You’re Still The One by Erika Kelly
Chapter Nineteen
Savannah, I wanna, I gotta,
I’m gonna be your man
Savannah, my only, my truly,
I’m your number one fan
Oh, oh, oh, life is fine when you’re on my mind
Oh, oh, oh, wherever I look you’re who I find
Stella loved this life.Sitting at the dining room table, she typed up her notes from the video conference she’d had with a couple from North Dakota who wanted a destination wedding here. Throughout the call, she couldn’t stop smiling as she listened to Gigi help Austin.
She wondered when the two of them would work on their song for the show, but she loved that Austin was getting a lesson in songwriting.
I could get used to this.
Something had changed between her and Griffin after Thanksgiving. That night, they’d made love, and it seemed to tear down the last of his walls. It was like he was free to be with her. She almost felt safe with him.
Almost.
She couldn’t say why, but she had a sense of foreboding, that this was too good to be true. That something would come along to tear it all away from her again. And maybe it was because he’d dumped her before, something she’d never expected in a million years.
Maybe it was nothing more than the muscle-memory of rejection.
Gigi clapped her hands. “Woo hoo, you got it. That’s a great bridge.”
Austin murmured something, and then Gigi said, “Okay, now that we fixed your song, we need to come up with a song for the show.”
Her sister went quiet again, listening. And then, “Are you sure? Because it’s usually holiday songs and dances.”
“I’m sure.” Austin spoke louder now and with confidence.
“Um, okay, in that case, we have to work on the structure a little more. You’ve got the verse, that’s the ‘once upon a time section,’ you know, where we set up the song. You knew that intuitively. And we’ve already tweaked the bridge. It’s got great energy now. I love it. But we need to work on the outro, which is where you want to give the listener a sense of the ending.”
“I don’t know the ending yet.”
“Well, let’s break down the song and figure out the best way to give an emotional punch.”
“No, I mean, I don’t know the ending yet.”
A shock of worry pierced her heart. Does he know Savannah?
Is he thinking he’ll sing her a love song in front of the entire school?
“Songs aren’t real life,” Gigi said.
“Some are.”
“No, I hear you. They can definitely start out like that, but when you’re creating a piece of art, the purpose goes beyond expressing yourself. It becomes about making people feel something. With this song, since the narrator’s into her, it would be really effective to end it with them not getting together.”
“I don’t want that.”
“Well, it’s a reversal, right? Like, the singer’s clearly into this girl, and the melody is upbeat and rockin’, so we’re in a good mood, expecting her to give him the thumbs up…but then, you but drop the word ‘fan.’ And that makes us wonder what’s going on here—he’s her fan, not her friend, not her equal. So, now you’ve got the listener pulled in, waiting. And the bridge is happy and hopeful so we could end it with something like this.” Gigi strummed her guitar and sang, “Here I am, once again, watching you walk by, here I am watching you, wondering if I’ll catch your eye.”
Stella swung around to see Austin’s reaction.
He was smiling.
Yeah, for real. Austin was smiling.
“You like that?” Gigi grinned.
He nodded.
“Okay, let’s do it.” Her sister wrote something down.
Who’s Savannah, though?Does she go to school with him? “This is such a great song.” Stella got up. “When did you write this?”
“A few weeks ago.”
“So, it’s not about an old girlfriend? Someone you knew in San Diego?”
He grew uncomfortable.
“Does Savannah go to Calamity High?” Please say no.
“She’s in my snowboarding class.”
Oh, my God. “Is she your age?”
He nodded.
I have to fix this. “And her name’s Savannah?”
“Yeah.” He sounded almost defensive.
“Wait, have you been talking to her?” she asked. “Texting?” Does she know you exist?
He shook his head, clearly embarrassed.
“I’m sorry if I’m making you uncomfortable. I’m just trying to understand this, and I’m worried about you getting up on stage in front of the entire high school and singing a love song to Savannah when everyone else is doing holiday songs.”
His chin tipped in defiance.
“Okay, what if we change the name? Call her Mariana? Angelina? Keep it similar.”
“No.” He was adamant. “It’s Savannah’s song.”
Oh, wow. This boy…he was going to love deep and hard one day.
He might not be related by blood, but he was so much like Griffin it was scary.
But he couldn’t expose himself like this at the Holiday Musicale. She looked to her sister. Help me out here. But Gigi just gave her a gentle smile. And Stella wanted to say, Artistic integrity’s great…unless you’re a fourteen-year-old in a new school.
But she needed to get through to him, so she sat on the arm of the couch. “Hear me out, okay? Let’s say you’re sitting in the auditorium, and some girl you’ve passed in the halls starts singing a song. And you hear your name. And it’s a love song. What’re you going to think?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care what other people think of my song. It’s for her. Not for anyone else.”
“Right.” Hard to argue with that. “But I just want you to imagine walking down the hallways the following Monday. Teenagers are a tough crowd. You’re new at school. You don’t want them making jokes at your expense, right?”
“I don’t even know them. They don’t mean anything to me. She does.”
She wasn’t getting through to him, and he was going to make a terrible mistake. One he wouldn’t come back from. Teenagers had long memories, especially if he was the loner, the new kid who hadn’t made any effort to make friends.
And what if Savannah was popular? What if she was mean to him?
Stella would die if anyone hurt this boy. She needed to talk to Griffin about this. He would help her figure out a way to get Austin to do Frosty, the Snowman or something instead of a song that had the potential to scar him for life.
“I’m starving.” She headed into the kitchen. “You guys want me to make something?”
“I can’t stay,” Gigi called.
“Okay.” She found her phone on the counter and pressed Griffin’s number.
“Hey. Everything all right?” The whine of hydraulics and some hammering made it hard to hear him.
“Do you have a second?”
“Sure. Hang on.” After a muffled sound, which she figured was Griffin walking to his office, he came back on the line. “What’s up?”
She stood near the window and lowered her voice. “So, that song he wrote? Savannah? It’s for a girl in his snowboarding class. That’s what he’s going to perform at the holiday show.”
“What? He’s dating someone?”
“No.” He gets it, thank God. “He’s never talked to her.”
“And she goes to Calamity High?”
“Yes, but they’re not friends. She might not even know he exists outside of being one of the kids in her class. I suggested he at least change the name from Savannah to Alannah or something similar, but he refuses.”
“Did he say why?”
“Yes, because he wrote it for her. Because he likes her and doesn’t care what the other kids say.”
“He said that?” Griffin sounded impressed.
“I know, I know. It’s really sweet, but he doesn’t know what it feels like to be taunted. Remember Richard Bates?”
“Of course.”
“Well, we can’t let that happen to Austin.”
“Richard Bates owns two car dealerships in Idaho Falls. He’s doing great now.”
“Griffin. You remember how badly he was teased and bullied. People were vicious.”
“They were. But Austin isn’t Richard Bates.”
“No, he’s not, but we can’t sit back and do nothing. It’s a holiday show. The other kids are going to be singing Jingle Bells and dancing to Run DMC’s Christmas in Hollis. He’ll be the only one putting his heart on his sleeve for a person he’s never talked to. You know I’m right. It’s a recipe for disaster. We need to stop him.”
“I can talk to him when I get home, but other than giving him my opinion, I’m not sure what you want me to do. You want me to forbid him? Ground him the night of the show? Distract him with a trip to Vegas?”
“A trip to Vegas sounds a lot better. And if that’ll save him from humiliation, then yes, offer him a trip.”
“Offer who a trip?” Austin came into the kitchen with two empty glasses. Gigi followed him in.
“I have to go,” Stella said to Griffin before disconnecting. Well, damn. He’d heard her. There was no covering for what she’d said. “That was Griffin. I told him I’m worried about you singing that song, and he joked about taking you to Vegas, so you don’t perform at the holiday show. That’s on me, though. Griffin says it’s up to you.”
“I’m performing.” He opened the refrigerator and pulled out a yogurt. “It’ll be fine.” Peeling off the lid, he tossed it in the garbage and grabbed a spoon.
“What if Savannah doesn’t like you back?”
He hunched a shoulder and turned to Gigi. “Thank you for teaching me today.”
Her sister gave him a warm smile. “My pleasure. I’m leaving in the morning, but we can shoot for one more rehearsal over a video call, okay?”
“Okay.” With a chin nod, he walked out of the room.
Stella waited until she heard his boots on the stairs. “I can’t believe you and Griffin are being so chill about this.”
“Because it’s not our choice. He’s obviously determined to do this.”
“So? He’s fourteen.”
Gigi bit back a smile. “Do you remember your biker phase?”
She sure did. Griffin and his friends were into dirt biking at the same time the television show Sons of Anarchy was popular.
“I can remember coming home after a tour, and I heard you and Lulu arguing in your room. She was trying to talk you out of wearing something, so I came in to see your outfit.”
“You can stop right there.” Stella laughed. “I don’t need details.”
“You were wearing a tight, cropped leather jacket with fringe and these tight, filthy, ripped black jeans.”
“God, stop.” How mortifying that her super-cool, older sister remembered this phase.
“And these brand new biker boots.”
Stella covered her ears. “La la la la.”
“You were going to wear a fake sleeve of tattoos on your arm.” Gigi was cracking up.
“All right, enough. One more word out of you, and I’m going far, far away. Maybe New Zealand.”
“Okay, fine, but my point is I tried to talk you out of it, and what did you do? You went to school in that ridiculous outfit. With your fake sleeves stuffed in your backpack.”
“It was a very fashion-forward idea. That’s my take on it, and I’m sticking to it. But no one made fun of me.” In fact, some of the girls had actually copied her.
Thankfully, the fad hadn’t lasted more than a few weeks. It was truly awful.
“Okay, but when you left for school that morning, you didn’t know what the outcome would be. I warned you about it. Lulu warned you. Even Mom tried to talk you out of it, and you insisted on doing it anyway.”
She could see her sister’s point.
“And guess what? Austin might be quiet, but he’s one of the most confident kids I’ve ever met. Very much like you.”
“I hear you. And you’re right, but can you just do me a favor? Can you practice a second song, just in case?”
“In case what?”
“In case I can talk him out of it. In case something happens between now and then, and the girl turns out to be a bitch. Then, we’ll be ready to switch songs.”
The humor left Gigi’s eyes. “No, Stella. I’m not going to practice a second song with him, because that’s not what Austin wants. Okay, I’ve got to go.” She gave Stella a hug. “Love you. Talk soon.”
* * *
“So fired up, man. Let’s do this.”
“Three, two, one…”
Heart racing, Griffin launched backward off the cliff, drawing his knees up and flipping. The moment he extended his legs, he pulled the chute. His canopy inflated, jerking his body. And then…
Freefall.
Elation.
And the eerie silence that always accompanied a jump.
In the dead of night, with his parachute fully extended, he couldn’t see his friends, but he knew their expressions. The adrenaline rush from BASE jumping was fucking addictive.
They’d left a circle of lantern flashlights in the meadow for their landing zone, and it came hurtling up fast.
A gust of wind jerked his parachute. Terror struck, but he tugged the braces, leaned left, and righted his course.
Jesus.
It’s all right. It’s fine.
That scared the shit out of him.
Someone landed right in the circle.
I’m next.
Easy, easy, easy…
His boots hit the ground, the impact jarring his bones, and he jogged till he got his balance.
Fuckin’ A. Perfect landing.
Yes.
They jumped on each other, high fiving, slapping backs.
“What a rush, man.”
“That was awesome.”
Jamie, Declan, Cole, Griffin…
Without a word, they all turned to look for Booker.
There he was, coming in. Fast.
A sudden burst of turbulence plastered his clothes to his body, and the canopy collapsed.
Booker pulled the braces.
He knows what to do. He’s got this.
Except, he was coming in hard, too hard.
“Brake,” Jamie shouted. “Fucking brake.”
Griffin broke into a run. Fear pounded in his bloodstream. His pulse beat out of control.
“Booker!”
His friend hit the ground with a sickening thud.
Griffin jerked awake.
What the hell?
It took a moment to tear himself out of the dream, to remind himself Booker was fine. Everyone was fine.
Wait, were they? Sweating, he scrambled out of bed, reaching for his jeans.
Where’s Austin?
He couldn’t get his brain to fully wake up, and he had this terrible feeling something was wrong with his boy. Still not used to this house, his shin clipped the edge of the dresser. Ignoring the sharp pain, he flung the door open and stalked down the hallway.
The dream still clung to him—his friend’s unconscious body, the wrong angle of his leg, the panicked energy as they’d loaded him into the bed of the truck and raced to the hospital.
Only when he stood outside Austin’s bedroom did he come back into the here and now. He remembered dinner with Stella. She’d made Austin laugh, telling stories about some of the guys on the football team she used to work for.
After, they’d played a video game together, all three of them. Not something Stella would choose to do on her own. She’d done it to give Austin a sense of home, security.
Everything’s fine. Everyone’s safe.
He stood outside Austin’s door, but he didn’t hear anything. Quietly turning the knob, he peered inside…and found the boy sleeping soundly. Griffin closed his eyes, let out a slow breath.
Then, he headed back to his room.
He’d never get over it, would he? Thinking Booker was dead, feeling for his pulse, the crushing silence in the truck. It had felt like sitting on a bed of needles the entire ride to the hospital. Then, the excruciating tension in the waiting room, not knowing if his friend would be paralyzed.
Closing himself in the bathroom, he splashed water on his face. As he dried his cheeks with a hand towel, he looked at himself in the mirror.
And found himself shaken to his core.
Booker had almost died because Griffin, Jamie, and Cole were scared about the next phase of their lives. Because they’d wanted one more night together. Because…
They’d been reckless kids who flung themselves off cliffs, rode mountain bikes on uncharted terrain lined with boulders and unpredictable turns, and had no sense of their own mortality.
They’d never thought through the consequences.
Until that night.
Since then, I’ve been vigilant. He wouldn’t let anything happen to the people he loved.
And it was killing him.
It’s fucking exhausting.
Stella was right. Peyton could’ve asked any number of people to watch Austin while he was deployed.
He chose me because I won’t let anything happen to his son.
Flicking off the light, he headed back to bed. Where Griffin controlled his external world to keep everyone safe, Stella threw herself into life.
I can’tcontrol her.
And so I cut her out of my life.
He lowered his head. I might’ve lived my life without her if she hadn’t come up with that stupid fake engagement idea.
Right then, he almost didn’t care that he’d lied to his family and friends. Well, he did. But it had been worth it. Because I got Stella back.
And he might be keeping Austin alive, but that boy wouldn’t be coming into his own, experiencing life, if she hadn’t barged into their lives.
Throwing on a hoodie, he hurried down the stairs. He picked up his phone from the counter where it lay charging.
Griffin: You up?
He saw his text had been delivered. Three dots bounced on the screen.
Stella: I am now. Everything okay?
Griffin: Fine. Can I come over?
Stella: Of course.
Just in case Austin woke up, Griffin wrote him a note.
At Stella’s. Be right back.
Shoving his bare feet into the boots he’d left by the back door, he let himself out. Fuck, it’s cold. And it was just the wake-up he needed. Snow crunched under his soles as he jogged across the lawn and headed toward the yellow lights of the carriage house.
Stella opened the door. “Everything okay?” She reached for him, drawing him into the warmth of her home.
Closing the door behind him, he tipped her chin and gazed into those beautiful hazel eyes. “I’m an asshole.”
She cracked a grin. “Okay?” But when she saw he was serious, the smile faltered. “What’s going on? What’ve you done?”
He kicked off his boots and led her to the couch. “I love you.”
Her eyes flared.
“I love everything about you, and it makes me sick to think you’ve doubted yourself all these years. That I made you feel there was something wrong with you. You love fiercely, and that’s a gift. I need that kind of love. Austin needs it. If you hadn’t crashed into our lives, Austin would still be eating Cheetos and playing video games. And my life would be nothing more than meeting obligations. I visit my family and pay my employees and deliver bikes on time. I eat to fuel myself and sleep so I can get up the next day and do it all over again. But with you, it’s the opposite. With you, I eat pancakes because it’s fun. I ice skate just to laugh, and it’s fucking exhilarating. Everything with you—even a trip to the grocery store—is exhilarating. And that’s how I want to live my life.”
Her lips parted, went soft. “I love you, too. I love you more…” She caught her breath, overcome with emotion. “More than anything.”
He kissed her. “I don’t want you in the carriage house. I want you in our home, in our bed.” He gestured around the room. “I hate that you’re here. It’s like you’re banished. Marginalized. And that ends right now because you’re the center of everything. You’re the source.”
“The source?”
“Of happiness.” He cupped her chin. “You’re my home, Stella. And I want—I need you with me. You make everything better.”