"We are whatever we decide we are." I put my cup down and reach over and take her hand. She lets me. "And I want us to be everything. I know that. I've known it since you walked back into this town. I love you, Sav. I never stopped. Seeing you again has made me feel like something that's been switched off for ten years just came back on."
She looks at me. She's not going to say it back yet. I'm not asking her to. I just needed her to know it.
She doesn't get a chance to answer anyway because I lean forward and kiss her. She opens her mouth for me while the pastry goes cold on the table. Neither of us cares.
When we pull apart, she looks at me with slightly wider eyes than usual. "Okay," she says, which isn’t quite a declaration but is something, and I'll take it.
I lay her down on the couch.
She goes easily, which tells me, like me, she's been thinking about this since yesterday. I pull her shorts down and her top up.I look at her and I don't try to play it cool because there's nothing cool about how I feel about Savannah, there never has been.
"You know I've not done this with anyone since Raven," I say. "I didn't want to. My body only wanted you."
"Austin."
"I'm serious. You're the love of my life and I needed it to mean something." I kiss her stomach, just below her navel, and feel her stomach tighten. "Does it mean something now?"
She looks down at me with slightly dark eyes. "Yeah," she says quietly. "It means something now."
I take my time. I know her signs. I've had ten years of them living in my memory. I've had since last night to confirm that my memory is accurate, and it is. Every one of them. The way she breathes through her nose when she's trying to stay controlled. The way her fingers push into my hair when she stops trying. I watch her face the whole time because I've missed her face doing this and I want every second of it.
She comes with her back arching off the cushions, both hands gripping my hair and my name on her lips. I swallow every bit of her down and feel like I've been given something back I thought was gone for good.
I climb up and kiss her, and she pulls me into it. I can feel how much she wants me and I want nothing more than to give her exactly that. But not yet. I pull back.
"Sav." I look at her. "I want to do this right. When I'm inside you there's no going back from it. You're mine and I won't ever let you go again. I need you to be completely sure before that happens."
She stares at me.
"I'm not turning you down. I'm telling you what it means."
"I know," she says, after a moment. "And it makes me happy that you do." She pulls me back down and we lie there together on the small couch, and I hold her and breathe her in and it feels like something I've been waiting to get back to for a very long time.
After a while she sits up. "I think you should take me to see your house."
I look at her. "Yeah?"
"EJ asked me last week if I wanted to come. I want to come."
I smile. "He asked you that?"
"He did." She straightens her clothes and looks at me. "So, are you going to take me or not?"
She eyesmy bike when we get outside.
"I'll follow in the car," she says.
"Get over here." I take her hand and pull her in. "You belong on the back of my bike. You're the only woman who's ever been on it. You and EJ are the only ones that have ever been my passengers. That's it. So, climb on."
She looks at me for a moment, and I can see her deciding. Then she puts on the spare helmet I had brought with me just in case. Then she climbs on behind me. She wraps her arms around mywaist, and I feel every point of contact between us. I start the engine and I ride us out of town toward the compound.
The prospect on the gate opens it without hesitation when he sees me, I pull through and ride up the lane toward the houses.
Savannah goes still behind me.
I pull up outside my house and turn the engine off. She climbs off and stands there looking at it. Not the clubhouse. The houses. The lane between them. Children's bikes propped outside two of the doors, the wheels still muddy from yesterday. Jules has planted a vegetable garden along the south wall of her and Pops' place. There’re tomatoes, herbs and something leafy that I could never tell you the name of in neat rows in raised beds. Shadow's oldest boy has left his football in the middle of the path again.
I stand with her and let her look.