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Twenty
Lingering Disquiet
Byron
Slowing when he thought he heard footsteps in the hallway, Byron brought the phone down to his side. He took a deep breath pissed that he let Irma get to him and raised his voice. After a few seconds of waiting in case Savannah might walk into the kitchen, he pulled the phone back to his ear when she didn’t but walked further away from the hallway and lowered his voice. Irma was still going on about needing her phone charger. She wascertainshe’d left it at his place and only wanted to stop by to get it, assuring him there’d be no drama. She’d already apologized for her outburst the night before, but Byron wasn’t having it.
“I told you,” he hissed into the phone in a much lower voice this time. “I haven’t seen any phone charger here aside from mine. But if I do, I promise I’ll let you know, and I’ll mail it to you first thing. But what I said last night, still stands. So, unless you hear back from me about the damn charger, I don’t want you using it as an excuse to show up here or keep calling, understood?”
“It wasn’t an excuse, Byron. You know why it’s so important I have to have my phone charged at all times—”
“Well, then buy a spare one, damn it.”
Feeling his patience wane once again as Irma went silent, Byron ran his hand through his hair. He glanced back at the still empty doorway to the kitchen. Why thefuckhad he answered? In an effort to sound more empathetic for the sake of keeping her on his good side, he took a deep breath again. “Look, I promise I’ll look for it. If it’s here, and you need it that bad I’ll let you know ASAP and you can come by and pick it up at the front desk. Butonlyif I let you know I found it, okay?”
“Okay,” she said softly and before she could go on, Byron let her know he had to go and got off the phone.
“Last time,” he muttered under his breath.
That was the last fucking time he’d be taking her calls. In fact, once he was sure she hadn’t left her charger at his place he’d be blocking her. Putting his phone down he spun around ready to go check on Savannah but froze when his eyes met hers as she stood at the doorway holding her empty plate and coffee mug.
“Wasn’t trying to eavesdrop or anything I just—”
“That was Irma again,” he said determined to be as honest as possible without having to drop to his knees over something that technically hadn’t actually happened. “The girl from last night. She can’t find her charger and thought maybe it might be here. I think she’s just making excuses to call, especially after last night’s incident. But I’m blocking her now.”
Lifting his phone from the counter he motioned to Savannah with it, then made a show of tapping his phone screen. He glanced up when she started toward him but didn’t say anything.
“Done,” he said putting his phone back on the counter and reaching out to Savannah as soon as she put her dishes down in the sink.
Thankfully, she didn’t resist. Instead, she allowed him to kiss her before resting her face against his chest. She was only there for a second before she glanced up at him.
“Your hearts beating so fast.”
Swallowing hard, he nodded praying she wouldn’t read more into it. “I told you this is all new to me.” He spoke quickly—too nervously. “I know it makes me sound like an asshole, but like I told you last night before now, I’ve never cared. I’ve never even thought about how I’d handle girls showing up while I was entertaining someone else or getting phone calls from them in the presence of another girl. And now it . . . it just unnerves the shit outta—”
Her finger on his lips quieted him before he could go on with his pathetic rambling.
“I’m nervous too.” She smiled before leaning in and kissing his lips softly. “In fact, it’s why I was on the phone with my mom for a while there. She asked more about you—about us—and I admitted I’m nervous.” Before he could ask about what exactly, she went on. “It just scares me to think if I could be feeling everything, I’m feeling this soon, how the heck am I supposed to handle anything going wrong once I’m even deeper?”
“It won’t,” Byron said with conviction but liked how she was thinking. At least getting in deeper was now a consideration despite what she said to her dad yesterday. “It might take me a little time to get my shit together and make sure there are no more incidents like this and last night, but I promise you Iwill nothurt you.”
“I believe you.”
Byron wrapped his arms around her even tighter and buried his face in her neck. He was beyond relieved now that today happened to be his day off. He’d since heard Orlando and Nine downstairs getting everything going and there was no need to rush down or even go down at all today. Savannah yelped then screeched, when he picked her up and whisked her back into the bedroom for some more marathon making out.
It’d been almost three weeks since the weekend Byron had met Savannah’s parents. Just as long since he’d heard from Irma. Of course, he never did unblock her after so animatedly doing so in front of Savannah. But there was no other charger at his place beside his own so there was no need to unblock her, and he had zero intentions of reaching out to hereveragain.
While technically, it’d only been a month since they’d started going out. But being that he’d met her parents after just one week, it hadn’t even felt weird when she told him her mom had asked if she was bringing him to her grandparents wedding anniversary that coming weekend. Since the time he’d had to be away from her the weekend she’d gone home for Labor Day had felt like an eternity, he was quick to say he’d be happy to go to her grandparents’ party if she was inviting him. Labor Day weekend she’d been so busy spending time with her family, he’d had little access to her even via phone. No way was he putting himself through the torture of not being around her or even being able to talk to her much for another whole weekend.
So, while it felt like they were both still avoiding the subject of what they were calling this little arrangement, her bringing him home to meet her entire family felt pretty significant. Since she was still just a freshman in college, he couldn’t really expect her to commit to anything too serious. She still had nearly four years to go. Anything could happen between now and then. Byron would just be grateful that the arrangement so far was working out better than he’d hoped. Though the last three weeks hadn’t been without incident, damn it.
Byron had never realized just how many of his lady friends had turned customers and vice versa. Therefor as much as he’d diligently gone through his phone deleting what were now unnecessary contacts, and even blocking a few he knew could be persistent like Irma, there’d still been several unnerving as all hell occurrences.
Just yesterday he’d found himself groveling again when Savannah surprised him by arriving at the shop after her late afternoon class. When Byron had spoken to her earlier in the day, he’d been disappointed to hear she wouldn’t be able to make it out to hang with him because she still had a paper to finish and turn in that evening.
The one time he’d been grateful he didn’t have to worry about her showing up because a certain touchy feely lady friend had brought her car in and asked to speak with him specifically. She’d been in the middle of flirting outrageously with Byron in the front lobby when Nine had cleared his throat loudly. It was only then that Byron’s dumb ass noticed Savannah standing at the shops entrance watching what he knew he would’ve considered an infuriating exchange had the tables been turned.
Turned out yesterday Savannah’s late class had been cancelled. So, she’d used the time to finish her paper and decided to surprise him. Normally, a turn of event like that would’ve made Byron ecstatic. Instead, he found himself scrambling to do some damage control—again. He’d been quick to abruptly cut his conversation and met Savannah at the door, kissing her long and deep. He hadn’t bothered introducing her to the client because he refused to give his association with the gal any significance. She was just another client as far as he was concerned. Like the many others he dealt with daily. But the damage had been done and once again he’d been a groveling mess the moment he got Savannah upstairs.
