Chapter Sixteen
I woke up alone, the spot next to me still warm and my Valentine’s Day teddy bear propped up against the pillow where Sawyer had been.
I reached for it with a smile, the gesture sweet and just the right kind of cheesy.
I pulled it to me and squeezed it for a second before slowly getting out of bed.
It was right about then that I saw my new robe he had bought me hanging on the back of the door.
I didn’t even try to fight the smile I felt as I slipped into it.
I took a quick stop in the bathroom, brushing my teeth mercilessly, hearing Sawyer moving around in the kitchen. It was the weekend, and I was maybe wondering what it would be like to spend the whole day with him after the events of the night before.
I walked into the kitchen where he was pouring two cups of coffee and moved in beside him to fix mine. His body shifted, reaching into the fridge for the creamer and placing it in front of me, leaning down and nipping at my shoulder where the silky robe had slipped.
“Good morning,” he said, sounding fully awake.
“Good morning,” I said back, ducking my head, feeling the strangest surge of shyness that wasn’t usually in my nature.
“This looks good on you,” he informed me, his hand sliding over the chilly material covering my belly. “Nothing on under it, is there?” he asked, his hand moving down to stroke up my thigh, sliding inward and up, parting the edge as he got closer and closer.
But then the unmistakable sound of someone punching in a code on the alarm system had his hand sliding to a more decent position at my hip. “Fuck,” he said, sounding disappointed.
“Mijo, how was… oh,” Marg said as we both turned. In unison, because he was still holding onto me. “Well, I see,” she said, smiling a knowing smile.
Uncomfortable, though Sawyer seemed to be enjoying himself, smiling behind his coffee cup as he brought it to his mouth, I decided to try to change the topic. “Marg, that Thanksgiving dinner was amazing. I haven’t had that kind of thing since, well, my mother was alive. It was great.”
“Oh, anytime you need a holiday or home-cooked meal, I always have a spot at my table, Riya,” she said, bustling in and going right for the platters on the counter.
It was then that I realized Sawyer must have snuck out of bed at some point to put all the food away because it was gone. But he hadn’t washed anything.
“Oh, no!” I insisted as she started to fill the sink. “No, Marg, please. Let me do the cleaning. Really, this was…”
“Don’t bother,” Sawyer said, shaking his head as Marg waved a dismissive hand at me. “She won’t hear of you helping. It’s a mom thing, I think,” he said, clinking my glass. “But at least you’ll have some company.”
“Company?” I asked, feeling my heart sink a little.
“I have to go see Barrett about a video and a girl named Alex about some, ah, less-than-legal hacking into the DMV records,” he told me.
“I don’t hear this. Not one word,” Marg insisted, humming, which only made Sawyer smile bigger.
“Is this about my…”
“Yeah, babe. I would bring you, but I don’t want you to get involved in anything illegal. You’ve got enough crazy shit in your life.”
“But you…”
“Won’t get caught, I promise. Alex is a pro, and I’m careful.
You can kick back and watch some TV or use those bath bomb things and gorge on leftovers and chocolate.
Don’t look so disappointed,” he said, leading me a few feet away and lowering his mouth to my ear so only I could hear.
“I promise to fuck you until you lose your voice when I get back,” he told me, squeezing my ass a little.
“But I need to make some headway on your case before all the trails run cold. Oh, and the tickets for the comedy show are tomorrow night. We’re hitting up Famiglia first. That’s why you have new dresses and heels,” he informed me, handing me his mug as he made his way to the door, me with him because he was still holding me. “Come on, say goodbye,” he urged.
My brows drew together. “Um… goodbye?” I said, shaking my head.
To that, he chuckled. “I had something more like this in mind,” he said, grabbing my hips and hauling me against him, my arms wide so I didn’t spill the coffee, as he kissed me long and hard until my toes went tingly.
“Well,” I said when he pulled away, an arrogant smile in place, “I couldn’t do that.”
“Why not?” he asked, brows knitting.
“My hands are full,” I said with a teasing smile.
He smiled back, squeezing my chin between his thumb and forefinger for a second, then turning and leaving. “See you later, babe.”
Then he was gone.
And I was… reeling.
Because, while I had sat up and let my mind wander the night before, I had never really stopped to consider that Sawyer might actually be interested in me. As more than a fling.
But everything about that interaction with him pointed in that direction.
“He’s a good man, that one,” Marg said as I realized I was still standing there, staring at the closed door.
“Yeah,” I agreed, turning to face her and walking toward the kitchen. Because, well, he was. There was no denying that fact.
“Those boys,” she said, shaking her head.
“What boys?”
“Oh, all of them. Sawyer, Barrett, Brock, Tig.”
I fought the urge to laugh at the idea of that group of menacing, muscular, intimidating men ever being called boys. But I figured, to a mother figure, that was exactly what they were. “What about them?”
“Always running around, chasing the wrong things: money, power, work accomplishments, one-night stands. Always ignoring the most important thing to have.”
“What’s that?” I asked, feeling suddenly too self-conscious in my flimsy robe and nothing else.
“A good woman.”
I smiled at that, finding the nostalgic idea that a good woman fixed everything sweet, if a bit misguided.
“Oh, I know, I know,” she said, as if reading my thoughts.
“You young people think you have it all by yourselves. And, don’t get me wrong, it’s admirable that you all have houses you pay for by yourselves and bills you cover and jobs you care about.
But accomplishments aren’t a life. People are a life.
Connections. Loved ones, spouses, children.
You don’t want to die surrounded by all your employee-of-the-month badges; you want to die surrounded by people who love you and will miss you. ”
Okay, when she put it that way, she had a point.
“Because the month after you die, mija, there will be a new employee of the month.”
Yeah, that was almost depressing now that I thought about it.
“I see your point.”
“And I know, as women, it’s harder. We get our hearts bruised and stomped on by boys wearing men’s clothing. It gets hard to tell who is playing dress-up and who is the real deal. Sawyer is the real deal, Riya.”
“I know,” I said, nodding, finding suddenly that I wanted to sit and listen to Marg for hours.
I missed that more than I could say—the advice of a mother.
I had leaned on mine for so much for so long.
I hadn’t been one of the system kids who shunned love, was afraid to trust, or was scarred.
I had fallen into my adoptive mother’s arms with all my years of need, of lovelessness, and I let her fill up the void.
I hadn’t realized then that when you make space for someone in your life, that was the size space they left behind when they were gone.
So it was best to never let someone take up that much room, to become that important, because when they were gone, there was a void that could never be filled again.
“This,” she said, waving a soapy hand around the apartment, “shows you he is a good man. Who else thinks to replace a missing year? Most guys don’t replace the toilet paper roll.”
I laughed at that. “Let me throw on some clothes, and I will start in on this mess,” I said, waving toward all the wrapping paper.
“Mija,” she said, shaking her head.
“Nope. I won’t hear it. I am helping.”
With that, I got changed, leaving on my necklace, and headed back to the living space, grabbing a garbage bag and tossing all the paper as Marg finished the dishes and piled them on the counter for her to grab on the way out.
She took the items out and stacked them, then set to collapsing the boxes.
“They don’t give these out at stores anymore unless you ask,” she explained. “So I always save them.”
“My mother did the same thing,” I agreed, remembering the same boxes year after year.
“So you and Sawyer. That’s happening.”
“I, ah, I guess?” I said, half-questioning, because I myself wasn’t sure.
“It’s happening,” she said again, a little more firmly. “I’ve known that boy since he first came back here from the service. I was working the desk at his accountant’s office at the time. The second he opened his business, he tapped my shoulder.”
“And you just left?”
“His accountant knew how to handle money, but he also liked to handle asses. I put up with it because I needed the paycheck, but when I had an out, I took it. I have never regretted it. But my point is, I have seen him. I have seen this apartment mostly empty. I have seen that boy make no time for anything but work and his brother and his friends. He has needed a woman here to warm up the place. To warm up his heart. I see this,” she said, gesturing around, “and I see his is thawing already.”
I looked around too, thinking of all the effort he had put in, all the forethought it required, and how much that meant I was on his mind. I thought, too, about how I never would have thought that the man I first met that day in his office was capable of such thoughtfulness, of such sweetness.
“You like him.”
“Yes,” I admitted, seeing no reason to lie.
“And he likes you.”
“I think so.”
“He does. So why are you so scared?”
“Because I don’t know what it means that he likes me.”