Chapter Fourteen
Barrett was being weird.
And, being that Barrett was always a little weird, that meant he was being super weird. But I shrugged it off as he drove me home and walked me to the back door, punching in the code though I already knew it, and for whatever reason, following me up to the door.
“Is Sawyer expecting you?” I asked when he just stood there, hands tucked in his pockets, making him look boyish.
As an answer, he reached out and tapped the door a couple of times, making my brows draw together as the door pulled open.
“Have fun, Riya,” Barrett said, giving his brother in the doorway a megawatt smile and then taking off down the stairs almost at a run.
“What is up with…” I started, looking at Sawyer, who had the same freaking smile on his face. “Alright, what is up with both of you?”
“Got something for you,” he said in response, causing both a thrill of hope and a stab of worry to course through me.
Hope because, well, I needed answers; I needed to know what happened to me.
Worry because I wasn’t sure what that might mean for not only the situation with Sawyer, but my job situation and my life in general.
But then Sawyer stepped out of the doorway and held an arm out to indicate something inside, and I pushed those worries away to be dealt with later.
I took a step forward, putting me right inside what used to be Sawyer’s apartment.
But where it used to be neat and streamlined, it was full of things that had never been there before.
To the left inside the room was a fold-up table topped with a plastic tablecloth with little witch hats all over it.
On top was a bowl full of gourds and two giant pumpkins, along with a plastic jack-o-lantern full of candy.
All over the kitchen were endless covered trays, the smell of turkey, stuffing, and the usual trimmings heavy in the air. A cornucopia was on the counter, bursting with fruits between two autumnal place settings.
The living room was, well, it was Christmas. There was an untrimmed artificial tree with a dozen boxes of lights and ornaments piled beside it and a collection of wrapped presents underneath it.
There was a small fold-up table with two chairs. There was champagne in an ice bucket and two flutes, and big, obnoxious hats that said Happy New Year.
On the desk of his that used to be loaded with junk was another pile of presents, but wrapped in birthday paper.
And finally, there were rose petals that led into the hall.
I felt like my heart froze in my chest as I realized what it was.
It was Sawyer giving me my year back.
I felt the weight of that settle on me, making tears sting at the backs of my eyes and my heart do a weird expanding thing in my chest.
When I looked over at him, I found him watching me, taking in me taking it all in.
“Sawyer…” I said, my voice a hushed imitation of itself, finding myself almost alarmingly overwhelmed.
“I know it’s not the same,” he said, lifting a shoulder and dropping it slightly. “But at least you can make some memories of the holidays you missed.”
I looked at him for a long minute, seeing nothing but kindness and genuineness in his eyes.
And, for once, I didn’t think; I didn’t weigh the pros and cons of it all. I did what I felt like I wanted to do.
I flew at him, knocking him back a step at the impact, my arms going tight around his back, my head buried in his neck.
“Hey,” he said, his arms sliding around me, pulling me even tighter against him, his face turning so that I felt his lips against the side of my head.
It was right about then that a strange, strangled sob escaped me.
“Shh,” he murmured, and I felt his lips press a small kiss into my temple.
“If you have a breakdown now, the food is going to get cold,” he told me, making a choked laugh escape me.
“Come on, we have pumpkins to carve,” he said, running his hands up my back for a moment before releasing me, leaving me to swat at my eyes as he walked over toward the Halloween table and opened a laptop sitting there.
“What are you doing?”
“We need ambiance. What’s your poison: Addams Family, Practical Magic, Hocus Pocus, or something scary?”
“Um, Hocus Pocus. Duh,” I said, moving over toward him as he clicked through movies online for a second before I heard the opening credits start.
“Alright. So I bought all the designs and shit you can trace on…”
“What is this, amateur hour?” I asked, making his eyes light up. “Give me a knife, and I will carve this old school.”
“I respect that,” he agreed, tossing the papers out of the way and opening the packages for the carving material.
So then we got to work opening up the tops and pulling out the guts.
“You kind of lucked out that it’s the right time of year for pumpkins,” I said, reaching inside mine and grabbing a handful of the squishy guts, smiling a little as I pulled it out and then threw it at him, laughing when it hit him in the cheek, making him turn to me with a raised brow and a small smile, guts and seeds running down the front of his shirt.
“Oh, babe. You’re gonna regret that,” he said, reaching for the giant pile of yuck sitting on a plate between our pumpkins.
And, yeah, you didn’t just stand there and take your retaliation. I turned and tried to escape.
Only to find myself snagged around the belly from behind, hauled up and off my feet as I shrieked and tried to struggle away.
His free, full hand rose and slapped down on the top of my head, squishing the pumpkin guts into my scalp.
“Gross!” I laughed and kicked my legs out so hard that I knocked Sawyer off his feet, sending us both crashing backward.
My stomach clenched hard as his arm tightened around my belly and the other crushed my skull to his chest, so on impact, my teeth didn’t knock together.
“Fuck,” he grunted when I felt the jolt as his body slammed into the hard floor.
I pulled and turned, bracing my arms on his sides to take some of my weight as I looked down at him. “You okay?” I asked, snorting at the absurdity of it all when a bit of pumpkin innards slipped off the top of my head and landed on the top of his.
“Can think of worse positions to be in than this,” he said, a wicked smile in place as his hands moved down my back and landed on my ass, giving each cheek a comical squeeze.
But my breasts were crushed to his chest. My hips were aligned with his hips. His lips were a whisper from mine.
And he was giving me a year of memories in one night.
I had never felt closer to someone before in my life.
As if sensing the change from playful teasing to something more, his hands sank harder into my ass, his breathing got a little deeper, his eyes lost their light and grew heated.
Reacting to his reaction, I felt my pressed breasts get heavier, my nipples tightening into peaks, my sex clenching, making me have to resist the urge to grind my hips against his to see if he wanted me as badly as I wanted him.
I swallowed hard, and he took a deep breath, one hand falling from my ass, the other slapping one cheek hard. “Okay. Up. We have a lot of holidays to experience still.”
I nodded slightly and pushed up, moving back onto my heels.
He slid out from underneath me, and got to his feet as I took a couple of deep breaths to calm my libido and did the same.
I went back over to my pumpkin as Sawyer went to the kitchen, running water for a moment.
When he came back, he moved in behind me and I felt something wet drop on the top of my head as he scrubbed the guts out.
I had to focus fully on what my hands were doing so I didn’t slice off a finger.
Because his warm, solid body was behind mine, and the urge to lean back into him was almost overpowering.
“Alright. Better,” he declared, moving away to the kitchen and I quickly finished my one jagged tooth and moved on to the eyes, carving them out as fast as was safe.
“Classic,” Sawyer declared when I stepped back to look at my triangle eyes and wide mouth.
When I looked over at his, I found his jack-o’-lantern looked like he carved them for a living. His mouth stretched up toward slitted, sinister-looking eyes and was full of a dozen or so sharp, pointed teeth on each bridge. I made a disgusted noise. “Is there anything you’re not amazing at?”
He looked over, lips twitching. “Not a fucking thing,” he declared with confidence, and I found myself laughing. “Alright, here,” he said, reaching for a tea light, and putting it inside mine, lighting it, and putting the lid back on. “Pick it up,” he declared, moving backward several steps.
“Why?” I asked as he took his phone out of his pocket.
“You’re taking a picture,” he informed me, and I felt myself shift uncomfortably.
I was in jeans and a camel-colored sweater that had a slight fraying on the bottom hem.
My makeup hadn’t been touched up since the morning, and my hair still felt damp from where he scrubbed it.
I wasn’t in a picture-taking mood. “Stop being such a girl about it and pick up the fucking pumpkin,” he declared, and somehow, his usual gruffness pushed my silly insecurity away.
I picked up the pumpkin and held it, giving him a small smile as his camera made a shutter sound twice.
“Perfect,” he declared as he looked at the picture, and I felt my belly do a wobble as I placed the pumpkin back down on the table and reached for a piece of candy. “Eat that quick. We have Thanksgiving dinner to eat now.”
“You cooked?” I asked, following him into the kitchen as I unwrapped my mini Milky Way and popped it into my mouth.
He smiled over at me and shook his head. “I can cook. But I can’t put out a spread. This was all Marg,” he declared as he picked up the plates and handed one to me. “What do you usually do for Thanksgiving?” he asked, knowing I had no family to turn to.
I shrugged. “I usually cook a really tiny turkey and make boxed stuffing and mash up a potato and call it a day.”