11. Sawyer
ELEVEN
Sawyer
I was falling in love with Daniela Morales…and she wasn't even mine.
I sat at the little picnic table outside my camper, two cups of coffee on the table, waiting for Forrest. Most mornings Daniela would be inside, humming to herself, getting ready…or she would be spoiling Bishop, or going to the house to see Millie and Bea and baby Blaise.
Since she'd arrived here, she’d become a fixture.
But now the shoot was going to start…and I was going to have to let her go.
We'd never agreed to anything more than being together while she was here, and here wasn't forever. The table read for her new movie, The Far Meridian, was this week. She'd been in Austin for four days, meeting the cast, working.
They'd been the longest four days of my life.
Damn it…damn it. Yeah. I was definitely in love.
I caught sight of Forrest walking through the morning mist, hands in his pockets, and I waved to him. He waved back. Bishop came over from the far side of the paddock, but immediately lost interest when he realized it wasn't Daniela coming home.
Forrest sat down across from me and wrapped both hands around his mug. He looked like he'd been up for a while—he usually had, these days, though he never said why. Early mornings were his, the same way late nights had become mine since the trailer went quiet.
We sat for a minute without talking. That was fine. That was Thursday.
A mockingbird was working through its catalog somewhere in the cedar. The mist sat low over the paddock, soft and cold, the kind that burned off by nine. Redbird stood at the far fence with his back to us, indifferent to everything.
"She still in Austin?" Forrest said.
"Table read was yesterday." I turned my mug on the table. "She's meeting the DP today. Probably heads back tomorrow."
He nodded.
Neither of us said anything for a moment.
"Bishop moped all week," I said.
"I saw."
"Wouldn't eat right Tuesday."
Forrest looked at the paddock. Bishop had drifted back to the center, head down, pulling at the winter grass despondently.
“He knows,” Forrest said.
I frowned. “Knows what?”
Forrest scowled. Didn't respond.
“Knows what?” I repeated.
My little brother sighed, shaking his head. “Come on, man…”
"I don't know what you're talking about," I said.
Forrest looked at me with the particular expression he reserved for when I was being deliberately obtuse—flat, patient, faintly exhausted.
"Sawyer."
“It's just a fling."
"I know."
"It works."
"Does it?"
I turned my mug on the table. The mockingbird had moved closer, landing somewhere in the cedar just off the paddock. Bishop was still at the center of the paddock, still pulling grass, still pointed away from us like he had opinions he wasn't sharing.
"She's got a lead role in an Ellis Jones film," I said. "She's twenty-five. Her whole career is just—" I shook my head. "I'm not going to be the thing that pulls her off course."
"Did she ask you not to?"
"No."
"Did she say she wanted to stay casual?"
"We haven't talked about it."
"So you've just decided," Forrest said. "For her."
I looked up.
He wasn't being sharp about it. That wasn't Forrest. He was just sitting there with his coffee and his quiet, saying the true thing the way he always had—the one sentence, after letting Emmett run, that everyone remembered.
"I'm protecting her," I said.
"From what?"
"From making a decision she'll regret when the career takes off and she's?—"
"Sawyer." He set his mug down. "I'm going to say something and I need you to actually hear it."
I waited.
He looked at the paddock for a moment. At Bishop, still stubbornly pointed away. At the mist sitting low over the fence line, the cedar dark behind it.
"I knew Sophie was it for me," he said. "Third week of school.
We were in a studio critique and she took apart my entire project in front of the class, and I sat there thinking, that's the person I want in my corner for the rest of my life.
" He picked up his mug again. Held it without drinking.
"I didn't tell her for four months. Thought I'd wait until I was sure.
Thought I'd wait until it made sense, until the timing was better, until I had something more to offer.
" He paused. "I would do anything to have those four months back.”
The mockingbird went quiet.
"I know it's not the same thing," he said.
"I'm not saying it's the same thing. But you're sitting here deciding what Daniela wants before you've asked her, and you're calling it protecting her, and I just—" He stopped.
Looked at me directly. "You don't get to decide what's too much for her.
That's not protecting someone. That's just being afraid.”
I scowled at him. “I thought I was supposed to be the one passing my wisdom on to you. Big brother privileges and all that.”
He shrugged one shoulder. “Losing the woman you love changes you.” He met my eyes. “I don't want that to happen to you.”
“So what do you expect me to do about it?” I frowned.
“I mean…what I feel doesn't change anything about the situation.
She's still gonna be a big deal. Still gonna need to travel.
And the industry's changing, but…being single helps her brand, even if it's gross.
I've been around enough Hollywood folks to know that.”
Even as I said it, it hurt. I didn't want her using that, feeling obligated to flirt. This whole time, I'd been able to sense her finally letting her walls down, dropping the mask…
I didn't want it to just be a blip, not just a moment.
I wanted her forever.
“Think you just answered your own question,” Forrest said.
“I didn't.” I reached up to rub my eyes. “I have no fucking idea what to do. How to tell her without scaring her off.”
“What do you want to say that's so scary?” Forrest said with a soft laugh. “She's in your bed every night, Sawyer.”
"Was," I said. "She was in my bed every night."
Forrest looked at me.
"She's been gone four days," he said. “You're being dramatic.”
"I know how long she's been gone."
He let that sit for a second. "So what's actually scaring you."
I looked at the paddock. Bishop still faced away, still pulling grass.
"I'm going to be on that set every day," I said.
"Same as New Mexico. And if I say something—if I push for something real and it goes sideways—that's not just us.
That's her working relationship with Ellis.
That's five months of a shoot she's been building toward her whole career.
" I shook my head. "If I blow this up for her, she doesn't get it back. "
Forrest was quiet for a moment.
"You're doing it again," he said.
"Doing what."
"Deciding for her." He picked up his mug. "You just dressed it up differently."
I opened my mouth.
"You're not protecting the shoot," he said. "You're protecting yourself. Because if you don't say anything, nothing can go wrong. And if nothing goes wrong, you don't have to find out what happens if she says no." He looked at me steadily. "That's not noble, Sawyer. That's just scared."
The mockingbird started up again somewhere closer, three different songs in quick succession like it was making a point.
"She's been in this industry for years," Forrest said.
"She knows what a set is. She knows what professional looks like.
You really think she hasn't thought about this?
" He set his mug down. "You deciding she can't handle the consequences of her own choices—that's not love. That's underestimating her.”
I sighed. “When did you become such a hopeless romantic?”
“When I figured out there's no time not to be.”
I didn't say anything.
"She told me how she likes her eggs," he said.
I looked at him. "What?"
"That Sunday she helped Aunt Peg with the dishes. We talked for twenty minutes." The corner of his mouth moved. "Scrambled. Hot sauce from the cabinet above the stove. Said you make them better than she does and she's been trying to figure out what you do differently for three weeks.”
I stared at him.
He stood up. Looked down at me with that careful face, the one that had gotten so good at not showing too much—and underneath it, just barely, something that might have been the old Forrest.
"She's paying attention to you," he said. "Same way you're paying attention to her. You're both just standing on opposite sides of the same fence waiting for the other one to climb over." He picked up his empty mug. "Somebody's gotta go first, Sawyer. That's always been you."
He put his hand on my shoulder—just for a moment—then he walked back toward the cottage, hands in his pockets, the same way he'd come.
I sat there until the morning finished arriving. The mist gone, the light going gold, Redbird finally turning from the fence to mosey toward the water trough. Bishop still at his post by the trail, ears up, certain.
I pulled out my phone.
Sawyer
What time are you leaving Austin?
Her reply came fast—like she'd been waiting for someone to ask.
Daniela
Was thinking early. Miss my horse.
I looked at Bishop.
Sawyer
Just the horse?
Three dots…a pause long enough that I wondered if I fucked up.
Then:
Daniela
Don't push your luck, Holt.
I set the phone down on the table and for the first time in four days something in my chest came loose.
She was coming home.
I knew what I was going to say when she did.
I went inside to make room in the refrigerator for eggs.