Why Is It You?

Savannah

I think about a lot of things in one given day.

Like why is it so hot outside, and when will my leg stop hurting whenever I sit too long or stand for longer than I should.

I think about my future and my past. Memories of time gone by and all the little details of what I need to do next.

My mind is in a constant state of function.

That is until I’m around Damon.

Then it’s shut down, powered off, and clocked out.

This is one of the things I like about him the best. Without trying or knowing, he can act as a balm for my broken parts.

Damon and I lay in the black room together and eventually fell asleep.

My arms around him, Damon lay cuddled up to me for this peaceful nap we got to take together.

We didn’t wake up when gym was over, or the next two classes. We didn’t wake up when the final bell rang or when Moonpie and Sunshine came in.

We didn’t wake when they made jokes and laughed at how we were wrapped up and napping.

“Damon, Damon. Hello, anybody in there?”

Moonpie’s voice broke into my blissful slumber and roused me back from the bleak and beautiful darkness that is sleep.

“Ten more minutes.”

My eyes twitched when I heard my Angel’s voice.

“It’s the end of school, man. Bell’s already rang.” Moonpie pushes on Damon’s shoulder and makes the couch groan from us moving.

“I hate you,” I huff and rub my eyes to wake myself up.

I have to get to work and I’m sure Percy has messaged me a thousand times. I haven’t even changed out of my gym clothes.

“I’m sure. Get your lazy asses up.”

Damon and I both huff and whine like two spoiled toddlers, but we get up anyways.

Stretching and popping our bones, Damon helps me from the couch. We still have far too much left to be talked about and figured out.

We still have a family feud going on, and all of this stuff in our way. I don’t even know if I want a relationship with him.

I know I want a friendship, but I don’t know many friends that bang around as much as us. If we were friends with benefits maybe. A part of me wants him to myself though.

I want him to be mine.

No sharing or anything else. No other people or one night of whatever. I want all of him.

That’s not friendship.

That’s monogamy.

Standing, I wave bye and go for the door. Damon snatches my wrist, walking me back against the wall with his lips on mine.

His hands scooping my jaw up in his hands with his long and nimble fingers drowning in the long strands of my ponytail.

His kiss, like every one before, savoring and seducing.

Even with the rush or the panic, even with some time, our lips find each other in frantic moments like starving animals or a stamp of power. It always has this savoring essence to it.

No tongue, no lost make-out session.

Just Damon Henley kissing me like he loved the taste of my lips and wants to have a quick touch of them before we are back in the gray area of whatever this is.

My mouth works with his, molding to the fullness of his dusty-rose-colored lips. Going along with what he gives, I don’t force anymore or take anything else.

We slow, a nothing peck, then there are more.

Before Damon steps back, I thread my fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck and pull him back.

Sucking in his bottom lip, I pull it between my teeth and bite down. The coppery taste of the blood I’ve drawn out drops to my tongue and I let go.

~Tag, you’re it, my Angel.~

Smiling with a flirty wave of my hand, I push him back and tell him to get the hell out of my way, he’s going to make me late for work, and leave the room.

I don’t bother changing clothes, I simply go to my locker, grab my bag, my homework, phone and my jacket. I head out, calling Percy and letting him know I’m fine.

***

Work with Reid goes by slow. This time no orgasms are shared and we actually spend the entire time working.

I can’t shake the thoughts of Damon from my mind. Everything comes back to him. Then the million reasons why it would never work.

My uncle is a cop—not just some paper-pushing beat cop either. The deputy chief.

Damon’s dad is the biker king, not even looking at the fact that he hates my guts, he is on the wrong side of the law.

I can’t live my life with secrets. I have never been so shut off before.

I never cared what people thought and now I’m hiding so much shit from my family it feels like a noose around my neck.

Damon is a douchebag.

I am a goddess.

He is a snow day in a sexy Oasis-like paradise and I am…doctor’s appointments.

Damon is a drive-through greasy burger that makes you think that dying of a heart attack wouldn’t be a bad way to go.

And I am Thanksgiving.

I’m hard work and preparation. I’m planning and organizing. I’m menu lists and shopping. I’m invites and a long, hectic month spent getting things together for one meal.

I am relatives making backhanded compliments and traditions spent playing football where someone always gets hurt.

I am fancy clothes and dressing up to be around people you don’t really like.

I am twelve different ways to make mashed potatoes while Damon is French fries and a chocolate shake.

I am fine china and stemware.

Damon is a handful of paper napkins shoved in the glove box for any and everything.

~How could that work?~

~It can’t, right?~

~So what do we do?~

Work ended with a migraine coming on and a long walk back to my dead-end street and no one I can spill my guts to.

My uncle brings pizza home for dinner and talks about our day.

“Van? Wanna tell me what happened at school?”

He phrased it as a question, but what he meant was: ~“Savannah, why didn’t you go to the last two classes and how come you’re not talking and why the hell were you late for work?”~

Skipping the line between that conversation and the one I need to have, I dive in.

“Do you believe anybody can change? Even if they were raised to hate.”

Percy stopped eating, looking between his dad and me.

Uncle Jonah seems taken aback by my question and jumps into cop mode.

“What did you do?” He is already running through a list of possible things I may have done and how he will get me out of it.

“I didn’t do anything. I am asking you, as my uncle, do you think people are capable of change.”

I rest my back on the chair and watch him just as he does me. These are the times he hates that he taught me how to read people.

I can see it in his blue eyes and the way he sighs.

“Of course.”

“Then I need you to change how you think of the Henley family.”

Percy’s eyes widen while Uncle Jonah’s turn to a full-on cop stare.

“There is a difference between having the capability to change and the will to do it. Henleys are bad news, Savannah. Stay away from them. All of them.”

His first sentence, one of a human; the rest, of this robotic cop man.

“Want to tell me what this is about?”

His cop face stern and curious.

“How can you write them all off as one thing? Why can’t you give them a chance? To get to know them?”

My uncle’s eyebrow twitches, which only happens when he is ready to blow.

“I have arrested all of them at least once. They are bad news. It wouldn’t make a difference if I spent the rest of my life with them.

“Henleys have something in their blood that is tainted. Not one of them has done an ounce of honest work in their lives. They don’t try, they just do whatever they want.”

I bite my cheek, trying to work out what I need to say.

~It’s wrong. He’s wrong.~

I can see it in Lucien, but not the rest.

Darrion is a doctor, one that helped me. Even if it was because I took a shot to the ass for his brother, he still cared enough to make sure I healed properly.

Even with my knee, he fought me to make sure I wasn’t in pain and didn’t let me hurt myself.

Dane has goodness in him. I saw it weighing on him when he tried to warn me. I saw it eating at him.

Damon has done good for me.

“Do you think they’re all bad because they break the law?” I fire back.

“I don’t typically meet ~good~ criminals.”

Shaking my head, I can’t let this go. I know my uncle is getting pissed but I can’t.

“You believe in the law then.”

I stare, knowing the answer. Man’s a ~COP~.

Yes. He believes in law and order.

His face tilts and he clicks his tongue in a smartass way.

~Seeing a family trait.~

“We used to have a law that people couldn’t marry if they were the same gender or from different racial backgrounds. We used to have laws that prohibited divorce.”

My uncle stands up from the table.

“Make your point.”

“If you believe in the law, and anyone who breaks it is automatically in the wrong, then you would have to believe those laws were justified.

“That Richard and Mildred Loving were bad criminals for simply falling in love and wanting to be married.”

His hand in the air with his finger pointing down at me, I see the argument coming.

“That’s not the same thing, Savannah. What they fought for was rights they should have already held. What the Henleys do is break laws to fill their pockets and gain power.”

I stand up too, my chair scraping as I stand tall and hold my ground.

“People aren’t good or bad. They have worth inside them and can’t be placed in one box or another. Human beings are diverse and complicated creatures. You can’t sum an entire family by the actions of one. “

My Uncle Jonah lets out a long, exaggerated sigh and starts to pace back and forth.

“If I broke the law—”

“If?” Uncle makes Percy snicker but he gives him this look that means ~“you too”~ and it lightens the mood.

Dropping my point from being solely based on the Henley family, I try to work my point in a different way.

If my uncle can’t trust Damon, then maybe I can get him to trust in my decision to be with him.

If I choose that.

I need a path before I can make a choice on which one to go down.

“Uncle Jonah, if I broke the law. For whatever reason or for whomever. As long as it was for the good, would you be disappointed with me? Would you turn me in? Would you have my back? Would you believe in me?”

That heavy silence like an itch that keeps getting scratched.

“I will always have your back, Savannah. Through it all. I will always be in your corner.”

“Even if that meant I did something you wouldn’t want for me. Like I made a knowing decision to go against what you want.”

I can see Percy starting to sweat.

“It wouldn’t be the first time.”

~Well, he got me there.~

“So you trust me? For whatever decision I make. Or will make.”

“Savannah, you do things I never believed possible. You are fearless and brave. You hit life head-on and grab the bull by the horns. You do your own thing. You always have.

“I’m not here to judge you. I just want you to be happy and safe.”

I nod again, feeling the confession at the back of my throat and the tip of my tongue.

I get up from the table and go to the hallway, grabbing the jacket and coming back.

“If I liked Damon Henley and wanted to be with him. Like I made a knowing decision to go against what you want.” I look at Uncle Jonah and then at Percy.

“What happened with the jacket?”

Uncle looks at it hanging from my hands.

~Here we go.~

“It got ripped and Damon did this for me.”

I hold it out, showing him the inside and the patches.

I can’t tell him Lucien shredded it, it would not be beneficial to my point that Damon is worth a chance.

While I know he had a part in the destruction, he wasn’t the mastermind.

If Uncle Jonah knows a Henley did that, it wouldn’t matter which one.

Again, I’m just looking for a path, an option to walk down it with Damon.

“Savannah.”

He lets the fabric slip through his fingers. Standing straight, he paces back and forth behind his chair.

“I don’t trust them.” He shakes his head back and forth while pacing.

“But you trust me. You trust in my choices. I’m not asking you to go fishing and have some guy bonding time. I’m asking you to give me the opportunity to choose what I want.

“I’m not saying Damon is the man of my dreams or I’m eloping. I’m saying I am his friend and he is mine. And I want to be able to ask my friend to come to dinner. To spend time at my house.”

His eyes soften.

I know he heard it in the way I said it. I’ve called this his house. This place can’t ever be my home, but it’s always been like a second one to me.

Uncle Jonah looks me over. Seeing the determination on my face and the truth in what I am confessing.

“Damon might be a criminal, but that doesn’t make him a bad friend.”

My hand on the inside patch of the jacket.

“If—that is a strong if at that, Savannah.”

I nod and wait.

“If I allow him over, no weapons, he is not allowed upstairs. You are not to be alone with him at all. It gets approved before he comes over. No surprise visits. One of my men will be stationed outside.”

I nod again.

This isn’t ideal but it’s a start.

“Does that mean I can invite him for dinner on Saturday? I think Dallas will be available to play watchdog.”

My eyes like a kid begging for a day at Six Flags.

“I’m not saying yes.”

I jump up and down and fist pump the air.

“Thank you, Uncle Jonah!”

~He didn’t say no!~