”

  Finally feeling like she should say something, Vannah said what she’d been stuck on since he’d said it. “Sounds to me like she was your first and only love. You said you thought you were in love. Weren’t you?”

  With a weak tilt of his head, he smiled pensively before looking into her eyes again. “I was fifteen, Savannah. What did I know about love? I kissed her on a dare at fourteen, but it wasn’t until almost a year later that she invited me to hang out with her while she babysat her sisters that we made out for the first time. Not to take anything from her, she was a sweet girl, cute as fuck and she laughed a lot, like you.” He smiled pecking her. “What made her laugh? I couldn’t tell you. I knew little about her. We hardly talked. I know now my fifteen-year-old ass was in love with what kissing and touching her did to my inexperienced heart. Up until last year I really considered her the love of my life. Ironically, if you’d asked me a few weeks ago, I might’ve insisted I was in love with her. But I now know that while I’m sure I did love her to some extent, even as little as I knew about love then, that wasn’t real love—true love. I can admit now that aside from us sharing something as unforgettable as being each other’s first everything, it wasn’t true love. There was little substance, other than both of us being so bewildered by the novelty of it all.”