Page 44 of Hate the Game
Savannah leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss over one of the tangles. “I like it.”
Chills erupted up my arm and I had to pretend like I was getting cold. “Are you cold, too?”
She rolled her eyes and sat back again, letting her hand drop away. “A little. Will you tell me about something else?”
I ignored the way my skin felt without her touching it. “Name it and we’ll see.”
“Cass.” Even in the shadows of dusk I could see her cheeks turn red. “I just don’t understand why she hates me. No. That’s not true. I do understand why she hates me. I just don’t know if her reasons are valid. Am I encroaching into her space, Cole?”
“No.”
She snorted and stretched out again, all long legs and curves as she folded her arms behind her head and stared at the sky. “No, I’m not? Or no, you won’t talk about it?”
“No, you aren’t encroaching, Sav. Cass and I dated a few years ago. It’s been over for more than two years and we’ve both dated other people since then. There’s nothing between us but friendship.” I would’ve been lying if I said talking about it didn’t make me itchy, though. Cass had been acting stranger and stranger and I’d been worried.
“Does she know that? She’s being very territorial for someone without a horse in the race.” Slowly looking over at me, Savannah frowned. “I just don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. Even if she’d been a jerk to me. I would feel like shit to know that you two had lingering feelings and I stomped all over them in my boots for a few kisses and tacos.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “For a few kisses and tacos?”
“Fine. For a few kisses, tacos, and more fun than I’ve had in a while.” She smirked at me, clearly teasing me. “Except for when Jax took me to the bar that had line dancing. I fucking love line dancing.”
“Shut up, woman.”
Her laughter twinkled in the night like a shooting star, bright and beautiful but gone too fast. “Tell me about dating Cass.”
I sighed and stretched out next to her. We were close enough that the warmth of her body mingled with mine. I folded my arms behind my head, mimicking her pose, and we struggled over whose elbow would end up on top since there wasn’t enough space for them both to be stretched out.
“Cole.”
I turned my head to look at her and found her watching me. “She was Jax’s neighbor and I knew Jax through a football camp Coach Carrington ran. They always held a few spots for poor kids who would never have been able to afford it otherwise. Coach even picked me up every morning and dropped me off at night. I ended up spending a lot of time at Jax’s and Cass was always around. We were all close.”
“Now fast forward to the dating part. And maybe include why you called her just a childhood friend when I asked if you two were together.”
I groaned. “There are a million other things we could talk about.”
“And there are a million other people you could be here with. You chose me and I chose this topic.” She’d grown serious. “I really don’t like having people hate me for reasons that I don’t understand, Cole.”
I swore and sat up. “The summer before freshman year here we started dating. It was just supposed to be two old friends having fun. At least for me. I liked her but we were about to go to college. I thought of it more like we were scratching an itch. Then she decided to go to USC with us. I realized she was thinking things were way more serious than I was ready for. I don’t do relationships like that. I just… It’s too much. Especially when I was eighteen and attending college on a scholarship that I couldn’t afford to lose.”
Savannah didn’t move but I could tell by her body language that she didn’t like what I was saying.
“I broke up with her after a few months of dating at USC and seeing how unhappy we both were. She wanted more. I wanted less. She’s amazing and beautiful and I guess I could’ve stayed with her and made it work but why? When we’re such good friends and so young, why struggle to make something work when it’s not absolutely necessary?” I stared down at my hands, tracing the scars on my knuckles in the fading light. “I don’t know. It’s hard to have a lot of faith in relationships when you’ve never really had a role model of a healthy one. I preferred having her as a friend. And it’s been good.”
“Has it?” Savannah sat up and hugged her knees to her chest, ignoring the way her thighs were exposed in that position. “I saw her face when you introduced her as a childhood friend. You hurt her feelings.”
***Cole***
Iturned a glare at her, frustrated to be talking about my relationship with Cass when things had been good just minutes before. “I’ve been open and honest with Cass every step of the way. I’ve always thought it’s less awkward to introduce her as my friend, so I don’t bring up that we used to date over and over again. She knows how I feel and I… I can’t control how she feels. I can’t change how I feel. I don’t want Cass like that. I want-”
Breath turning ragged, Savannah’s eyes darkened as she held my angry gaze. “What? What do you want?”
“It doesn’t fucking matter.” What I wanted really didn’t matter. Not when the person I wanted was sitting next to me, secretly plotting to hurt me and my best friends. Even if I thought Savannah would be worth getting over my hesitation about dating, it didn’t matter because she didn’t think I was worth much.
She didn’t like my answer, though. She glared back at me and went up on her knees, like being taller would get her what she wanted. “Don’t be a coward, Cole. Tell me what you want.”
“How aboutyoustop being a coward? You’re the one who runs and hides for days at a time.” If she thought we hadn’t noticed that, she was nuts. She was our neighbor and yet we wouldn’t see a single hair of hers when she wanted to block us out.
She scoffed. “I’m not being a coward.”
