Chapter 8
CHAPTER
EIGHT
Sawyer
“How old are you?” I ask, and he raises a confused brow.
“That’s your first question?” he replies, amusement in his tone.
“Answer it,” I urge him.
When the man you’ve been dying to know more about gives you free rein to bombard him with questions, it’s imperative you take advantage of it. With that said, I figure I’ll start small. Plus, his age is something I’ve actively been trying to figure out but haven’t found a time to ask until now.
“I’m thirty-six,” he says. “And if I remember correctly, you’re twenty-four. Old enough to drink in a bar.” There’s a hint of a smirk on his face as he turns back toward the shelf he was sorting through.
“Yes, I’m twenty-four.” I roll my eyes. “Old enough to drink in a bar, yet young enough to out-drink you, old man,” I joke.
“Whatever you say, sweetheart.” He repeats the same words he said to me at the bar that night, taunting me.
“Fucking asshole.” I scoff, same as I did that night, and I think I hear him chuckle under his breath, but it’s almost too quiet to make out.
“So, if you’re thirty-six, that means Ellie was born when you were twenty-one? Twenty-two?” I ask, trying to do the math.
“Twenty-one,” he says, not offering anything else.
“You were young,” I say. “I’m assuming you weren’t trying to have a baby then?” I pry.
“No, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t want Ellie from the second I knew she existed,” he says defensively.
“I never said it did,” I tell him. “It’s clear how much you love your daughters. You don’t ever have to defend that, especially not to me.”
“I just don’t like the idea of anyone thinking that Ellie was a mistake,” he says, and it’s clear that I’ve hit a nerve.
“Just because something wasn’t planned, doesn’t make it a mistake.” I turn back toward the product, continuing to count through it as I speak. “You know the actual definition of a mistake is an action or judgment that is misguided or wrong,” I ramble. “Nothing about that definition describes your daughters or your relationship with them. Trust me, I know mistakes, and nobody would assume either of them were one.” I sigh.
He doesn’t respond, but I know that he heard. Silence engulfs the room again as we continue to work, the soft sound of the music the only sound filling the air.
A few minutes pass before he speaks again. “What do you know about mistakes?”
“Oh, so much.” I laugh lightly. “I’ve made more than I can keep track of.”
“What’s your biggest mistake?”
Staying for my mom as long as I did. Enabling her. Not being able to help her, even if she didn’t want any help. Not kneeing my brother in the balls sooner.
The truth is, my whole life has been full of mistakes. Mine and other peoples’. To pick just one that’s defined as my worst would be too difficult. Being the worst of anything is relative, isn’t it? What might seem horrible to me may seem like nothing to someone else, and vice versa.
“I ask you your age, and you ask me my biggest mistake.” I huff. “That doesn’t seem like a fair trade.”
“Not my fault you asked a shitty question.” He shrugs. “I told you that I have nothing to hide.”
“Hmm. Well, maybe I do.” I smirk, moving to the wall of products next to him. “So, if Ellie was born when you were twenty-one, when did you open this place?” I ask him.
“About four months before she was born,” he says. “When I found out that my ex was pregnant, I was just finishing my apprenticeship at a different studio. I wanted something of my own that I knew would help provide for my kid. My grandparents left me a lot of money when they died and I hadn’t touched any of it, so I decided to put it all toward Blackheart Ink.”
“That was a big investment.” I raise a brow at him.
“Yeah, it was terrifying to do it at the time,” he admits. “But luckily, over a decade later, it’s worked out pretty well for me.”
“I’d say so.” I agree with him. “This place is pretty cool. The vibe of it, the clients, all the employees. It’s a good thing you built.”
“Thank you.” He turns to look at me. “That means a lot,” he says genuinely, and I nod a you’re welcome at him.
“So, you said you’re not with the girls’ mom anymore?” I ask, more curious than I probably should be.
“No,” he says without hesitation.
“Do you two co-parent?” I ask.
“No, she’s not in mine or the girls’ lives anymore,” he says firmly, like it aggravates him to talk about it.
A better person would take the hint and back off. A better person wouldn’t continue to pry into what clearly isn’t my business. But I’m not a better person. Just a nosey one.
“Why not?” I ask him.
He’s quiet for a minute, and I think that he’s just going to ignore me and the question altogether, but then he lets out a sigh before speaking.
“Jillian was twenty years old when she got pregnant. She was still in college, we’d been on and off over the years, and she wasn’t ready to be a mom,” he says, his voice quiet.
“But she chose to have Ellie knowing she didn’t want to be a mom?” I ask, confused.
“Although she never said it, I realized too late that she wanted an abortion.” His voice is rough, like it’s hard for him to get the words out. “We were young, and I thought she was just scared. She didn’t have any family support. I promised her I’d make it all okay. That I’d support us and provide her with anything she needed. And as much as I know it was her decision to keep Ellie, she also knew I wanted our baby more than anything. I didn’t realize she just never wanted kids in general. I don’t regret my daughters, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel guilty for not recognizing it.”
“You didn’t force her not to have an abortion, Damien. You didn’t threaten her or anything of that nature. Maybe you influenced her decision, but in the end, it was still just that. Her decision,” I say.
I move to sit on top of the table behind him. Sure, I’m still supposed to be helping him with inventory, but the more he talks, the harder it becomes for me to focus on counting.
He turns for a second, acknowledging me sitting there, watching him, and then turns back to the wall, going back to skimming through products without saying anything else, so I assume he doesn’t mind my self-appointed inventory break.
“I guess,” he says, and I can tell it’s still something that he feels guilty over. “Anyway, I proposed to her a month later, and we eloped at the courthouse. She and her family weren’t close, and I think the idea of us having our own family grew on her. She got excited about it.”
“When she had Ellie, things were good for a while. I was definitely the one who mainly took care of Ellie—I even brought her to work with me most days—but me and her mother were good.” He pauses, sighing.
“We stayed that way for a while, me and her not necessarily happy but steady. I thought things were good, but then we had Willow, and she just changed completely.” He opens his mouth to say something, but then it looks like he stops himself, a wall of sorts going up before he speaks again.
“She didn’t want to be a mom, so she left,” he says.
I can tell there’s more detail to the story, but it’s obvious he’s not wanting to give any more than that. I’d push more if I thought it would get me anywhere, but I don’t think that it will.
“Wow,” I say, nodding my head as I process it all. “So, you haven’t talked to her at all since then?” I ask.
“I called her a few times on the girls’ birthdays, hoping something would change for their sake, but it didn’t.” He turns to start unloading the box, seemingly done with the shelves, and I jump off the table to help him.
“That’s really fucking shitty.” I hesitate. “But also, maybe for the best?” I look up at him, and his deep brown eyes lock on mine.
“How is my daughters not having a mother for the best?” he asks, sounding slightly offended.
“Trust me, having no parent is much better than having one who doesn’t love you in the way you need to be loved as a child.” I bite my lip between my teeth.
“You would know?” he asks.
“Yeah, I would,” I admit.
It feels like a wall drops between the two of us, a sense of mutual understanding passing between us. It’s small, but it’s there.
Just like I didn’t ask him to elaborate more on how his ex left, he doesn’t ask me to elaborate more on my mom or my family in general. Still, the way he looks at me feels like he’s searching for the answers to the questions he won’t ask. The answers that I wouldn’t give him even if he did.
I’ve been begging for him to look at me for weeks, and now that he is, I feel exposed, vulnerable in a way that’s terrifying.
Goose bumps spread across my skin, and I fist the edge of the table with my hands to steady myself. If there’s one thing in the world that I hate, it’s feeling vulnerable. Sure, there are times that I’ll allow people to see that side of me, but it’s rare.
And sadly, a lot of the times I’ve felt vulnerable in my life weren’t because I chose to feel that way. They were because my mom had let me down for the millionth time or because my brother made me feel small.
When I felt vulnerable then, it made me feel like I was crawling out of my skin. It made me fearful and uncomfortable in the worst type of way. and all I wanted to do was run. But this type of vulnerability now feels different. It’s still uncomfortable and scary in a way, but it also feels exhilarating.
It doesn’t make me want to run.
Still, I’m the one who breaks the moment. “Plus, your kids have a fuck ton of people who love them.” I change the subject. “Between everyone here at Blackheart, your parents, and you…they have a village. Trust me, they’re pretty lucky kids.”
I look away from him, down at the box between the two of us, continuing to unpack it.
“Yeah, I guess they are.” He nods, going back to helping me unpack.
We work in silence, going through the first and second box, putting everything away and updating the inventory as we do. We’re on the third and last box when he speaks again.
“So, what made you want to work here anyway?” he asks.
“Honestly?” I ask him, and he nods.
“It’s a job, and I need money.” I shrug. “Although, I do like it now that I’m here,” I tell him. “What about you? What made you want to become a tattoo artist?”
“I’ve always liked art and sketching,” he starts. “I got my first tattoo when I was eighteen and loved it. Then I just kept adding and adding, some from other artists and some from my own designs. The more ink I got, the more I learned about the process of it, and I just knew it was something that I wanted to do.”
“You’re lucky.” I smile at him. “To have something that you’re so passionate about that you’ve now turned into an incredible career isn’t a small thing.”
“Yeah, I am lucky in that way.” He nods. “You never had a dream job?”
“No, not really.” I shrug. “A job to me has always been a means to get by. Sure, there are things I like, but there isn’t one thing in particular that I’m super passionate about.”
“I don’t think that’s a bad thing,” he says. “In fact, I think it can be good to be passionate about multiple things. It gives you more opportunities to find new things you like. Plus, you’re still young.”
“I know I made a joke calling you an old man, but you do realize you’re not that old.” I chuckle at him. “And I’m not that young. You had two kids already when you were my age.” I raise a brow at him.
“I guess that’s true,” he says.
“But back to what you were saying, I don’t think it’s a bad thing either,” I tell him. “I kind of like the spontaneity of jumping from thing to thing. I feel like I’m the type of person where if I stay still doing one thing for too long, I get bored.”
“That makes sense.” He nods. “Willow’s like that. The kid has a new hobby every week and more energy than I know how to handle. As much as I love her, she can drive me crazy.”
“Ugh, does that mean next time I see her I may not be her favorite person anymore?” I joke. “She’s totally going to get over me, isn’t she?”
A deep, full chuckle falls from his lips in response, and my eyes shoot up at the sound. A small smirk spreads across his face, and I find myself mesmerized by it.
“Was that an actual laugh?” My eyes widen at him.
“I’m human, Sawyer. I do occasionally laugh.” He shakes his head in response.
“Well, I’ve never heard it before now.” I tilt my head up at him. “It’s a solid laugh,” I tell him, and the grin on his face deepens a little before he swipes it off.
“For what it’s worth, even if you just took the job because it’s a job, I’m happy you like it here,” he says.
“Yeah, me too.” I nod.
The two of us reach into the large box to grab the last box of gloves at the same time, my fingers feathering over the top of his hand. It’s barely a brush of my fingers against his skin, yet it feels intimate in a way nothing has ever felt to me. I suck in a breath between my teeth, unmoving.
I look up to see him staring at where our hands connect. His Adam’s apple bobs against his throat as he swallows, his eyes closing for a second before he wraps his hand around the box of gloves, pulling away. He takes a step away from me, and I do the same, the connection snapping.
“This is the last of it,” he says, his voice colder than it was a few minutes ago. “We should get going.” He grabs the empty boxes in his hands, walking out of the stockroom without another glance at me.
“Okay then,” I mumble under my breath. I’m slightly annoyed about his sudden shift in demeanor, but at the same time, I get it. It was a weird moment, and he’s my boss.
I shove my annoyance down, shutting off the light in the storage room and following him out. Neither of us say anything as I grab my things from the front and follow him around the shop as he shuts all the lights, getting his own things.
He walks out the back door with me and into the empty staff parking lot.
My car, well, Aria’s car that she let me borrow because she didn’t need it today and I still don’t have one, sits directly next to his. The two of us walk together, a sort of awkward silence now surrounding us.
“Well, have a good night,” I say to him as we walk up to the cars, unsure of what else to say. Or what else to end the night with.
“You too,” he says, his voice gravelly.
He turns to watch me as I get into the car, making sure I get in safely. He doesn’t say that’s what he’s doing, but I can tell. He waits there, watching me all the way until I’m pulling out of the parking lot.
Something warms in my chest at the thought. I’ve never had someone care about me in that way. Care about me enough to make sure I got into my car safely.
And fuck, it might just be something I could get used to.