Page 32

noah

If this is a dumb idea, it’s too late.

The knock on Savannah’s apartment door echoes through the hallway. I look down at the bags in my hands, shifting my weight into my heels.

This is so fucking lame.

A shadow forms behind the peephole, followed by the sounds of the locks turning, and I breathe a sigh of relief when bold, brown eyes appear through the cracked open door.

My lips tug upward, and when she opens the door fully, I’m taken aback.

Savannah Alvarez might be the most dangerous person on the planet, given the way she knocks the air straight from my lungs.

She stands before me, her eyes twinkling with surprise and intrigue.

Her perfect body is covered in an oversized hoodie and tiny plaid sleep shorts that poke out from the bottom, while her dark hair lies in waves down her back.

The only time my dad wasn’t hounding me on the ice was during the two weeks a year when we took a summer vacation.

I’ve been everywhere from Bora Bora to Halong Bay, and nothing has ever made me feel the way I feel when I see Savannah .

“What’s all this?” She asks, eyes narrowing in on the bags in my hands.

I mentally shake my thoughts and plaster on my usual smile. “We’re cooking.” I hold up the bags as she takes a step back, letting me in.

“We’re…”

“That’s right, babe.” I walk past her shocked face and drop the bags on the counter. “We’re cooking dinner.”

She moves robotically beside me and watches with wide eyes as I begin to unload an onion, a carton of eggs, and a bag of flour.

I continue pulling out my grocery haul when she stands up on her tiptoes, peeking into the other bag. “What’s in this one?”

“That’s for you.”

She eyes me with that suspicious look that I’ve come to adore.

“Open it.”

I run my tongue along my molars, fighting the grin that’s trying to pull at my lips.

One of her perfectly full eyebrows quirks up as she studies it. “Mmm, I’m not really sure this is my style.”

“Put it on.”

She playfully rolls her eyes but does as I ask, draping the cotton material over her head.

“I’m going to have to disagree with you on this one.

” I turn her around, my fingers making quick work of tying the strings at her lower back.

I rest my hands on her hips, inhaling her soft vanilla scent that’s always laced with a hint of those damn oranges.

I drop my lips to the side of her face. “This ‘It’s not going to lick itself’ lollipop apron was made for you,” I whisper.

Her head falls back onto my chest as she smiles with a full throaty laugh, and I can’t stop myself from wrapping my arms around her .

Admittedly, when Savannah told me she never learned how to cook, I assumed she meant she never learned how to cook well .

I know now, after witnessing her eat only takeout, s’mores flavored foods, and her beloved oranges, that she meant at all.

Selfishly, though, this night is just as much for me as it is for her.

Classes have been getting more intense as we approach the halfway mark of the semester, the NCAA conference tournament is approaching as well, and my dad has significantly ramped up my training schedule.

The weight I feel to give my everything in multiple different directions now is beginning to feel suffocating.

It’s like a boulder on my chest, holding me down under an unruly current.

But when I’m with Savannah, it’s like I get to break the surface for a little while and come up for air.

Savannah spins out from my embrace and looks up at me with a gleam in her eyes and a beaming smile. It’s not her usual tight smile, the one where the corners of her lips pull down because she’s fighting like hell to hide it. No, it’s an all-out ear-to-ear smile, and an all-out shot to my heart.

“Alright.” I bring my first to my mouth and clear my throat. “You’re going to be in charge of dicing the onion,” I say, dropping the onion in her hand. “Can I trust you with a knife?”

“Probably not, but this bird has gotta fly some time right?” She shrugs.

The bird crashed and burned.

Fat tears rolled down Savannah’s face while cutting the onions.

Emphasis on cut—not diced or even chopped—but cut, haphazardly, like a three-year-old working with scissors and Play-Doh for the first time.

After wiping streams of tears, I propped her up on the counter where she’s been spectating since .

“Did your mom teach you how to cook?” she asks, taking a bite of a peperoncino.

Shit. My jaw tenses and I fight to keep stirring the sauce.

I should have anticipated that cooking might bring up thoughts of her late mom.

Whenever I make pasta sauce, I’m reminded of being a little boy, watching my mom cook in a large but mostly dark home.

The majority of my meals were scarfed down in the car on the way to and from practices, but every night, I would come home to find my mom standing at the stove, stirring her sauce, while I sat at the breakfast counter.

My dad and sisters would have long since been asleep.

I can still clearly see the little black-and-white checkered lamp with the red shade that sat on the counter.

Sometimes we would talk about our days—mostly mine.

Other times, we would just enjoy each other in a comfortable silence.

I know I shouldn’t feel guilty for being able to grow up watching my mom cook, but irrationally, I’m angry that Savannah didn’t get that same chance. I don’t want to risk bringing up any more bad memories, so I continue to stir my sauce and nod my head.

“What’s she like?”

I look over my shoulder to find Savannah with one leg tucked under her, while the other dangles from the counter. She tears off a piece of bread before smashing it through a slice of butter, completely unaware of the battle I’m now having with myself.

“What’s wrong?”

Okay… maybe she is aware .

She studies me a moment longer, something I can’t place crosses over her face and her head falls to her shoulder.

“Come here.” She reaches a hand out to me and I take her fingers in mine, moving to stand in front of her.

Her soft legs soothe me as I run the palms of my hands up her thighs. She clasps her hands together behind my neck and runs her fingers through the back of my hair. It’s almost like she knows how comforting that simple touch is for me.

“You can talk about her, Noah. It’s okay.” Her head dips down, searching for my eyes, and I can’t look away any longer. Her smile is soft and genuine when she says, “Please.”

I hold on to her hips, not for any reason other than the way touching her apparently keeps me feeling grounded.

“She’s gentle,” I finally say. “I wouldn’t say she's quiet, but she’s definitely softer. And she’s kind.”

“She sounds like you.” She smiles, and I pause at the unexpected emotion in my throat.

I’ve only ever been compared to my dad. I’ve been regarded as a hockey player my whole life.

Aside from Silas and Maverick, most people look at me and just see my stats or my victories.

Honestly, I’m not sure what they see sometimes, but I do know it’s never me .

It’s always Noah the player and never Noah the person.

It’s never been about that with Savannah.

I pinch a loose tendril of her hair between my fingers, debating on returning the question.

I want to know everything about her. I would greedily listen to every morsel of information that she wants to share with me, and I would do so completely aware of how lucky I am to receive it.

At the same time, I want to respect and believe that she’ll share everything she wants with me on her own terms. For now, I’ll keep it light.

“When you're done keeping us a secret, you can meet her.” I kiss the tip of her nose, and pull back but continue to hold her for a moment longer. I trace her face with my gaze, soaking in the softness of her eyes and the knowing smile that undoes me, inch by inch. I brush the pad of my thumb along her bottom lip and soak in the hammering between my ribs. In this moment, I fear I’ve become addicted to her smile.