Page 58 of Saving Graces
They met Cole at the bar before the gig. He was huge - six foot four at least - and extraordinarily good looking, with short brown curls, artful stubble, big dark eyes and an excessively charming smile. He watched Savannah walk in like she was already naked. Rosalie, instantly, on sight, hated him.
“Nice to meet you.” She forced a smile at him when he stopped kissing Savannah’s face off.
“Likewise.” He gave her a handshake, his big hand dwarfing her own. “Not every day you get to meet the girl who had your girlfriend first.”
“Cole!” Savannah looked scandalized.
“I’m just kidding.” Cole grinned at Rosalie like they were already old friends. “I think it’s hot as fuck.”
“That’s… great,” Rosalie said flatly. He pulled Savannah against his side, making her look tiny as gave him an ineffectual push.
“He’s not normally a neanderthal,” she apologized to Rosalie.
“What?” Cole’s grin twinkled at Savannah. “You know I am.” He kissed her again like it was some kind of point and she lit up with such heat she looked like she was glowing from the inside.
When the two of them got up on stage to sing though, Rosalie was transfixed. The man had the voice of a stupid angel, and yet it was Savannah who was the absolute star. The two of them were obscenely good-looking together, especially with the clear we can’t stop fucking vibe all over them, but you almost stopped noticing it, just for a second when they sang. They were heart-stoppingly good.
Savannah sounded just like the girl she’d heard singing in the car all over Nashville, and somehow, nothing like her at all. She was breathtaking, and Cole for all the space he took up otherwise seemed to know it, letting her take the vocal lead as they both strummed their guitars. The songs were admittedly excellent too, though Rosalie noticed a bit of a theme. There were lots of lyrics about passionate fighting and making up, screaming and cursing each other’s names, hating each other’s exes, beating up a guy who looked too close at your girl: dark, deep, desperate love. Rosalie’s stomach dropped.
The pit in her stomach only deepened afterwards as Cole pulled Savannah down into his lap even as the three of them hung out at the bar. He almost never took his eyes off her, Rosalie noticed. It should have been sweet to witness - a man so in love with her beautiful best friend, and god knows she couldn’t blame him - but it felt concerning in a way she couldn’t quite pin down. He was possessive, it felt. Savannah, for her part, looked like she loved being so possessed, but Rosalie wondered what would happen when that faded.
As spring break went on, alarm bells kept firing. It turned out they already lived together, Savannah having moved out from Coral’s and in with him after only three weeks of dating.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Rosalie asked her and Savannah just smiled a soft private smile.
“Honestly?” she said, “I kinda forgot the whole world existed there for a minute. I’m sorry,” she added when she saw Rosalie’s face, “it’s been kind of a whirlwind, you know?”
“What do you actually know about this guy?” Rosalie tried to ask gently but Savannah’s face shut down.
“I know I love him like crazy,” she said shortly. “And I know he loves me even more.”
Even though Rosalie was only home for a week it was hard to get to see her. Cole was almost always present.
“Get me a beer, baby?” He pushed Savannah up off him when they all hung out at Coral’s. He swatted her on the ass and she gave him a fake-dirty look but sauntered into the kitchen to do what he’d asked. Coral met Rosalie’s eye and gave her an epic eye roll. Coral knew a shit when she saw him and she was clearly not impressed with what she’d seen of Cole. The next day Rosalie managed to get Savannah alone long enough to subtly check in.
“There’s some like… gender dynamics going on with you two,” was as subtle as she could force herself to be. Savannah laughed.
“He’s kind of… retrograde sometimes,” she admitted. Then she paused, her eyes gleaming in the way Rosalie knew full well was what she looked like when she was consumed with lust. “Is it weird that I find it fucking hot?” she whispered.
“No,” said Rosalie. “That makes total sense. Our parents are our earliest models of love and you’re just playing out the patterns you learned from yours. It’s basic attachment psychology.”
Savannah didn’t speak to her for two days.
When Rosalie finally got her to answer her damn phone again and talked her into meeting her downtown she tried a different tack.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Classic I-just-got-my-degree lesbian bullshit,” Rosalie rolled her eyes at herself. “Please tell me you still love me, even though I’m obnoxious.”
“I still love you,” Savannah sighed. “But you’ve got to get on board with Cole. I mean it. I’m pretty sure he’s the love of my life.”
“Okay,” Rosalie said. “Of course.” She was pretty sure she’d never get on board with him, but for Savannah’s sake she’d do a damn good job of pretending to. There was no way she was going to let her be fully alone with this guy, not ever.
“Thank you.” Savannah gave her a soft smile. “God, how lucky am I? To first get a Rosalie and then a Cole? It’s like being struck twice by lightning.”
Rosalie paced around her room for hours that night. Then she called Abigail and broke up with her. By the end of spring break she’d rejected her place in the master’s program and was halfway through arranging a transfer to Tennessee State. She flew back to LA, just once, to pack her things. Abigail refused to even meet with her, even after Rosalie repaid her half of the deposit. She returned home and hunted for a job to try to pay the bills. Coral gave her a solid sideways look but invited her to move in, and in what felt like a weird time warp, she moved into Savannah’s old bedroom.
She told Savannah that Abigail had dumped her. That she was too sad to stay in LA anymore and missed home too much. The old Savannah would have narrowed her eyes and looked a bit harder, but the new Savannah was too swept up to notice anything amiss.
Chapter Seventeen
