He glares past me at the uninvited guests and then drops a kiss on top of my head.
“I’ll drive you. Did you get some coffee?”
I shake my head so he reaches past me and snags one of the takeout cups and hands it to me.
“Hey, those aren’t for her. We brought them for…”
He hits her with a look filled with violence and I’m not ashamed of the way it fills me with a glow of satisfaction even though I know it’s all a show he’s putting on. It has her choking back the last of her sentence with a gulp and then she pastes on the fakest, tightest smile I’ve ever seen.
“…all of you. Help yourself…Savanah, right?”
I nod cautiously just as Jude comes bounding down the stairs. He plucks the coffee from my hand, takes a big gulp of it, and then smacks me on the cheek with a sloppy kiss and hands it back to me.
“Mmm, baby doll, your coffee always tastes the best. Will you make me cinnamon buns when you come back?”
I keep my eyes on the three women who are now trying hard not to shoot daggers at me and nod. “Vanilla frosting or cream cheese?”
He laughs and wraps both me and Tate into a three-way hug. “And that is why I’m stealing her from you, brother!”
Tate growls, the girls glare, and I shove Jude off with a hand to his forehead.
“No thank you. One of you is already too much.” I mutter but he hears me and just laughs even more. He pushes my glasses back up my nose with one ring-filled finger and then drags it down to the tip and taps it.
“Savy, Savy, Savy - there’s no such thing as too much and we’re just getting started, doll.”
The snow has already started to melt from the roads making everything wet and sloppy when Tate drops me in front of my building with plans for me to come over for tutoring the next day and a reminder of the formal dinner Thursday night. He hands me a key saying I should let myself in because he might be running late from practice. I clutch it a little too tightly before slipping it on a charm keychain.
I stand under the steaming water in my shower going over every minute of the time I just spent with them and overanalyzing every single thing that was said and happened.
It starts with Tate. He can be so brutal when he’s not pretending that I mean something to him in front of others. I’d love to let myself believe that what happened in bed that morning meant more than just a physical release to him but I have to be realistic with myself. It meant nothing to him. Just because he’s trying to steer all the girls away from him right now doesn’t mean he hasn’t fucked his way through most of sorority row in the past. I’m just another number for him besides the deal we have.
I accepted his apology for what he said during that stupid game and how harsh he had been to me all day but deep down I know he didn’t really mean it. He just wants me to go along with what he needs from me right now. I have to stop letting myself believe there’s ever going to be a happy ever after with this fake dating deal. Tate Valor is not the type of guy to care about someone like me and I have to be okay with that no matter how much I wish he would.
I turn and rinse the shampoo from my hair and then work conditioner through it while thinking about Beckett. It would be no effort at all to fall hard for that man. The easy way he lifts and moves my body with his big hands is a total turn on but it’s the way he holds me, the way he makes me feel special and cared for, that will sink me if I let it. The fact that he shared such a deep trauma with me only makes me feel like we could have something on a deeper level. My groan echoes off the tiles. I’m an idiot. There is no connection, deep or otherwise. I was just a body to cuddle with while they were bored and stuck in that house.
I rinse out the conditioner and soap my body as I think about Jude and I can’t stop the smile that fills my face. He’s like a dangerously sexy man-child and I have to admit that the attention he showers on me fills an emptiness in me. I flash back to him this morning, fucking some random girl’s mouth, and my traitorous core clenches at how hot he looked doing it. I shut that down hard. He might be nicer than Hunter is but he’s still a fuck boy, a dog when it comes to women and one of those was more than enough for this girl.
I shut the cooling water off and push the last of them from my mind. The only place Asher James will ever be is a fantasy in my mind when I’m pretending to be something I’m not. I wipe the steam from the mirror and sigh at my hazy reflection. Seems like my whole life is pretending to be something I’m not. Reaching for something real, I grab my phone and call Stella.
“Hey, Butterfly! I missed you this weekend. How are you?” She answers right away.
“I’m okay. I missed you too. Um, any chance you’re free today? I need to buy a dress and I was hoping you might want to come with me or I might end up with some kind of floral sack.”
“Oh my god! Savy…are you taking off the mask?” She asks me in excitement.
I bite my lip but shake my head even though she can’t see me.
“More like, lifting it a little bit?”
“You bitch! I’m in! Where and when?”
SAVY
We make plans to meet up downtown in an hour and I ignore the seething ball of anxiety rolling in my belly the whole way. This is what I wanted, right? Isn’t it? To change, be someone else? To stop hiding behind the masks I wear at the club and outside of it with my bulky, dowdy clothes? The car drops me off in front of a boutique and my hand shakes just a little as I pull open the door. One of the saleswomen scans me from head to toe with an over-plucked, arched eyebrow and I’m already ready to turn around and run away but Stella pushes in behind me with a squeal of excitement.
“This is going to be so much fun! I’ve wanted to do a makeover on you for so freaking long!” She gushes as she pushes me further in the store past the saleswoman who now looks like she just sucked on a lemon. “I was thinking red for the dress.”
“No! I, I’m not ready for red anything, Stella. I just want something low-key nice that isn’t…” I wave up and down my body and finish lamely, “Me.”
