“Byron no. Please, hear me out. I can explain.”
“Explain what, Savannah? That you’re thinking of your ex while you’re spending time with me? And he’s asking for shit from you now that you’re considering?”
“No!”
She reached out and tried to touch him again, but he flinched his hand back. “Get the fuck off me.” He motioned to her phone. “Call Richie. Tell him you’re free to give him whatever he wants. That you’ve been free all this time, you just couldn’t hang with him tonight because you’d already made plans to hang with me.”
“No, I haven’t done anything with him since . . .” She paused with an odd expression on her face, then shook her head. “A week ago?”
“You were with him a week ago?”
The blinding rage nearly blurred his vision as her words sank in. “Get the fuck out, Savannah!”
“Baby, baby, baby!” She brought her hands to her mouth and to add insult to injury she squealed in laughter.
“This is funny to you?”
“It’s a prank.” He was still so incensed and utterly shattered he could barely breathe—think straight—the words didn’t register, even as he watched her hurry toward her phone. “A TikTok challenge like the ones Manny pulled on my uncle Romero.” She showed him the phone and the red light indicating she was filming. He’d been so busy being all over her earlier, he hadn’t even noticed the light was on. “It’s for our online channels. I haven’t seen Richard since the barbeque at my grandparents, and I still haven’t spoken to him in almost a year.”
“Bullshit,” Byron said but with less conviction this time because Savannah was still squealing, and now he could see the glistening in her eyes earlier was probably tears of laughter.
“Nena made me do it!” She clutched her chest barely able to catch her breath. “Oh my God. I can’t believe I held out that long.”
If it wasn’t for her outright laughing Byron might’ve further questioned whether she was lying or not but, she actually did the little running in place thing he’d seen her do before, slapping her knee high in the air, while she cracked up all high pitched in front of the phone she set back down on the counter. “I got him!”
She was just too damn excited about this, for this to not really be a prank. Then Byron remembered something. “I heard the dude on the phone, Savannah.”
She took a few steps toward him, then stopped when he held his arm up not letting her near him. Slapping her knee again, she jerked her head back as she fisted her hand over her mouth and laughed so hard, she wheezed. Wheezed. “That was Taz!”
“This isn’t funny.”
Feeling the tension once again slowly drain from his completely pent-up body, it was at that moment Byron knew. He knew without a doubt because he’d been that ready to blow—ready to tell her to fuck off.
Only Savannah.
Only she could have him ready to punch a fist through a fucking wall one minute and now here he was actually trying not to smirk. She went on to explain between laughing and wiping tears from her eyes, how her brother had showed up unexpectedly since he’d been in the area while she’d been on the phone with Sienna. Since she’d already told Sienna where she was headed her sister concocted the whole thing and begged her to please do it.
“She’s been so mad all this time that she didn’t get any footage of what happened between you and Taz at the gym. Says our views would’ve gone through the roof if she’d been vlogging at the time. Which she usually is, no matter where she’s at. The brat knows I’ve been feeling guilty about not contributing much to the channel since I started school, so she convinced me to do this.” She paused only to exhale a bit exaggerated like she was exhausted. “I chickened out yesterday, and I almost chickened out today.”
Byron crossed his arms in front of him unable to hide the smirk anymore. Not just because seeing her laugh so much, even if at his expense now, was still as breathtaking as it’d been all the other times he’d been witness to that huge smile. But because he almost felt high with the relief of knowing this hadn’t been the real thing. She hadn’t really broken his heart because as much as he might try and deny it, it’s exactly what it’d instantly felt like.
“We got’em Nena.” She said into the phone screen then turned back to Byron. “I felt so bad when I said I’d been with him last week.” She was barely able to squeal the words out, then screeched when he grabbed her and pulled her into a mock head lock.
“I should kick your ass.”
This only made her squeal even louder with laughter and he pinned her against the counter searching her eyes even as the adrenaline continued to pummel through him.
“You said the F word to me.” She pouted feigning looking hurt, though her animated bright eyes gave way to her still laughing mood.
“You better not be lying.”
“I’m not.” She shrieked as he pressed his body against hers hard. “I swear. I already made the intro and everything. It’s why I took so long to call you back. After I got off the phone, I put it together with Taz. But vlogging’s not his thing, so we had to retake it several times. I can show you after.”
“Show me now.”
“But I still have to edit—”
“Now.”
“Okay.” He pressed his body against hers even harder. “Okay!”
As usual with Savannah the laughter was ever going, but even Byron couldn’t help smiling now too. He was just too damn relieved. “First, let me close this out.”
He let her squirm out of his arms just far enough to reach for her phone. She picked it up and spoke into the screen. “Alright y’all, so this was a success. We got him good. Something tells me this won’t be the last time he’ll be a victim of the Sizzling Sisters.”
“It better be.” Byron squeezed her.
She cackled loudly but then just like her cooking, she was completely back in her element as she went on. “You know the drill. Hashtag Team Vannah, hashtag Sizzling Sisters. Like comment and share below. Stay tuned for more videos and that new intro we’ve been working on. Out!” She hit the screen still shaking her head. “Oh my God, I can’t wait to see it.”
“First the intro, Savannah.”
A part of him was already convinced this had in fact been a prank. A cruel and dangerous prank, given that she already knew what his reaction might be to something of this nature, even way back before much had happened between them. But a very small part of him needed to be absolutely sure she wasn’t just that good. For a few agonizing moments there, he’d truly believed he’d been completely blindsided. He’d already begun having visuals of slamming the door behind her when she walked out, then his fist into the wall.
He pulled her to him, her back against him and she leaned back, so he could see her phone over her shoulder. She tapped away at the screen quickly as she explained more.
“Like I said, this still needs to be edited. My parents used to have to okay every one of these before we posted, but once we hit eighteen, they lost interest in monitoring them. Just gave us the spiel about being responsible and how the internet is forever, even if you do delete, blah, blah blah. You heard my mom the day we had dinner with them. I don’t even think they watch our videos anymore. There’s too many for them to keep up with. But I’m still gonna edit out the part where you mention rubbing yourself against me.”