Chapter 19
CHAPTER
NINETEEN
His parents were here!
Sawyer stared at his mother’s text as an anxiety attack kicked off.
Your father and I flew over the minute we heard from your dean that you resigned from the university!
!! To become an artist!!!!! We’ve just arrived at Nanine’s, only to discover from a VERY rude server that you no longer live here.
Apparently you also no longer answer phone calls.
I plan to wait here until you show up. DO NOT KEEP ME WAITING.
Putting his hand to his ribs, he tried to suck in air as his mind went into panic mode.
Okay, he’d known they’d find out at some point—he’d had no idea how to tell them and had planned to do so after the holiday—but his dean had called his mother?
That asshole. Yeah, they went to the same country club, but that was totally unprofessional.
Sure, Dr. Blanchard had expressed concern in an email back to Sawyer about him leaving his position, to which Sawyer didn’t feel the need to justify himself.
He gasped for more oxygen, his pulse hammering. God, where was a paper sack when he needed it? He was close to hyperventilating, and he knew it.
A take-out bag! Yes. He rushed over to the one that had fallen onto the floor due to the overflowing trash bin.
The bag contracted against his mouth as he sucked in that first breath, and then it popped out like a crumpled balloon when he blew out harshly.
Which he did over and over again until his glasses fogged up and the black dots went away.
Intervention. Intervention. Intervention.
The words became a chant in his frenzied mind. His parents were here to stop him. God!
He sucked in air from the bag and blew it out, his hands damp now, changing the paper’s color from tan to a darker brown at the edge of his palms. He had to get to the restaurant.
He checked the clock, light-headed, heart knocking against his ribs.
It was after four. Christmas Eve. He’d been painting in his atelier, with the understanding that Dean would come and get him soon, when it was time for frivolities.
Dean. How funny he hadn’t realized his friend’s name also could mean the man he’d reported to at the university.
God, he wished Dean had come. If so, Sawyer would have been pulled away from the phone he’d silenced.
But he was here, and he’d seen the message, and now he could also see his mother had called him three times already in the last ten minutes.
God, he could see her terrifying nails in some slick gel color tapping against her Coach purse.
She was going to kill him. Or give it her best shot.
His head swung up, breathing one last time into the bag, hoping it was enough oxygen. He had to get going. It wasn’t snowing any longer. They’d had a light misting earlier, which had seemed magical. Now he felt like he was a trapped victim in a snow globe, running for his life.
He dashed to his studio door and ran down the hallway to the elevator.
When he arrived on the bottom floor, he heard the laughter and conversation streaming from the kitchen like it had last night when they’d celebrated his resignation.
He thought about stopping to tell his friends where he was going, but all he could see was his mother’s text.
DO NOT KEEP ME WAITING.
The longer she waited, the worse it would be.
He ran out the front after slamming the door and took off toward the street exit, letting himself out and racing down the sidewalk. The cold slapped against his face, icy and numbing. He’d forgotten his coat.
Last-minute holiday shoppers were clogging up the sidewalk, peering into festively decorated shop windows. He had to run into the street to go around them, weaving back and forth and evading cars as he wheezed for breath, wishing he’d brought the paper bag.
The restaurant loomed ahead, a large white delivery truck parked in front. He scanned the area for his parents and didn’t see them. Where were they? In a parked car somewhere? He spotted Madison and Fabian with the delivery driver, who wore a Santa hat, and sprinted over to them.
“Madison—have you seen my parents?”
Her frown deepened as she stalked toward him. “Yeah. Seems news travels fast about you resigning.”
“Yeah,” he panted, furiously looking around. “My dean called her. They jumped on the first plane. Madison! Where is she?”
“You need to take a breath, Doc. I told them I’d give you a message—and that their car could not idle in the delivery zone.”
He bent at the waist. “You sent them away?”
“You bet I did.” She lowered until she could see his face. “Good thing I did. You’re barely breathing. What in the world are you doing out here without a coat on? Come with me.”
She gently eased him up. His rapid heartbeat was drumming in his ears, and all he could see was the tight, disapproving features of his mother’s face.
“I can’t. I need to… Shit! I forgot my phone.”
“All right, Doc.” Madison took his arm and started leading him to Nanine’s. “You’re going inside with me. We’re going to calm you down and make a plan. Because you have totally lost your shit, and clearly so have they if they’re here the minute after you resign from your fancy professor job.”
“But I can’t—”
She shoved him inside gently but firmly and locked the front door after Fabian came in behind them. “Yes, you can. Now, into the kitchen.”
He stood there, black spots reappearing in his vision, and bent over at the waist again. “But I need to—”
“In a moment, Doc.” A chair scraped, and he was suddenly sitting. “Deep breaths. In and out.”
Then something sour was wafting over him as she shoved a bottle near his nose. “Ugh! What is that?”
“Vinegar. I’ve seen Marcel revive freaked out chefs with it. Take another deep breath.”
“I can barely breathe as it is,” he protested, but gave a shallow inhale.
“Good.” She murmured something in French to Fabian, whose steps quickly faded. “Now we’re going to get you something to drink.”
She patted his back before disappearing and returning with a brandy snifter filled with cognac. He gripped the stem and took a healthy drink, coughing hard as the fire and smoke exploded in his tight throat.
“There you go.” Her hand was rubbing his back again. “Have another swallow.”
There wasn’t as much fire this time, but the smoke remained. It felt like it was wafting from his burnt-up happiness. “My mother is going to kill me for quitting. I’d planned to tell them after the holiday. I didn’t expect my dean to snitch on me.”
“Lovely pack of wolves you found yourself with in your old life. I’ve seen a lot of pieces of work in my life.
But your mother? She tops the list. After all these years of you talking about her, I didn’t fully appreciate how kind you were being.
Sorry, Doc, but she’s a Class A, stone-cold bitch to the core. Your dad isn’t much better.”
“He doesn’t really care about me. My mother thought they needed to spawn at least one child to look good as a power couple. So they could play that my kid’s so much smarter than yours game. I hate that. Shit! I hate them. God! I’ve never said that out loud.”
She clapped him on the back. “Then let me be the first to congratulate you.”
He hung his head. “It’s lowering—to realize it. I hate that I feel it. And I was having such a great holiday.”
“You’re still going to.” Madison sank to a knee before him, a dark angel in black with tender eyes. “I am not letting you see those people alone—if you choose to meet with them. I’ll bet everyone is going to feel the same way. Because you have done nothing wrong here. You know that, right?”
He nodded slowly, his head feeling like it weighed a million pounds. “I do, but I don’t feel it right now.”
“Of course you don’t. You’re in reaction mode—fearing the proverbial smackdown from a parent after years of abuse—and that’s never good.”
Psychology from Madison? He knew she was right, so he took more than a few healthy swallows of the brandy.
When she dragged another chair closer to him and put her hand on his knee, he knew she was trying to settle him down.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“Don’t piss me off, Doc. You have nothing to apologize for here.”
Fabian returned with a cold hand towel filled with ice and handed it to Madison.
“Put that on the back of your neck,” Madison said, giving it to Sawyer. “You’ve lost blood flow to your head. We need to get that blood back. This is an old trick of mine. Works like a charm.”
The makeshift ice bag was freezing, but he held it to the back of his neck anyway. “When did you need to do this?”
“Not important now. You are. Take another drink of brandy.”
She took his pulse after he finished the sip, her face a study in motherly rage.
“You’re pretty good at this,” he muttered after sucking in a few more calming breaths. “Maybe you missed your calling?”
“As a nurse?” she asked with the quick curve of her mouth.
“No, as a mother.”
Her mouth flattened. “Shut your mouth. I’d be a terrible mother.”
“No, you wouldn’t.” He wasn’t seeing spots, but he could feel the brandy loosening up the tightness in his chest, making it easier to breathe. “You’re kind. You listen, and while you’re fiercely protective, you can be tender too.”
“Doc, you really must have lost a lot of oxygen to your brain if you’re calling me tender. I’m about to sharpen my cleaver and go hunt your bitch of a mother down with your dad as my next victim. Was it always like this when you had anxiety attacks growing up?”
“Yeah.”
“Who helped you when you had them?”
“Usually it was just me in my room—or if I was at school or a tutor’s place, the bathroom.”
She was grim now. “That’s what I thought. You know, you might have grown up in a fancy house in a cul-de-sac with two parents with big-time jobs, but it wasn’t so different for you and me.”
“What happened?”
They both turned as Kyle rushed through the back of the house, a worried look in his blue eyes.
“Who called you?” Madison barked.