by L. P. Maxa
Max walked up, interrupting my internal planning session when he tossed his arm around Jeremy’s broad shoulders. “Hey, man. Nice party.” He looked at me, grinning easily. “Hey, Savy. Where’s your other half?”
Jeremy elbowed him in the ribs as I gestured with my head down the hallway. “Bathroom.”
Max chuckled. “Well it only took you two eighteen years, but you got Nathan to a party.”
“Yeah. Savy’s magic.” Jeremy stroked the pulse of my wrist again. I pulled my bottom lip between my teeth. Undeniably turned on by a guy that I couldn’t ever truly have, I still couldn’t help but want Jeremy to pull me into the nearest closet and kiss me senseless. His mere touch was making me crazy.
“Are you two fucking kidding me?” Max shook his head, glancing at our joined hands, laughing humorlessly. “Seriously?”
Jeremy jerked his hand back like my skin was made of hot lava. Then he grabbed Max by the back of the neck and steered him in the direction of the patio door. He glanced back at me over his shoulder and winked. I made a step to follow them and find out what Max had been talking about but Nate snaked his arms around my waist from behind startling me.
“Sorry, Sav. Didn’t mean to scare you.”
I turned around and looked up into his dark eyes. My small window had closed, Nate was back and I doubted he’d leave me alone again. I twisted my lips to the side, deciding to try a new direction. “I want a beer.”
His eyes narrowed. “Since when?”
“Since right this instant.” I nodded and took his hand in mine, pulling him into the packed kitchen. We paused in front of the keg and he filled a cup for each of us. Expertly. No foam. When had Nathan learned to do that? He didn’t go to parties, and he never stayed home when Jeremy had them here. He always preferred to hide at my house until things calmed down and people left.
I took a big sip from the plastic cup he handed me, then another. Maybe I couldn’t leave his side, maybe I couldn’t dance, but I could drink. I could let the alcohol dull everything I couldn’t have. I’d never used drugs or liquor as a crutch. I figured I was owed this one.
“Let’s go outside.” I went to walk off and Nate grabbed my hand, threading his fingers through mine. We looked like a couple. Not that it really mattered. No one besides Jeremy and Max were going to talk to me anyway. He let me lead him out to the back patio. The music playing from the outdoor speakers was from the band I heard the other night. The concert Jeremy took me too, or more like snuck me into. I smiled at the memory.
Nate put his arm around my neck and pulled me closer, tucking me against his side. “What has you smiling like that, Sav?”
“This song. I really love this band.” I’d downloaded some of their older songs the day after I’d seen them live. I wasn’t sure if I actually enjoyed their music, or if I was simply obsessed with the emotions they invoked. Their sound reminded me of freedom, of dancing and the feel of someone’s hands on my hips.
“You do? I’ve never heard them before.”
Jeremy sauntered up, knocking his cup against his little brother’s in a silent, cheers. “Is my baby brother drinking a beer?” His eyes went wide when they landed on my cup. “Whoa. Savy’s having one too. Well. I’ll be damned.” His smile was too bright, his voice too happy.
I’d learned over the last week that when Jeremy was trying to appear unaffected, he turned up the charm and the volume. To me it screamed guilt, but that might have only been because I knew what his cheerfulness was hiding. Nate, on the other hand, ignored his brother’s sarcasm as Jeremy and I both started singing along to the chorus blasting through the outdoor speakers.
Jeremy glanced at me, his smile went from forced to real when his gaze met mine. I bit my lip, trying to hide what his attention was doing to me. We were lost in the memory of that night, of the crowded bar and the laughter on our way home.
“How do you both know this band? I’ve never heard any of these songs.” Nate was looking between us, brow furrowed.
Jeremy laughed, too loud, once again. “You need to get out more little brother, this band is everywhere.” He turned his cup up, draining it dry. “Anyone else need a refill?”
I did the same with mine and held it out. “Me.”
Nate took my cup, even though Jeremy reached for it and was the one who offered. “I’ll get it, Sav,” Nate said, following his big brother back into the house, leaving me alone, which was far from the norm. I was thankful for the small reprieve. As I let out a deep breath, I tipped my head back to see the night sky.
One smile from Jeremy was all it took to make me feel all antsy and fidgety. I wanted him to touch me. I wanted him to pull me into a dark corner and put his hands on me again. It’d been too long. I was hooked, craving his lips like an addict.
“Hey, Savannah, right?”
I picked my head up, a boy from my senior Lit class was standing in front of me, making eye contact. I’d seen him at the lake last weekend, we’d danced for a bit before Jeremy had told me it was time to go home. He’d been nice, kind even.
“Yeah.” I closed one eye, wincing and trying to remember his name. “Keaton?”
He nodded and held his hand out for me to shake. “It’s nice to see you again.”
I put my hand in his, squeezing lightly. “You too.” He didn’t let go of my hand and I started to giggle when his smile stayed in place. He was into me. This handsome normal guy was actually into me. Flirting with me at a party. How different my life would have been if I’d been able to be a normal teenager. Been able to party, have fun, and flirt with boys.
“So, where are you headed in the fall?” He finally let go of my palm.
“Emerson. You?”
“My dad lives down in Louisiana, my grandparents too. I’m going to live with him and go to LSU.” He reached out and brushed a lock of hair off my forehead. “Have you ever been down south?”
I shook my head. “No actually the farthest south I’ve ever been is—”
“Sav.” My name said in that tone was all too achingly familiar. I clenched my teeth together, already seeing the next thirty seconds play out in my mind. I took an automatic step back from the nice boy in front of me, knowing that the more distance I put between us the easier it would be to distract Nate. “Can I help you, man?” He walked up and got in between Keaton, my fleetingly new friend, and me.
Keaton looked past the angry shield of a human in front of me, confusion in his eyes. “We were just talking, man.” He glanced back to Nate, meeting his gaze and by doing that Keaton made a big mistake. “There’s no reason to talk to her like that. She wasn’t doing anything wrong. We met the other day at—”
“Nathan. Leave him alone.” Jeremy stepped up beside me, his hand reaching out to rest on the top of my ass for a brief wonderful moment, letting me know he was there and I wasn’t going to have to go at it alone this time.
My heart was pounding. There were so many things wrong with this moment. Nate was angry for no reason, feeling jealous and possessive. Keaton had almost unintentionally blabbed about seeing me at the lake party I’d lied about. As if the imminent combustion wasn’t enough, my body was responding to Jeremy’s touch like a damn live wire.
Nate turned around, staring down his older brother. Jeremy wanted to stop a fight from happening. Wanted to stop Keaton from outing us by telling Nate I was at the lake. Jeremy did something no one had ever done before, he cut off Nate, which saved me the embarrassment and the frustration of calling off my best friend. Like yanking the leash of a nearly out of control dog, I’d have to take him home and calm him down. If he lost control, it was on me to fix it and had been for a long time now.
“He was touching her.” Nate voice came out in a low growl, his hands fisted at his side. He wanted to hit Keaton, and was itching for a fight. That tone, the tension in his corded muscles. They were telltale signs that Nate’s incredibly short fuse was about to ignite.
I could see the confusion in Keaton’s face. He’d touched me at
the lake. We’d danced and laughed. I’d been free and fun. I’d moved my body against his. Now he was getting in trouble for the small a meaningless gesture of shaking hands. Insanity.
I put my hand on Nate’s shoulder, trying to soothe him before things got any more out of hand than they already were. There was a crowd drawing in, moths to the flame of drama. He ignored my silent request, stepping closer to Keaton instead. “You touch her again, and I’ll break your fucking neck.”
“Nate. Please don’t do this.” I stepped into his side, whispering against his shoulder. “Let’s get out of here.” He held his ground, his muscles rigid and his jaw clenched. “Take me home, okay?” I let out the breath I’d been holding when I felt him begin to relax under my hand. I’d said the magic words, I’d chosen him. I’d chosen peace and quiet. I’d rescued him from himself, and saved the people at the party who’d all suffer from his explosion.
As was my lot in life.
Nate stared Keaton down for another few seconds, towering over him, intimidation written in his body language. I tugged on his hand one more time, and he finally turned his back to Keaton, and put his arm around my neck. Nate kept me close as he led me back into the house and away from my small moment of freedom.
I looked over my shoulder and mouthed I’m sorry to Keaton, made eye contact with Jeremy, and then hung my head.
I was so dumb to think that tonight would end any other way than it had.
Nate didn’t party, and Nate didn’t share.
He also never asked me what I wanted, or seemed to care.
It was, and always had been, all about him.
Chapter Fourteen
Jeremy
Savy’s life wasn’t her own. In retrospect, I’d always kind of assumed that was the case. Recently, I’d seen the way she was with Nathan. How she “managed” him to keep the peace. How she let her wants and needs get more than back-burnered: the damn pilot light never even came on when it came to her happiness. Tonight, I’d seen a smiling, free-spirited girl wilt under the weight of putting my little brother before herself. I’d watched firsthand as he’d stolen the light out of her eyes. He’d been a possessive asshole for no fucking reason at all, and she’d folded for the good of everyone around her. She’d put me, Keaton, and Nathan before herself without even blinking. None of us deserved her, not a single person in her life deserved the devotion she gave so fucking freely. How had her parents, my mom…how had they let this happen? How had they allowed this to be her life? Were they blind, or simply that damn selfish?
“Snap out of it.” Max slapped me on the back of the head as he sat down, handing me another cup of beer. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been sitting in a lounge chair, staring at the pool and contemplating my next move, but the beer was needed, as was the distraction.
“Thanks, man.” Nathan had taken Savy back to her house a while ago, and he hadn’t returned to the party. Not that I expected him to.
I wasn’t worried about Savy’s safety. Nathan would never hurt her. Never in a million fucking years. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. While he wouldn’t hurt her physically, he’d crushed her emotionally. She was a prisoner in her own room right now. I could look up from where I was sitting and see into her bedroom window. I didn’t, though. I didn’t want to see her staring back at me, looking lost and sad. I was chicken-shit and there was nothing I could do to save her right now, no matter how badly I wanted to.
“You shouldn’t have gone there with her, and you know it.” Max had recognized immediately that things had turned physical when he saw us together earlier tonight. He’d noticed my fingers rubbing her wrist.
I’d steered him outside earlier, when he commented on us holding hands in the middle of the party, and he’d given me a stern five minute lecture.
Apparently our conversation wasn’t over yet.
“I thought the plan was simple? Show her a good time, let her party a little, and then send her off to Emerson with a tan and little more knowledge about the real world. What the hell happened?”
I sighed, done with pretending, Max wouldn’t share our secret with anyone. “I didn’t have a lot of choice in the matter—”
“I find that unlikely.”
I ignored his sarcastic interruption. “Savy decided she wanted a hook up, she wanted a friend with all the benefits. She wanted to know what it felt like to be kissed.” I took a deep pull off the beer in my cup. “What else could I do?”
“Tell her no.”
I scoffed. “What would’ve happened if she’d found someone else? What if she got hurt? What if Nathan found out? He’d kill anyone who touched her. You saw him tonight, and that was nothing. The way I’ve touched her…the way I want to touch her.” I shook my head. “He’d lose his mind, man. He’d end up in handcuffs.”
Savy could bring him back from the brink, I’d seen her do since we were kids. I wasn’t naïve. There was a point when there was no reaching him. A point where he’d snap and no amount of begging from his savior would make a difference.
“So you’re sacrificing yourself? Helping Savy, just to help her? Putting your life on the line? How selfless of you.” He was being an asshole, and I sort of wanted to punch him in his smug face.
“Nathan won’t hurt me. I’m his big brother.” I looked down in my cup, it was empty again. “I owe this to Savy.”
He tilted his head back, laughing loudly. “You owe her this? Are you serious right now? You want this as much as she does, and we both know it. She’s gorgeous, pure and forbidden as hell. She’s every guys’ fucking wet dream.”
I clenched my teeth, I didn’t like hearing him talk about her like that. “She’s more than that. It was either she do this with me, or she finds some random asshole.” I stared at Max. “Like you, for example.”
He shook his head.
If it wasn’t me, it’d be someone else, and as much as I tried to rationalize what I was doing, I knew better. I wanted her fiercely. If someone acted on the same feeling, Nathan would kill them if he ever found out. At least with me, I knew I’d live through it, no matter what. Plus, Savy needed me. She needed me to help her, 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, starin
g 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.”
