Chapter 9: But A Stud He Was Not
Scratch that, I knew exactly how he got that nickname, but I didn’t want to dwell on it, considering the history the two of us had. This was not something I wanted to get into right now. Or ever, if I had to be completely honest with myself.
As I got into the passenger’s seat and buckled myself up, the newly formed couple was on their merry way to get to know each other.
Five minutes later and Zoey was already showing Owen parts of herself that I personally wished I could un-see.
She was showing Owen the tattoo of a blooming rose that she’d gotten on her chest, saying what a deep meaning it had to her and what each petal represented.
I called horseshit.
The tat itself was right where her heart (that is, if she was in a possession of one) was supposed to be. In order to do that (obviously) she was literally taking her clothes off. Well, for starters, her shirt.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Zoey,” I bellowed, making the mistake of looking over my shoulder to check up on Owen only to find him enthralled by what part of herself Zoey was revealing, both literally and figuratively, “do you mind keeping your clothes on?” I asked, already knowing that staying dressed for long periods of time was beyond Zoey Posner’s abilities. I had to yell to make myself heard because I’d turned on the radio as loud as it could go, so I didn’t have to listen to Zoey’s nasally voice when she was going on about what a stud Owen was. And okay, Owen was my friend and he was a darling, he was cute as hell, but a stud he was not.
I fought the urge to glue my eyes shut as I turned back around, facing the front at once before I saw anything else I wasn’t supposed to.
“And do you mind not being such a raging bitch all the time, Savannah?” she sneered at me, poking her brown-haired head through the gap between the two front seats to glare hatefully at me, but the feeling was mutual, no doubt about that.
“Did you just call me a bitch?” I shouted, my eyes flashing dangerously.
That was it. I already knew I couldn’t just sit still, so I unbuckled myself swiftly and went for it.
Zoey and I were screaming obscenities at each other as I tried to climb in the backseat whilst Connor was still driving, but that didn’t go well.
My ass must’ve been literally in Connor’s face as he was forced to pull over, grab me by the hips and coerce me into letting go of Zoey’s hair before she went bald, thanks to me.
Owen too had a hold onto the girl in question and somehow coaxed her into releasing the chunkful of my hair that she had in her hand.
“Savannah,” Connor yelled at me, his hands still positioned on my hips strategically, sounding angrier than he’d ever been at me, “sit,” he ordered, making it blindingly clear that he was not about to repeat himself. I felt like a scolded puppy as I sat back down in my seat, but even I knew when to draw the line with Connor. It was hard to ignore the underlying threat that made its way into his voice – he wasn’t fooling around. I wouldn’t put it past him to leave me at the side of the road to hitchhike my way home.
“She called me a bitch,” I said petulantly, pouting as I pointedly stared straight ahead, ignoring the bitch in the backseat.
Zoey immediately started protesting in the back, but Connor shushed her.
“Are you guys good to walk from here?” Connor asked and as I looked around and paid attention to my surroundings, I realized we were three blocks away from Owen’s house.
“Yeah, sure,” Owen replied readily, but by that point Zoey had already opened the door and had jumped out, eager to get away from me before I did any permanent damage to her precious hair. I wished I’d scratched her face instead of going for her hair. Hair grows back, the same thing can’t be said for her face.
“Bye, Savvy,” Owen told me in his usual kind, polite and sweet voice, letting me know that he was not mad at me for jumping his new “girlfriend” (excuse me, starter girlfriend) – well, definitely not nearly as pissed as Connor seemed to be – and then he squeezed my shoulder quickly before he went to catch up with Zoey who flipped me the bird when she thought none of the boys were looking.
Connor didn’t start the car, though.
I felt his probing eyes on me before he even whispered a word.
He was probably waiting for me to throw the towel first, but I was not talking.
“Savvy,” he began, breathing through his nose and trying to keep his voice controlled, “what the fuck was that?”
“Nothing,” I replied smoothly, like I hadn’t been about to bite Zoey’s head off a couple of minutes ago, and then shrugged one shoulder nonchalantly, wondering when he was going to stop yapping at me and start driving for a change.
“You call that nothing?” Connor asked, but I couldn’t tell whether he was awed by me or disturbed beyond anyone’s comprehension.
I didn’t know if I cared enough to find out.
“Zoey just annoys the crap out of me, you know that,” I reminded him, rolling my eyes and gesticulating wildly, “I can’t believe you set Owen up with her. What were you thinking, for fuck’s sake?”
“I was thinking that Owen needs to have some fun,” Connor reasoned, shrugging, “and Zoey knows how to have a good time,” Connor assured me and I really didn’t need any convincing. There was a reason why Zoey was so popular with the guys. She was all about having a good ol’ time.
“She was literally undressing in front of him in the backseat,” I tried to explain to him, cringing as a flashback of Zoey shoving her boobs into Owen’s face flashed across my eyes and I pushed it away, “didn’t you see that Owen was pretty much drooling?”
“Don’t exaggerate, Sav,” Connor said to me, rolling his eyes skywards, “she was hardly naked. They were just flirting.”
Of course they were.
“You call that flirting?” I scoffed, thinking what an ignorant dork Connor was. “I call that stripping.”
Connor didn’t say anything after that, but I could see that his eyes were rolling back in their sockets by this point.
“Did you pay her to give him a lap dance or something?” I asked out of curiosity when he failed to reply to me on time.
“I didn’t pay her to do anything,” Connor replied, seeming scandalized by the idea. “Why would you even think that?”
I shrugged, not batting an eyelash. “Because she’s a slut.”
“They say the same things about you, too, you know” he states, shrugging and this time I couldn’t face him fast enough.
“But, in my case, they’re lies. In hers, not so much,” I pointed out, thinking that everyone knew that Zoey slept with every guy she went out with whereas people spread nasty rumors about me to get back at me for doing something they hadn’t wanted me to do, or say, not because there was any truth to them.
“Forget it,” Connor said, rolling his eyes exaggeratedly at me, which meant that he was only dropping the topic not because he agreed with me, but because he didn’t feel like arguing and was going to let this one slide, letting me have this one small victory, “this is not about Zoey or Owen at all. It’s you. You’re spiraling, Sav,” he said to me in all seriousness, which made me crack up. Him and seriousness didn’t mix.
“Not this again,” I couldn’t help myself but whine, remembering the other night when Connor was all up in my business again, trying to find a problem where there was none.
“Stop being so melodramatic, Connor,” I scoffed with a roll of my eyes. In the back of my mind, I was thinking about how much Hannah had been rubbing off on him and it really didn’t sound like him – I wished he’d just chill the fuck out and let me be.
“I will,” Connor promised, “once you stop avoiding the problem.”
At this, I laughed hysterically, like he was speaking in tongues. “I don’t have a problem,” I assured him, thinking that he was imagining things, putting thoughts into my mind that weren’t there.
“Oh, yeah, you do,” Connor claimed, getting that soulful look into his eyes, like I was a blind sheep and he was my shepherd, so I ought to listen to him to find my way home, “you have lots of problems.”
“As in plural,” I asked just to pick on him, but playing along, anyways.
“As in many of them, yeah,” Connor confirmed somberly.
“And what do you suggest I do, oh, wise one?” I asked sarcastically, spreading my arms out, thinking that whatever Connor was smoking, I wanted some.
“Well, for one, acknowledge that you have problems, Sav,” Connor replied simply, as if it was really that simple and the way he made it sound…it was, but simple and uncomplicated were not words that existed in my vocabulary.
“Right,” I said brusquely. “Can I take a rain check on that, Dr. Phil?”
***
My dad called me from the airport, saying he was on his way home and asking if I wanted him to come by and pick me up, wherever I was. I couldn’t hide my excitement that I was able to come home. As much as I enjoyed and lived to get on Connor’s nerves, staying at his house was not nearly as fun as I thought it would be. Instead I always felt like I was being watched under a microscope. I couldn’t handle parental supervision very well, especially when Connor tried to play my dad. The thought itself was disturbing and gave me the creeps and lately I had a harder time getting him off my back.
“Dad!” I exclaimed once I went back home and found him standing near the sink, drinking a glass of water. He put the glass down on the countertop and opened his arms, so I didn’t waste time barreling towards him and giving him a long overdue hug.
“How’s it going, kiddo?” he asked, ruffling my hair and pulling away. He had a soft smile on his face as he looked down at me. “Got into any trouble today?” he asked, but I could tell by the look in his eyes that he was half-scared to find out the real answer to his albeit innocent and very rhetorical question.
I shrugged, thinking that now was not a good time to scare the poor man after a long flight. “Nope, I’ve been on my best behavior, like I promised,” I lied easily, leaving lots of things out, “how was your flight?”
“Too long,” my dad sighed, sounding more exhausted than he appeared to be at first glance as he pinched the bridge of his nose, “I’m glad to be home.”
“I’m glad you’re home, too,” I replied sincerely, cracking a smile.
“Did you have fun while I was away?” Dad asked and I thought back on the party I threw at Connor’s house, trying to rip Zoey Posner’s hair out, meeting Tyson again after so long and all those things I couldn’t possibly tell my dad all about.
“Yeah, I guess I did,” I responded, not getting into any details.
“I hope you didn’t cause the Kings any inconvenience,” Dad said, knitting his eyebrows together, probably experiencing a wave of guilt for dumping his kid on her ex’s parents.
“No, not at all,” I shook my head, my hair falling down my shoulders in soft waves, “you know that the Kings love me like I’m their kid,” I told my dad, thinking of all the times Connor’s parents had put up with me when he had to go away and how good and kind they’d always been to me…even when things went south between Connor and I.
“I still can’t believe that Connor’s gay,” my dad mused to himself and I all but burst out laughing upon hearing this, but then covered it up with a cough.
He’d always catch me unprepared when he’d bring up Connor’s supposed ‘homosexuality’.
“But he’s such a nice boy,” my dad continued, obviously not noticing the way I was trying not to die from laughing and keep a straight face on, “I’m so proud of you for staying his friend after finding out the truth. I don’t think my girlfriend back in high school would’ve been that understanding,” he said with a soft, jesting smile on his face, even though if only he knew the truth about what happened…
Well, it was a good thing he didn’t. Otherwise he wouldn’t have let me spend so much time with Connor. Even when we were dating, there were times when we didn’t see each other as much whereas nowadays… we were basically inseparable.
“You know me, dad,” I snickered, “always the understanding one.”
Dad gave me a look, one that said he read right through me and I stopped laughing because that look didn’t bode well for me, never had.
“Which reminds me,” he began, growing serious and leaning against the counter for support, “Lauren called.”
Just the mention of my mother’s name made my blood curl and I clenched my fists.
“She said that you haven’t been returning her calls,” he went on talking when I failed to reply to him, “and that you and Rachel are in a fight again.”
“Well, what’s new?” I scoffed, sarcasm dripping from my voice.
“Savannah,” dad started in a warning tone, which meant he was about to get angry at me, which didn’t happen often.
“Dad, can we please talk about this tomorrow?” I begged, using my puppy dog eyes on him, hoping they were going to work, but I knew my plan was hardly foolproof. “You’re tired and I have homework.”
“Only if you promise to call your mother back,” he conceded simply because he too didn’t seem to be in the mood to fight with me about this.
“I will,” I promised, nodding my head in affirmative.
“Tonight, Savannah,” he looked at me pointedly, “I mean it.”
“Yes, dad, I will call her back,” I lied, rolling my eyes at him, “tonight.”
“The problems that your mom and I have had throughout the years,” dad started, totally ignoring the part where I hinted that we should’ve dropped the subject before we got into too deep and someone blew up, this someone being me, “and whatever has happened between us, it’s got nothing to do with you kids. Try to keep that in mind,” he told me wisely, always being the bigger man. I wish I was more like my dad who was willing to turn the other cheek no matter how many times someone had struck him, but I wasn’t. I’d never be that person, either, no matter how much he wanted me to.
“I know, dad,” I told him, trying my hardest not to roll my eyes at him because I knew he meant well; he wanted our family to be close, united like we used to be before things between my parents got ugly, but some things, like betrayal, couldn’t be taken back or erased, regardless of how hard we tried. It simply wasn’t done.
Dad looked at me suspiciously, obviously not convinced that I agreed with him. To his credit, I really wasn’t agreeing with him by any means. I was just keeping quiet. I knew how to pick my battles…and this one? This one I would’ve lost before we even got started.
“Can I go up to my room now?” I asked him, tersely.
Dad sighed, obviously at a loss what to do with me. “Yes, you can,” he said, dismissing me and I didn’t need to be told twice. As much as I loved my dad with everything in me, a part of me would always hate him for defending the woman that torn our family apart, the woman that he so desperately wanted me to learn to love again, but this, like so many other things in life, was easier said than done.
A/N: 'ello, boys and girls! So my exam got pushed back by a week and I, like, totally wasted four hours of my life studying for it when I could've done something more productive with my time, lol, so I figured since I'm on this super-duper tight schedule, I'll update SIS before things got any messier. Hope you liked this... the more you comment and vote, the faster I update, that's just how it goes. :) Thank you for the support! Mwah! :*