WAIT FOR ALWAYS

2. Savannah

2

SAVANNAH

DECEMBER 20, 2008

The text message made my eyes sting. I blinked fiercely a dozen times to keep the tears from collecting in my lashes. I’d been in hair and makeup all day. The debutante coordinator would kill me if I had tear tracks down my face. Even happy tears weren’t allowed this close to my debut.

But the text was still there.

we have to break up i don’t care bout this deb stuff sry

My now ex-boyfriend of six months, Brad, who had attended every debutante event with me since the start of the season, was acting like, now, he didn’t care. This was the biggest night of my young life when I would be introduced to high society at the Christmas Cotillion. And now, I had no escort.

“Amelia,” the coordinator, Mary called. “Amelia, we’re still waiting on Brad. He should have been here already.”

I took a steadying breath and reached for my pageant smile. I’d won Miss Savannah only six weeks earlier. I was well on my way to Miss Georgia in the spring. Even if I hadn’t had all the deb practice, I was skilled in holding back my emotions.

“I’m trying to find that out,” I told her carefully.

Mary pursed her lips. “This will look unfavorably on you. Your escort should be prompt.”

As if that were my fault.

“I understand. Let me figure out where he’s at.”

What I meant was, Let me find a suitable replacement for my introduction and the inevitable waltz, which Brad and I had been perfecting for several months. d**k.

I stepped away from the half-dozen other girls in similar white dresses and long white gloves and dialed my brother.

He answered on the second ring. “Mia?”

“I have an SOS situation.”

Derek huffed on the phone. “What’s going on?”

“Brad just … dumped me.”

“Fuck.”

“He’s not going to be here to escort me.”

“What the f**k?” Derek demanded. “Do I need to find him and beat the s**t out of him?”

I laughed softly. “Uh, no. Not enough time. I don’t know what else to do. Will you walk me?”

My brother was four years older and a basketball star at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. I was lucky enough that he’d been able to come home at all during Christmas break for my cotillion. He’d probably fly out to make a game tomorrow. But he’d escorted more than his fair share of St. Catherine’s debs in his years as a Holy Cross boy. St. Catherine’s was the all-girls Catholic high school and Holy Cross was the all-boys school next door. Thus, Derek knew the dance. It would be humiliating that I’d have to walk with my brother and not a date, but I was a Ballentine. My reputation could withstand the whispers.

“I’ve got you covered. Sending in reinforcements.”

I laughed to hold back my tears. “Thanks, Derek.”

Before Mary could ask where exactly my escort was again, I hustled out of the backstage area and to the locked side entrance. A knock came on the other side a few minutes later, and I pulled it open, expecting my brother.

Instead, I found Ash Talmadge.

I gaped at him, standing silhouetted in the doorway in a tuxedo. My heart literally stopped beating for a split second.

Ash was my brother’s best friend. We’d grown up together since we were really little. Since his dad and my dad were also best friends. Even though he was two years younger than Derek, they’d had always hung out. We’d even vacationed together in the summer. But while the age difference didn’t seem to matter for friends, Ash being two years older than me, twenty to my seventeen, almost eighteen, felt like an insurmountable difference. And yet I’d never wanted him more than in that moment.

“Hey, Mia,” he said with a grin that revealed just the hint of a dimple.

“Ash,” I gasped, quickly recovering. I threw my arms around him. “I had no idea you were coming to my debutante.”

“Of course. I couldn’t miss it.”

“When did you get back from Duke?” I asked, gesturing for him to come inside.

“A couple days ago. When Derek invited me to your deb ball, how could I refuse? And I heard there was an incident with your boyfriend?”

I rolled my eyes. “Ex-boyfriend.”

I showed him the text message. Ash’s face was hot with anger.

“What a dick.”

“Tell me about it.” I hid my phone again in the pocket of my white deb dress. “So … I’m sort of without an escort.”

“Ah, yes, well, I’m the reinforcements. I’ll escort you if you’ll have me.”

My body practically listed toward him.

Good riddance, Brad. He was nothing compared to Ash. That was for damn sure.

“I would … love that,” I said softly.

I wasn’t sure if Ash knew what kind of effect he had on me. I wasn’t exactly subtle in how I felt about him, but I’d basically been his kid sister for much of our lives. He and Derek would run off and make trouble while I tried to keep up with them and generally failed. I wanted there to be a moment when that all changed. When he saw me as more than just his best friend’s little sister, but that only happened in movies.

“Amelia!” Mary called again.

“This way.” I took Ash’s hand in mine and pulled him down the hall.

Mary tapped her foot impatiently. A smile came to her mouth at the sight of my new escort. “Well, James, what a pleasure.”

Ash grinned at Mary. “James is my father.”

Ash was technically James Asheford Talmadge IV, but no one called him that. He was just Ash to us.

“Yes, yes.” She waved her hand. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”

“He’s my escort,” I blurted out quickly.

The other debutantes gasped and tittered behind Mary. They were eyeing Ash with blatant jealousy. Their boyfriends or dates or escorts were all going to pale in comparison to him. A college boy this handsome was always a prized catch.

Mary arched an eyebrow. “Where’s Brad?”

Ash cut in smoothly. “He’s not good enough for our Amelia,” Ash said affectionately. “Plus, we both know I can waltz better than anyone else here.”

Mary softened. “That is true.”

I was certain that Mary was going to get on me for Brad’s absence, but a few words from Ash Talmadge, and she was putty in his hands too. Incredible.

Ash drew me in close as Mary put us in line. “There … the night is salvaged.”

“I think you just made her knees weak,” I whispered.

He grinned and leaned in conspiratorially. “She actually has a thing for Derek.”

I gagged. “Ew, Ash! She’s, like, my mom’s age.”

He laughed. “Hey, older women can teach you things.”

“Now, you’re just trying to make me sick.”

“I’m sure older guys can teach you things too.”

“You’re older than me,” I shot back before the implication of my words hit me.

Ash’s eyes traveled down to my lips and back up. My cheeks flushed. Time slowed to a crawl. Had Ash ever looked at me like that? Not as far as I knew. Only in my dreams. I wondered in that moment if, finally, all those dreams were about to come true.

Then, the moment burst like a popped bubble.

Ash straightened to his considerable height, as if realizing exactly who he was flirting with. “That’s not what I meant.”

I deflated slightly at those words. No, of course it wasn’t what he’d meant. Ash Talmadge might have looked down at my lips, but as soon as he remembered that I was Derek’s little sister and completely off-limits … he’d never look at me like that again.

“Of course not,” I said, forcing out my own laugh. “I was joking.”

“Come on, deb.” He offered me his arm. “Let’s go show the world who their queen is.”

Somehow, he still brought back my smile.

“There is no deb queen.”

“There will be this year,” he said confidently as he followed the line of debs toward the stage.

My stomach flipped at his words. Even if he wasn’t thinking about me in a romantic sense, it didn’t change a single thing about how I felt about him. It never had.

The rest of the presentation that I’d spent my life anticipating went by in a blur. I walked across the stage to raucous applause. A bouquet of roses was placed in my arms while I smiled my pageant smile. It was over in a matter of minutes. And suddenly, I was a lady in the eyes of society.

The traditional waltz was the last official step of the night. Ash took my hand and drew me onto the dance floor, and even though he hadn’t waltzed in at least a year, we moved together as if we had been born to it. And we had been. A Ballentine and a Talmadge had been made for this.

“So, have you heard from colleges?” Ash asked as we passed another couple, who was struggling with the steps.

“Parsons.” I beamed. “I just got my acceptance letter in the mail.”

“Congratulations! And you’re pursuing fashion design?”

“Yes. I’m so excited.”

“I remember the outfits that you would make when we were younger. You wanted to put on a play for the Fourth of July, but we only had bathing suits and T-shirts. You stripped my mother’s hundred-dollar curtains and made suitable outfits for the show. When my mother realized what you were wearing, she literally fainted.”

I burst into laughter. “Oh my God, your mom never forgave me.”

“She did,” he assured me. “Your mom replaced them.”

That part of the story I’d forgotten entirely. Mom and Dad had divorced when I was in middle school after he had an affair. He and Kathy had been married for years now, Mom had moved to Charleston to be near her brother, and I was the one stuck in the middle of it all. Sometimes, I forgot what it had been like when Mom was here and she and Dad didn’t hate each other.

“That feels so long ago.”

“I suppose it was,” Ash agreed. “But the play was better with the new attire.”

“It was, and, yes, I’ll be doing fashion. I designed my deb outfit,” I said, gesturing to my long white gown. “And I’ve been putting together a new gown for Miss Georgia.”

“Which you will surely win,” he said with a dashing smile.

I laughed. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. It’s a long jump from Miss Savannah to Miss Georgia.”

The waltz came to a halt, and I let my arms drop. But Ash came forward, brushing a strand of loose dark hair off of my cheek. My heart thudded, and everything else seemed to disappear. The music dimmed. The rest of the debs were gone, and suddenly, we stood together, alone, on a crowded dance floor.

“You’re going to win,” he told me with utter confidence. “You don’t know how to lose.”

I wanted to step forward. I wanted to lean into him. Oh, how I had wanted that for so long. I would have given anything to have him see me in that moment. For it not to just be me craving this boy, but to have him desire me in return.

“Will you be there?” I asked, my voice breathy.

He smiled, and I was sure that I didn’t imagine the hint of desire on his handsome face. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”