Falling For Raine (Ch. 23: Erin)

“Welcome to your humble abode away from your… abode.” Savannah pushes open the door to her bedroom with a grin worthy of an Invisalign commercial and a flourish to match. After what we heard at the hospital, you’d expect she’d be down. Instead, she’s been nothing but sweetness and light. Is it because her mom’s beaten this before? Or she’s naturally that resilient? Nothing about Savannah would surprise me anymore.

Accepting her invitation, I step inside, curious what I’ll find. Her mom’s house turned out to be a late-1800s two-story Victorian with so much gingerbread work it should insured against overbaking instead of fire. I was expecting something older and probably quaint, since Savannah’s mom inherited it from her mother, but whoever built it must’ve been trying to out-cute their neighbors and they probably succeeded. I can see how living here influenced Savannah’s esthetic quirks.

It’s a smallish room with a sloped ceiling. There’s a four-poster bed with a thickly quilted white comforter (I’d guess it’s real down) and three big fluffy pillows by a dormer window with plum velvet curtains over lacey sheers. Next to the bed is a tall antique bureau with carved drawer fronts and brass knobs, and across it is a closet with slatted sliding doors. Otherwise, the room could be an exhibit for a typical teenage girl’s bedroom of a decade ago, from the triceratops plushy to the Xena pics and band posters on the walls: Depeche Mode, Evanescence, Eagles, and Bon Jovi in their hair band phase. That’s fifteen years before Savannah was born, but they’re one of my favorites too, though I never understood how hair bands could be a thing. And yes, I had the same Eagles poster in my room when I was growing up. A nice detail to add to our fake-girlfriend background story? I’ll have to remember to mention it. There’s an incongruous Ikea desk, barely big enough for a laptop, and some low bookshelves that look handmade, filled with papers, binders and knickknacks. A dark green oval rug with a vine pattern completes the eclectic teenage look.

Except for one thing: the windowsill holds a small collection of trophies, all neatly arranged and dusted. I skim an eye over them, trying not to be obvious. The plaques on the two in front read “State Champion, Junior Division.” Wow. No wonder she was upset her dad squandered their savings and she had to quit.

I look away, glancing over at Savannah, who’s emptying out the top drawer of her bureau and piling the contents on the bed. There’s t-shirts, sleep shorts and a collection of bras and underwear I do my best to ignore.

My best isn’t very good.

Savannah catches me looking and winks. “My mom never throws anything out. Handy though, huh?”

I nod and she gestures at the closet. “You can hang your stuff in there. And this drawer is yours now.” She taps the one she just emptied. “I’m gonna make sure my mom is all set. I’ll be back in few. Go nuts.”

Scooping the clothes off the bed, she leaves with a little wave and an unintentional hip wiggle. At least I think it is; Savannah can’t help being sexy anymore than the sun can’t shine. This whole fake-dating thing is already getting more complicated than I bargained for. That’s what I get for being impulsive. While things went well at the hospital today—or I think they did—hospitals are easy. No one is quite themselves at a hospital. But now, in Savannah’s mom’s home…

I shake my head. It’s not that we don’t have chemistry—we do. The problem is it’s the type of chemistry a burning fuse has with a stick a dynamite. And I’m afraid it’s going to end the same way. But we need to do everything we can to get her mom well—that’s what truly matters.

Did I just say ‘we’? I did. Yes, I’m invested. I only met the woman today, but I am all in on helping her beat this thing. If Savannah wants that, of course. I have no intention of barging in here with guns blazing and flags flying. I need to respect that Savannah and her family have been in this movie before and they know best. Anything they want from me though, I’ll deliver.

You’ve done it. You’ve made it personal.

I have and I know the best I can hope for is to limit the collateral damage when the time comes. As for me, I’m sure I’ll put the pieces back together… eventually. I’m okay with that.

Are you sure?

Shut up, lobster brain.

Lifting my suitcases onto the bed, I unlock and open them to start sorting out what to hang in the closet. Not knowing exactly how long I’d stay, I brought some of everything in my wardrobe. Mostly that’s office clothes for during the day and jeans, yoga pants, tanks and T’s to chill in. I did include a coat and a few things from my slightly pathetic collection of nicer suits and dresses, just in case there’s an occasion that needs them. I can’t imagine what that might be, under the circumstances, but it’s best to be prepared. Isn’t it?

And that has absolutely nothing to do with wanting to look nice for Savannah, if you get the chance?

I thought I told you to shut up, lobster brain.

I don’t know which is more annoying: being nagged by my lobster brain or the fact that it’s right.

I pick up my dresses and walk to the closet. Looking inside, there’s everything from school uniforms to club-wear and cocktail dresses. I never imagined Savannah in a cocktail dress, and I shouldn’t—the thrill I can’t suppress when I think of her in one tells me so.

Dammit. We’re supposed to be a couple. How can I act like her girlfriend when I have to put a leash on everything I feel about her? How am I supposed to control myself if I let them out? Memories of the night I nonconsensually cuddled her makes that thrill surge into heat.

It’ll be fine. You’re “young and in love.”

What crap. I’m old and we’re faking it and she’s a twenty-something goddess I have no chance with. This is a fucking mess.

Stifling a groan, I shove Savannah’s clothes to one side to make room for mine. Far in the back, there’s a hook full of medals. Lots of medals with wide ribbons in blue and gold, purple and gold, green and gold, red and gold; red, white and blue. Slinging my dresses over one arm, I lift a few of the medals.

Nastia Liukin Cup—Junior Champion. U.S. Classic—Junior Champion.  Rocky Mountain Invitational—gold. PacNorWest Invitational—gold. American Cup—gold. Gold, gold, gold… At the very back, silver. I pick that one up.

National Championship.

My breath catches as I check the date. Savannah placed second in the nation when she was sixteen?

Holy shit… What the fuck was her dad thinking, screwing her over like that? She was the best—

“Find something interesting?”

Her voice at my shoulder nearly zaps me into orbit. I drop the medal like it suddenly turned molten in my hand. Turning, I see Savannah wearing a teasing grin. I nod at the wealth of gold swinging from the hook.

“I thought you said you did some gymnastics when you were a kid.”

Her grin spreads, but I sense something more behind it. “Yeah. Some.”

“You placed second in the National Championship,” I add, wondering if I’m pushing.

“Yeah… you got me. It was more than some.”

I see the shadow behind the smile more clearly now. “I don’t mean to pry.”

She puts her palms together and makes big heart eyes. “You can’t pry. We’re a couple, remember?”

Okay… She has a point, even if she’s making a joke out of it. “So who beat you? Got the gold?”

“Amie.”

“Amie!” Amie won a national championship? I hadn’t foreseen that. I’d been selling her short.

“By two-tenths of a point.”

“Wow…” That must have been intense, losing to your best friend by such a slim margin. Then it hits me. “You guys were the two best gymnasts in the nation. Why weren’t you on the Olympic team? What happened to the scholarships, sponsors, all that jazz? Surely there must’ve been offers.”

Her smile dims, turns almost… sheepish? No, that’s not right. But a look I’ve never seen on her face. She steps back, sits on the edge of the bed. “Oh that.”

I stay where I am. “You don’t have to tell me.”

“Sure I do. Couple, right? You should know.” She pats the bed in invitation and I sit next to her, shoving my hands between my knees to keep them still. “Y’see… I told ya about what happened when Amie and I came out.”

I nod, but don’t speak because Savannah, for all her “easy-breezy” attitude is acting nervous.

“Well.. there’s more to it than that. We might’ve been a little rebellious before, but afterwards we went out of our way to disturb the shit whenever we could—sneaking off, breaking curfew, talking to people we shouldn’t—and basically acting gay as fuck. I kissed her and grabbed her crotch at the East Coast Regionals. She groped my tit on the way to the medal stand in Duluth. We mooned this paparazzi—”

“You what?” Shit! I didn’t mean it to come out like that. Now I’m being a bad listener in addition to being a questionable girlfriend. I don’t even know why it shocked me, given what I knew about Savannah and Amie. “I’m sorry. That sounded awful. I didn’t mean to…”

She pats my knee with a slanted grin. “No worries. It’s cool. He was a douche—always following us. He even came here. We saw his car across the street”—she points out the window—“and decided to go for it. Made signs and everything. They said ‘Kiss My…’ At first I thought it would be a thong thing, but Amie wanted to go big or go home. She said if we bent forward far enough, they couldn’t use it cuz we were under age.” She snorts. “They just censored it.”

“Anyway…” Her hand slides off my knee. “That was us. We practically made out whenever there were cameras around—which was a lot—and it drove the coaches and organizers nuts, but they couldn’t lock us up. Or not quite, because the media dug it—started calling us the ‘Terror Twins’—and it would’ve been a publicity shitstorm if they shut us down too hard. So we mostly got away with it.” She heaves a breath. Or is it a sigh? I reach over the squeeze her knee, encouraging her to continue. “The thing is, there was this judge. She was big in women’s gymnastics—as in huge back then—so of course she was on the panel at the Nationals. She hated me—I don’t know why… I mean I could guess—but, anyway, she trashed my final routine. Total bullshit. It was the floor exercise, not what I’m best at, but two other judges gave me high scores. Amie came next and she gave her the max. Why she hated me and was okay with Amie is just weird. But those scores were the difference and Amie got the gold by two-tenths of a point.”

She huffs a soft laugh and looks at the floor, the hair sliding off her shoulder to hide her face. “I mean, I didn’t appreciate getting screwed but I was happy Amie got it and not someone, y’know, who didn’t actually deserve it. But it was pretty fucked up and people knew. So these rumors started that a thing was going on between us—me and this judge. And Amie was livid. I thought I’d seen her pissed off, but this was way off the charts. During an interview, she went on a rip, calling the judge a bitch, a cunt, a whore, telling everyone the rumors were true, the judge had hit on me and I’d shut her down, so she was out to get me… everything.”

Her head shakes, stirring the hair that’s catching the room light and falling around her like a river of silk. “But Amie didn’t tell me first. She just went off. And there I was, in the middle of the gymnastics world’s ‘scandal of the century’ and it was all a crock of shit. People believed it cuz they all thought we were a couple and assumed I’d confided in her. I had to put out a statement through our coach that none of it was true and Amie made a statement where she apologized and said she’d misunderstood and I’d never told her anything. We hardly talked for a week but we worked it out. I knew she was pissed about how I’d been treated and losing and stuff, and she was just sticking up for me by being the Amie-nator. Cuz that’s what she was then.”

Her chuckle puts a smile on my lips, and I wonder how much Amie has actually changed.

Savannah lifts one shoulder in a half-shrug. “We cooled it after that, but the bridges were burned. Sponsors wouldn’t touch us and the big programs won’t touch people the sponsors won’t touch since they depend on sponsors to bring in the bucks for them. And there’s always someone who’s good enough and will play by their rules. The folks who foot the bills can’t tell the difference between the top ten gymnasts anyway.”

Savannah turns toward me with an expression stuck in the no man’s land between a smirk and a grimace.

“So when Dad fucked away our savings on puppets, there was no fallback. We both had to drop out. Lesson learned. Dad acted like an asshole, but in the end, he wasn’t entirely to blame.”

It takes only the few seconds for me to process what she said for my blood to boil. How dare she say that! I grab her hand, my eyes slitted and my voice a hiss. “You were kids! Amie’s parents fucked her hardcore and your dad was an asshole. No way can you take any responsibility for what some homophobic motherfuckers did! None of this was your fault!”

Savannah’s eyes go big and round at my outburst and I’m crushed by an avalanche of self-consciousness. My gaze snaps down.

Jeezus I called her dad an asshole! She can do that, but me…

“Uh… I, um… I’m sorry. I shouldn’t’ve…”

She squeezes my hand. Looking up, I see the wide-eyed expression replaced by an even wider grin.

“Don’t be sorry.” Her eyes glint. “You’re crazy hot when you’re mad. Can I have some more of that?”

She said what?

My breath stutters. Am I imagining she’s staring at my lips? “Ah… What—what exactly does that mean?”

The tip of her tongue sweeps across her upper lip. “It means I really want to kiss you right now.”

Oh my god… A shiver corkscrews down my spine.

I guess I wasn’t imagining it. My nipples agree, peaking as my clit chimes in, quickly seconding the motion. Her voice is so sexy-sweet and husky; her eyes pierce my soul, making me half agony and half hope. “You do?”

“Absolutely.” She pulls back a fraction of a hair. “But if you’d rather not…”

“No… um, I mean…” What the fuck do I mean? The idea of kissing her has me throbbing. “It could… I mean, we could…” Christ, she has my brain scrambled.

This is your brain. This is your brain thinking of Savannah’s mouth.

That mouth quirks into that devilish smile. “Practice?”

“Practice?” My cheeks flame as the word comes out in a breathy squeak.

“Sure.” She adds a wink that weakens my knees. Good thing we’re sitting down. “People are gonna expect us to do couple-y things.”

“Like kiss?”

“Maybe.” Her hand lifts off mine to cup my cheek. I’m surprised I don’t scorch her. “Erin, may I kiss you?” Fuck, she’s rendered me nonverbal here. “I promise I’ll stop if it’s weird.”

I’m not worried about it being weird. I’m worried about fuse => dynamite.

So what do I say? Of course, I say, “It’s… okay. We can… practice.”

She tilts my head just enough that our lips align. I’ve never gone swimming in the ocean but I imagine this is what undertow feels like. Pulling you down, spinning you about? But I’m drowning in the amethyst whirlpools of her eyes and I don’t want to come up for air. If this is drowning, I’ll drown…

“Are you sure about this?” I know she’s being considerate, but her whisper is a siren’s song.

“Fuck no…” Her lips hover a fraction of inch away. “But I’m going with it anyway.”

Before she can react, I close the slight distance, crushing my open lips against hers. Our teeth click. Our tongues collide and dance. It’s wet and sloppy and hot. So fucking hot. Moans rise between of us—soft, throaty, desperate. Hers hands fist the back of my shirt, mine are in her hair. We’re squashed together in this awkward way, twisted from sitting side by side, and it would be so easy to slide into her lap, push her down against the bed and…

What the fuck!

I went feral on her and I’m practically plundering her mouth. Alright, so it’s not practically—no qualifier needed.

I break the kiss, my chest heaving in erratic gasps. She blinks at me, breath coming short, pupils blown.

“Wow… just wow.” Her sigh tickles across my swollen lips. “What’s it like when you kiss a girl for real?”

SHIT! She said practice and… “Oh…”—turning aside to hide my face. “I didn’t mean to… That is, I’m sorry. I know we’re, y’know… I got carried away. It won’t happen again.”

“Oh?” Is that a shade of pain in her voice? “Okay. I shouldn’t have suggested it. I’m sorry.”

Yes, there’s definitely some hurt going on. I scooch back a little, pulling my knee onto the bed to create a barrier between me and Savannah’s dangerous beauty.

“Don’t be”—not daring to meet her eyes; I know they will break me. “It’s my fault. I moved first.”

“Just because you beat me by a smidge doesn’t put this on you. I started it.”

This sounds all high school. Sweet 16 and Never Been Kissed. I remember my first kiss. It was messy and clumsy and weird. It was nothing like this.

No kiss has ever been like this. Every other kiss is now officially erased from the universe.

“Are you gonna regret this?” Her voice is so soft, with a hesitant edge I hate.

Regret the kiss? How could I? It was… mind-blowing. Life-altering… things we don’t have words for. People would cross oceans and deserts for kisses like this; they’d go to war. But regret a future where kisses like this will never happen, because how could they? Regret there’ll never be more than this kiss?

Yeah. Very likely I’ll regret that.

“No, of course not. It’s fine.”

“Nothing is ever fine when people say it’s fine.”

“No, it really is fine.” I scrub a hand down my face. “Or good. Or okay, or alright. Pick a word.”

When Savannah doesn’t respond, I know my attempt at lightening the moment just crashed and burned. “No, I mean it. It truly is. It’s just that… I haven’t kissed anyone in a really long time. It kinda took me by surprise.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

“You’re surprised?” My feelings having gone through a blender, I can’t quite parse Savannah’s three words or tell if it was a good thing or a bad thing to her.

“Yes. It’s also been a long time since I kissed someone like that.” As if sensing my confusion, she put a hand lightly on my arm. “With Amie, those are stage kisses. Not like this.”

And what was this? I’m sure I don’t know.

One thing I do know: I’m not getting any sleep tonight.