Love at Second Sight

Chapter 11

We do not remember days, we remember moments.

~Cesare Pavese

***

She'd absolutely made good on her promise to not let the kiss happen again. As did she on carrying on with her life. She'd followed through with both of these without chickening out from staying back at the Villa on Sundays. She simply avoided him as far as possible, purposely stayed out of him way and casually scrambled off whenever there was a possibility of being alone with him. And this had been going on for the past whole month.

For one whole month she'd successfully steered clear of him. Sometimes she'd been just so quick that despite being near enough, he couldn't catch hold of her. Not sometimes, many times.

Even so, it caused him to smile as he remembered all those moments of her scrambling off, making eye contact and looking away immediately, staring at him once in a while and getting awkward on getting caught. He'd be damned if those small moments didn't make him fall for her a little more. He loved watching the usually calm and composed Savannah turn into a scurrying mess. She was on her toes around him, ready to take off at the slightest of his movements.

A month, a day and six hours since that kiss. God, he'd wanted to kiss her at every possible moment on all the Sundays she'd been at the Villa. But then she was loved by everyone—his whole family loved her—so all of them, too, wanted her attention for the one day in every week she was home. Rhett was obvious about his liking—as he put it—for Savannah. His mom, though strict, also adored her. Gerald was extremely fond of her too. However, Stella's admiration for Savannah came as a surprise to him. Though he'd suspected it, and Savannah had a pleasant personality anyway, Stella normally took a really long time to warm up to new people.

It was on their weekly heart-to-heart talk day that he'd come to know how she loved Savannah. His Savannah. It was also the same day that he'd admitted his liking for Savannah to someone other than his mom. And that felt...good; better than most admissions he'd ever made.

"Hey, kiddo."

"Hey. What's up?"

"Today is Wednesday, and it's seven. Time for heart talks."

"It's seven already. I didn't even realize."

"Well, you study so much, what else do you expect?" he mocked as he seated himself on her bed.

"Right. Okay," she pushed her books aside, "talk time."

"How's it going?" he'd asked, nodding at the stacks of way too many books.

"It's good. Sometimes it becomes too much but then it settles down again."

"That's good. You sure you wanna do law, right?"

"Yes, absolutely."

"Good. Have you decided which law you wanna major in?"

"Yep. Tort law."

"The one for civil wrongs, isn't it?"

"Bingo."

"I am gonna be one proud brother when you graduate. My sister is gonna be a tort lawyer, goddamn."

"How's your work going?"

"It's good. We sent the gala invites today. Should get the RSVPs by Sunday."

"That's nice. When is the gala, though, I forgot," she'd admitted sheepishly.

"On the 31st of July. Mark it on your calendar now itself, so you don't forget."