Page 16 of Bursting With Love
“What’s up with Pratt?” Savannah asked. She and Elizabeth sat on a boulder a few feet from the water’s edge. Streaks of sun cut through the center of the trees and cast long, active shadows across the water. Savannah watched Josie flip her black hair over her shoulder as she set the pot on the ground and began pacing.
“He’s complicated, I guess. God, I always do this. I came here to sort of find myself, you know?” Her blue eyes shifted between Savannah and Elizabeth. She pulled forward a lock of hair and ran her finger and thumb over the ends, first with the right hand, then the left, in a quick, repetitive pattern. “I always hook up with the wrong guys. Then, when things go bad—which they always do—I swear off men and end up doing the same thing over again,” Josie said.
“Welcome to the club.” Savannah gathered her hair over one shoulder and pulled her hood up, too.
Elizabeth took Savannah’s hand. “You girls just haven’t found the right men yet. You have to kiss a lot of frogs to find your prince.”
“I’ve kissed enough frogs for both of us,” Savannah said. “You and Lou seem happy and compatible, and Aiden is too cute for words, but I’m beginning to wonder if I didn’t miss my window of opportunity. I’m thirty…something…and most guys are married by the time they’re in their mid-thirties. Well, my brothers weren’t, and one is still way too single, but he’s younger than the rest of us. I think in general, by the time you hit your mid-thirties, you’re either unattached for a reason, which is usually not good, or you’ve already been married and divorced, and that’s not always great either.”
“So I only have five more years to find the man I’ll fall in love with forever? What if I never do?” Josie sat on the other side of Elizabeth, leaned her elbows on her knees, and rested her face in her hands. She stared at the ground, the corners of her mouth turned down.
“What about Jack?” Elizabeth asked.
“You keep acting like there’s something there. There’s not; trust me,” Savannah said.
Elizabeth shook her head. “I still have the feeling there’s something between you two. He’s going to way too much trouble not to look at you.”
“She’s right,” Josie said. “When we were getting ready to leave the campsite this morning, I saw him sneaking glances at you every time you looked away.”
Last night, Savannah had felt something between them—a long, hard something—but for someone else to notice the connection meant that she wasn’t just making it up in her lonely little head.
“I’m here to get over a bad relationship, not to jump into a complicated one,” Savannah said.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Josie said emphatically. “I don’t know how I ended up in bed with Pratt. He’s a nice guy, you know. He’s just a little lost right now. Did you know that he’s an artist? He’s a sculptor. He has a degree in engineering, but he’s passionate about sculpting.”
“A moody artist. His personality fits him perfectly,” Savannah said.
“I don’t think he’s just moody. I think he really feels stuck. His parents are all over him to stop messing around with art and get a real job. I mean, he lives on his own, he has a studio, but he’s barely making it by each day, so they’re pushing him to give up,” Josie explained. “He came here to get away from them and to try to make a decision on his own.”
“What kind of parents would do that to their child? He’s not even a child. He’s a man.” Elizabeth took the bandanna off and tied it around her dreadlocks, creating a thick, snaky ponytail.
“Can I touch your hair?” Savannah asked.
“Of course. Go ahead.” Elizabeth turned around.
Savannah ran her hands over the dreadlocks. “I thought they’d feel prickly or overly dry, but they don’t. They’re like soft ropes of hair.” Touching them brought her back to Jack, who looked like he was made of hard edges and rough plateaus, but he was soft, his muscles strong yet tender. Remembering the way he’d cupped his palm around the back of her neck sent a chill up her spine.
She couldn’t think about Jack. It only made his ignoring her that much harder. She turned her focus back to Elizabeth. “My father would never do things that way. He’d give me an opinion but leave the decision up to me in the end,” Savannah said.
Josie jumped to her feet. “What I can’t figure out is what Pratt might be like if his parents weren’t doing this to him.”
