Page 49 of Entwined Hearts
I watched them run, my gaze skimming over the backyard while I cracked open my beer. I felt like I could breathe again when my eyes landed on Savannah. She was in a light blue top and white shorts, smiling at whoever she was talking to.
The beer can crinkled in my hand when I saw it was Levi she was smiling at.
“Why don’t you just go over there and piss on her leg?” Delilah said next to me, smirking into her beer. “Really solidify your claim.”
“Oh, fuck off,” I groaned, and she snickered. “What is he doing here?”
“Colt invited him,” she said, shrugging a shoulder. I wanted to throttle him for being such a polite, goodie two-shoes. “You are technically related to him, you know. It wouldn’t kill you to be nice.”
It fucking might if he kept making Sav smile like that, how I wanted to.
I glared at her out of the corner of my eye. “Not by choice,” I grumbled. And really, did legal custody agreements bind families after the age of eighteen? Not when it came to him, they didn’t.
“I’m going over there,” I said, unable to stand not knowing what they were talking about anymore.
“…but our campus was so ugly.” Savannah grimaced. “Yours was gorgeous with all that red brick. And the leaves changing in the fall? I bet it was stunning.”
Levi chuckled. “Didn’t feel pretty when I was crying into my laptop at three in the morning during finals week. Did you guys have outlines being passed down like sacred texts, too?”
“Oh yeah,” Savannah laughed, and my fist curled at my side. “Some guys got into a fight over a 1L outline once.”
I didn’t even know what that was and felt stupid for coming over here, for thinking she’d want anything to do with me. But then I remembered what she said outside the firm, all breathless and flustered because of me, that she didn’t want him, and my anger dulled…some.
His eyes went wide. “No way!” he laughed. He did a double-take when he saw me coming over, his smile faltering slightly. “Oh, hey, Weston.”
“What’s up?” I grumbled, hovering next to Savannah. When I stepped beside her, her body shifted closer to me. I wasn’t sure she noticed it, but I did.
“We were just talking about the zoning suit and got to reminiscing about college days,” Levi explained, and I wanted to kick him in the shin. It was stupid and childish, but I didn’t care. I hated that they had so much in common when I had nothing but the past to share with her.
I glanced at Savannah, and she was staring into her drink, her mind somewhere else.Look at me, I begged her silently, but she didn’t.
“Did you go to college?” Levi asked to fill the awkward silence.
My body went rigid, feeling defensive. Not all of us could run off to Ivy League schools, and I was getting ready to say that when I felt Savannah’s arm brush mine as if she were silently reining me in.
I cleared my throat. “No. I went straight to work at Circle M,” I said. “Then got picked up by PBR when I was twenty.”
“Oh, nice,” he said, and I couldn’t tell if he thought he was better than me for it or not.
“How’s your family?” I asked with a pointed look.
“Weston, please,” Savannah sighed.
Levi shifted on his feet. “They’re fine,” he said. “The ones I speak to regularly, anyway.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, getting ready to call his bluff, but there was a loud clanking sound coming from closer to the house.
“Hey!” Colt called out, standing on a lawn chair and banging a pair of tongs on his beer bottle. My head tilted. He wasn’t the type to draw attention to himself like that.
“Show us your tits!” Delilah yelled, and there was a ripple of laughter as he flipped her off.
“I have something to say,” Colt started, and then Britt appeared at his side, grinning. I shifted on my feet. What the hell was this? “We asked you all here because…” He looked down at Brittany, his smile widening, and my stomach dropped. “Because I asked the love of my life to marry me and she said yes.”
My breath hitched in the back of my throat. Everyone’s cheers and claps became muffled as I was thrown back to the past, knowing the happiness they felt right now. Except, unlike Colt’s, mine was ripped away.
Savannah turned, looking at me with wide eyes. And in that moment, I was furious with her. Furious with her for taking that happiness away from me. Us.
And I was so jealous, I thought I was going to be sick with it.
