“Don’t worry about that. I’ll run you home.”
Now that I’m thinking about her working two jobs, it makes me realize how much she probably spends on Ubers here and back. Fuck, I know next to nothing about the woman who’s been my fake girlfriend for two weeks and I thought that’s what I wanted but now I’m not so sure.
“See you guys,” she calls into the living room. “Jude, go easy on those cookies. There won’t be any more delivered until the storm passes,” she teases, and it annoys me that she seems to have an easier relationship with Jude and Beck, who are flaked out on the couch deep in some zombie game, than she does with me.
“Don’t you worry, baby doll. If it goes on too long, I’ll hire a sled and dog team and mush my way over to your place. We can snuggle down and you can hand-feed me all of your sweet bakery bits.”
She laughs and shakes her head. “Later, weirdo!”
I throw on my jacket while Savy pulls her boots on but when she opens the front door to leave, she comes to a dead stop. I look past her and all I can see is white. The storm has hit early and by the look of it, may be worse than what the forecast was calling for. Snow is already building up and it’s falling hard.
Savy makes a tiny sound of distress but it’s the bright white of her knuckles clutching at the door frame that tells me something’s not right. I pull her gently back away from the door and can feel right away that she’s shaking.
“Hey, hey, it’s alright. I’ll get you home.”
When she turns to face me, I see all the blood has drained from her face and her eyes are huge and glassy with terror. Her head starts shaking side to side as her breathing ramps up and I have no idea what the fuck’s going on with her but I’m starting to panic.
Ash bounds down the stairs, glances our way, and then keeps going only to spin around and come back. He checks her face, breathing, the way she is twisting her fingers, and then reaches past her and slams the door closed. Savy lets out a weird moan of relief and then drops her head into her hands.
“What the fuck just happened?” I ask him, feeling completely out of my depth here.
Ash shrugs one shoulder with an almost bored look on his face. “If I had to guess, some kind of trauma response. Looked to me like a panic attack digging in.”
I stare at him like he has two heads. “Trauma? To what? I just offered to take her home.”
He looks at me like I’m a total idiot and shakes his head, turns to walk away while shouting out, “Seriously? It was obviously the fucking whiteout, something about snow or storms.”
Savy drops her hands and blinks up at me a few times and then turns to the closed door and breaths out deeply. “Sorry, sorry…uh…bad experience in a storm. Sorry I freaked out.”
I pull her bag off of her shoulder, drop it to the floor and pull her against me for a hug that I might need more than she does.
“Fuck, that escalated quickly.”
She mumbles another apology into my chest but I just give her another squeeze through her puffy jacket. “Don’t worry about it. You can stay here and ride the storm out with us. Come on, let’s get you out of this and see what we can throw together for dinner.”
Savy doesn’t protest, she just goes straight back to the dining table and sits alone with her head down while fiddling with her phone. I want to ask her if she’s okay, ask her what happened to her to have such a fear of a simple winter storm but I think she’s embarrassed so I leave her be for now. I catch Ash looking her way with a frown now and then as we put together a simple pasta dinner but he doesn’t say anything either. Beck and Jude join us at the table when it’s ready and shoot pointed looks her way but I shut them down with a slice across my neck. I place a bowl in front of her as well as a glass of water but when she doesn’t look up or say anything, I place a hand on her shoulder and give her a nudge.
“Have something to eat. It’ll make you feel better.”
She nods like a robot, picks up her fork, and takes a few bites so I sit down to eat beside her. The guys and I leave her alone while we chat about the last game and what’s coming up and slowly, I see the tension start to leave her shoulders. By the time we’ve all finished eating, Jude can’t take it anymore.
“Savy? Savy doll?”
She slowly lifts her head and I see her eyes have lost that dazed glaze but are now filled with a sadness which somehow I find is worse.
“Don’t be sad, baby doll. You can have the last cookie.”
A ridiculous amount of relief fills me when her lips tremble into a small smile and she shakes her head.
“Thanks, Jude, but you go ahead and have it.”
He throws his head back like he’s giving thanks. “Uggg, thank God! I thought I was actually going to have to give it to you.”
He plucks a cookie out of his shirt pocket and crams the whole thing into his mouth and that makes Savy burst out laughing.
We all pitch in on clean-up duty and as soon as the last dish is put away, Jude drags Savy into the living room and thrusts a game controller into her hands.
“Thanks but I’m not exaggerating when I say I literally have no idea how to use one of these,” she tells him.
