* * *
Savannah spends most of the drive biting her bottom lip in between giving me directions, which means that by the time we reach a nice yellow house with blue shutters and an actual fucking white picket fence, I want nothing more than to round the car and push her up against the side of it before letting Izzie out. Thank God for child lock.
Unfortunately, a woman steps onto the wraparound porch as I’m killing the ignition, waving and smiling like she hasn’t seen her daughter in years. Her hair might be blonde, but her smile matches Savannah’s, and her two sons.
“I told them I know you because I babysit Izzie sometimes,” Sav whispers to me while I open the door for my sister.
“Downgraded from friends?” I wink like it doesn’t make a difference, but it kind of sucks being relegated to her friend’s relative. Her employer?
“If I say you’re just a friend, she’ll break into a happy dance and the family text group will announce I have a secret boyfriend.”
“Wrong trope,” I say, getting the tiniest of smiles.
“Now you, young lady, must be Izzie. Or should I call you Isabelle?”
My sister’s face lights up at the woman in front of her.
“Izzie is good. Are those musical notes?”
Sav’s mom’s earrings are a clef de Sol and a double.
“Sure are. I hear you want to learn piano?”
“Try it,” Izzie agrees with a look over at me.
“You must be the brother?”
She gives me an assessing look, and even though she smiles, as warm as ever, it hits me that I am meeting Savannah’s parents, and my heart is beating with nerves I haven’t felt since last year’s Frozen Four. It makes me feel suddenly grateful that Savannah downgraded me to nothing more than Izzie’s brother, but Mrs. James is looking at me like she knows way more than I’m comfortable with, and it feels infinitely worse than being her daughter’s boyfriend.
“Noah Callahan,” I introduce myself with an extended hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. James.”
“Aren’t you cute, but you can call me Donna. Even my mother-in-law didn’t go by Mrs. James.”
“Understood,” I assure her. “Thank you for having us.”
“The more the merrier. Savannah can tell you, my sons often brought their entire…friend groups with them.”
She was going to say teams, but stopped herself, and now gives Savannah a reproachful look, which I stupidly want to protect her from, but it’s not something I can fix unless Savannah trusts me enough to tell me. Which she clearly doesn’t.
“If we’re less than a dozen at the table, Donna starts ringing up the neighbors.”
I think, no matter where I ran into him, I would have known he was Sav’s dad. The curly brown hair, the hazel eyes that sparkle, which is not something I’ve ever thought of another man’s eyes, but that’s just how bright they are. Where he’s unlike Sav is that he’s at least a foot taller, and while my girl is slightly on the curvier side, her dad is what Izzie would call a fridge. If I didn’t know why Sav was so nervous, I’d make a joke that he must have played football.
“Robert James,” he introduces himself. “But everyone calls me Bobby.”
“Noah Callahan.”
His handshake is strong and firm, but he doesn’t try to break my fingers, which I take as a good sign.
Iz tugs on my sleeve, nodding to the large piano that’s impossible to ignore, but no one’s acknowledged it yet.
“You must be starving if you’re coming from practice,” Donna says knowingly. “We eat at 5:30, but there are appetizers on the coffee table.”
“Thank you,” I say, which Iz parrots, but she looks miserable.
“Unless you’d like to play a little something first?”
Iz nods fervently, then takes her seat while Donna lifts the cover.
