Stuck In Savannah

6. Flattery Will Get You Anywhere

Chapter 6: Flattery Will Get You Anywhere

“So what’s going on between you and Jose Herrera, Sav?” asked Cara, a friend of Hannah’s, as she tried to get more intel on me and Jose, another ex-fling of mine and the current soccer team’s captain. As proud cheerleaders, some of them felt obliged to keep up with whom their most beloved athletes were dating.

“Nothing, of course,” Hannah interrupted me, waving her off before I could’ve gotten a word in just as I opened my mouth to reply, “Savvy’s moved onto college guys now,” she said suggestively to her friends as she winked at me and I sighed inwardly.

“Oh, really?” exclaimed another one of the bimbos whose name I couldn’t remember nor cared enough to.

“Yeah,” Hannah answered for me, “and you even know him,” she said in a low, conspiratorial voice, as if that would make it sound more secretive, which it sort of did, but that was not the point.

“Who?” Leslie Schmitt wondered, widening her eyes at her and not even glancing at me.

“Tyson Jones,” Hannah said simply, then straightened up and gave them a smug look as the girls were in awe and I took a sip from my beer.

Okay, so obviously that cat was out of the bag.

“No way.”

“TJ? Really?

“You can’t mean…”

“Tyson Jones?”

“Are you really dating him?” Cara jabbed me in the ribs, making me choke and almost spill my beer, but they were too curious to wait for me to swallow, apparently.

“To say I’m dating him is a bit of a stretch-“

“Ohmigosh, I’m so jealous…”

“You’re such a maneater…”

“You lucky bitch!”

I downed my drink and then slowly started walking backwards, trying not to attract too much attention, or be too obvious about it. “Excuse me, I’ll be right back. I need a refill,” I told them, although I doubted any of them were really listening. Not even Hannah who was animatedly telling everyone how crazy Tyson was about me and how he didn’t wait 24 hours to call me up and ask me out.

That, too, was a bit of a stretch, but since I doubted anyone cared to hear what I had to say, I decided to make my escape before I got the headache of a lifetime.

As much as I used to enjoy bonfires before – telling stories around the fire, singings songs, having a drink or two, hanging out with your friends and laying down under the dark starry sky, I thought I was falling out of love with them. I no longer cared for that.

Actually, right now I wanted to be as far away from people as possible. I walked down the beach until I was close enough to the bonfire to hear my friends’ laughter and yet secluded enough, so I could pretend I was somewhere else.

It was just me and the ocean, just the way I liked it. No interruption.

I didn’t hear anyone approach me until I felt a hand brush against my shoulder.

“Hey,” Rachel smiled timidly at me as she sat down next to me, “I brought you ‘s’mores,” she said to me as I looked at her disdainfully.

“I should’ve figured it was you. Did you put a GPS tracker on me or something because it seriously looks like you’re stalking me,” I told her in all earnest, ignoring her outstretched hand and the delicious s’more cookie it held as she slowly retracted it.