Page 96 of Love Me Tomorrow

Her gaze pins me in place. “I’m not sure that I can. Not right now.”

I look away, stretching my neck. Pablo isn’t heavy but balancing on the water, with him shifting all around in the carrier, doesn’t make for quite the enjoyable experience. “Another time, maybe,” I tell Savannah. She might know everything there is to know about me—the jail time and the addiction and the color-blindness—but I guess, maybe, she’s not ready to reciprocate by needling open her own scars.Which is fine.Really.

“It’s not like that,” she jumps in hastily. “I mean it is but it isn’t. What I’m trying to say is, it’s not my news to share. I’m not sure how or when Amelie even plans to approach the situation . . . She’s spent the last however many months holing up in Europe instead of coming home.”

Ah.

So that explains why Savannah rushed overseas instead of returning to New Orleans oncePut A Ring On Itwrapped up. It makes perfect sense; for as long as I’ve known the Rose sisters, Savannah has always gone out of her way to protect her younger sister. And, call me a bastard, but it doesn’t hurt to know that the reason she fled the States had nothing to do with a broken heart and everything to do with being who she is at her core: a fierce, loyal protector who will go out of her way to defend those she loves.

“She’ll find her way back when she’s ready.” I incline my head toward her. “You could have stayed longer, if you’d wanted—right? But you came on back to N’Orleans.”

Her still damp hair clings to her profile as she nods her head. “I’ll be honest, I was pretty terrified when the plane touched down.”

“Because you’d left Amelie behind?”

She grimaces, then sucks in her bottom lip. “No, not that. I mean, yes, I was nervous about how she would do once I was gone, but it was . . . more than that. Europe was this beautiful reprieve from life. Sure, I still hunkered down with my work laptop at all hours of the day. And, obviously, I wasn’t just off the hook because I’d visited the Coliseum that day or wandered through Pompeii. But there was this—” She goes to wave a hand, then curses beneath her breath when her board wobbles all over again. “I’mgoingto get this right before we leave.”

In the face of her dogged determination, I laugh. “You’re doin’ just fine. Stabilize your thighs. Pull your core in. No sharp movements.”

“We can’t all be you,” she mutters, grappling with the paddle as she tries to do as I instructed, “Mr. I-Can-Paddleboard-In-My-Sleep.”

“Hey now, Miss She-Who-Casts-Stones, who’s the one with a cat on their back?”

Savannah peers over at me, her stare flicking from my face to the straps of the pet carrier and then back again. “Is he doing okay in there?”

With slow, fluid movements, I turn my board so she can see Pablo for herself. “He good?” I ask over my shoulder.

She flashes me a thumbs-up. “All good. Also, remember the movie,The Hills Have Eyes? Well, suddenly I feel bad for every person who’s ever walked behind me while I wore that thing. It’s creepy as heck.”

“You know what’s also creepy?” Grinning, I paddle my way back so that we’re facing the same direction. “The fact that you just saidheck.”

“It’s a perfectly good word.”

“Keep goin’ with your story, sweetheart.”

“Right.” She tips her face up, as though soaking in the sun’s rays. With her lids at half-mast, she shrugs her shoulders. “Living in Europe felt like this temporary bubble where nothing bad could touch me. Sure, I saw my face on tabloid magazines when I would stop at the corner stores, and it’s not as though the internet doesn’t work over there—Iknewthings were brewing back home.”

“But you felt removed from it all,” I interject softly.

“Yes! That’s it exactly.” Nodding vigorously, she pumps her arms a little faster, driving the board forward with more momentum. I match her pace easily, drifting along beside her. “When we hit the tarmac, I knew there was no going back to the way things were beforePut A Ring On It. I guess I just didn’t realize how much of me would be caught in the upheaval. Before the show, I knew who I was—maybe there were things I’d like to change or improve, but I was stillmeand I felt confident in all that.”

I drag my gaze over her damp hair and her drying tank top and the curve of her ass. “And now?” I ask, huskily.

“Now?” She pulls the paddle out of the bayou, holding it parallel with her hips. Water drips onto the board, but instead of worrying about it, she simply coasts along. “Now I feel like I don’t know who I am at all. Am I the VP of ERRG, the woman who handles everything and doesn’t take crap from anyone? Am I the bachelorette, the girl who flirted and simpered accordingly, whenever the producers gave me the signal to amp up my game—even when it made my skin crawl? Or am I the woman whose character is being smeared across the internet, and all because the world can’t align the real me with the version thattheywant to be true?” Her mouth tugs downward, as though she’s thinking hard on something, and then, softly, she says, “I made the mistake of going online last night and searching my name. Wrong move.”

My throat tightens. From what I briefly saw earlier, during my own internet search, I can’t imagine she found anything worth seeing. Nothing that wouldn’t break her spirit, anyway. “Sav, whatever they’re saying, it’s not a reflection ofyou. The authentic you, the you that everyone who knows you personally adores.”

Just like I adore you.

Adore. The word seems paltry in the face of the emotions squeezing my lungs. Emotions that are honestly making it hard for me to remember that I have her goddamn cat strapped to my back, and that I can’t just dive into the water and swim over to her. I hate seeing the frustration harden her features, hate hearing the disappointment in her voice over other people’s lackluster opinion of her, and I don’t know . . .

Hell, I don’t know if it’s really just adoration that I’m feeling or something else entirely.

Maybe even love.

I know that I love Gage. I know that I loved my parents.

But the love for a woman is something entirely different. It wrecked my parents to the literal point of no return, but even knowing the possibility of a destructive outcome doesn’t stop me from thinking that if love is the jagged emotion clawing at my chest, wanting to knock the lights out of every person who’s made Savannah feel less than, then I’m too fucking late to turn my ass back around and head in the other direction anyway.

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