Chapter 19 #2
He scowled as he reached them, putting a hand on Sawyer’s shoulder. “We have policies in this restaurant, remember? I get called if we have a disturbance. The head server called me about Sawyer’s parents showing up. Which my gut told me had something to do with Doc resigning yesterday.”
“Bingo,” she announced.
“So I went to find Doc and found him gone. I called back here and heard he was here with you, having some kind of episode our server feared might be medical.”
“It’s only a panic attack,” he managed, too weak to feel embarrassed. “I lost my shit. Because yeah, my parents are here because I resigned. My dean told them. They’re going to try and stop me from throwing my life away.”
“No one’s stopping you from doing anything, Doc,” Madison gritted out. “Now take another breath. You’re starting to freak out again.”
He sucked in more air as Kyle dragged another chair closer, sitting beside Madison. “Where are his parents? I want to—”
Madison put a hand on Kyle’s knee, cutting off whatever he was going to say. “My cleaver has already come up. But we have to get Doc back into good shape, and then we need to talk about what he wants to do. Because he is not visiting them alone—”
“After this?” Kyle spat. “Not happening. Sorry, Doc, I’m the first one to say everyone has a choice, but look what they do to you. And you haven’t even seen them yet.”
He hung his head, the ice bag slipping down his neck.
Madison’s firm but gentle hands held it in place.
“Dammit, I know. I was feeling so good. On top of the world. Completely at peace with resigning—like I told you last night. I woke up this morning happy. Even with Phoebe away in New York. Now look at me.” He held up his left hand. “It’s still shaking.”
“This is long-term abuse.” Kyle’s voice had a nasty edge. “All right, let’s go through what happened. From the beginning.”
Sawyer told his part, bolstered by a deep breath and another sip of cognac. When he finished, Madison filled in her portion about them coming to the restaurant, banging on the front door unceasingly until the head server cracked the door open, something he hadn’t known.
Yeah, his mother was relentless. She hadn’t liked hearing Sawyer didn’t live on the premises anymore and had demanded to see Nanine, which the server had said was impossible.
The man had closed the door in her face, but his mother had continued to pound on it until Madison had arrived.
She’d agreed to get a message to Sawyer after his mother had raved that he was out of his mind, quitting a successful job like he had. They’d ultimately left afterward.
“I lied about not knowing where you live, Doc, but if I go to hell for that, then there’s no shot at heaven for any of us.”
“I’m glad you lied,” he whispered, his chest aching now. “I’m sorry you had to deal with her. I know how awful she can be. My teachers used to avoid her when possible.”
“You should have called me, Mad,” Kyle told her. “I would have handled it.”
“We had a crazy woman banging on our front door, yelling. Do you really think I was going to wait for you to arrive? I couldn’t call the police on her either, obviously. Although give me a sec and let me imagine her being hauled off by the gendarmes in her mink coat and Jimmy Choos.”
“I told her that wearing fur’s insensitive,” Sawyer rasped out, taking another sip of brandy. “She scoffed, saying that’s what animals are for. And that it was a hundred-thousand-dollar coat and told people she was rich as fuck.”
“Your mother says ‘fuck’?” Kyle asked.
“Yeah, since I was a kid. She said it makes her a tough woman in business. You don’t mess with her. So true. I was always scared of her.”
Clearly still was, which was demoralizing after all the ground he’d thought he’d gained lately.
“Well, she didn’t scare me, but I have more experience with her type from Miami.” Madison drew the ice bag off his neck. “I think we can dispense with this. Now, what do we do?”
“I take him home,” Kyle said, taking charge.
“It’s Christmas Eve. We have celebrations planned.
When you feel a little better after being with your found family, you can decide what to do.
I understand you feeling the need to tell them you’re making a big change.
Even though I hate my parents and knew they’d disapprove like they always do, I still texted them I was selling my shares in the business and starting a new company here.
It’s called managing parental expectations. ”
“Yeah,” Sawyer rasped out. “I hate the whole game of it.”
“Then don’t play it,” Madison said in her steely way.
His throat closed. “I don’t want to see them.
All she’s going to do is scream at me for throwing a respectable life away and then try and talk sense into me.
She’ll even say that my dean will rip up my resignation letter.
My father will stand there, a foreboding presence of silent disapproval.
I can tell you everything they’re going to say.
But I don’t know how to stop them. Madison, you saw my mother.
You know what she’s like. She’ll be back—maybe tonight even.
I don’t want you to have to deal with her.
Plus, it’s the holidays. Nanine’s is going to be packed—”
“Stop that,” she interrupted harshly. “Like Kyle said, we have protocols for this kind of thing, and while she’s your mother, I’ve got a line of chefs in the back who will stand like the Great Wall of China in front of this restaurant and make sure that woman understands she has to leave.
You don’t want to see her. Or your dad. That’s the smartest move you could make, Doc.
We’ll help make that happen. Right, Kyle? ”
“Yeah.” Kyle knelt beside him. “It’s brave to say no to people like this. I blocked Paisley from my phone, and I sure as hell would never have agreed to see her again if she hadn’t shown up.”
He knew what Kyle was saying. That he wasn’t a coward for trying to distance himself by ignoring them. “But they’re my parents. Maybe it’s my half-Chinese side that got the honor your parents and your ancestors gene, but it seems like a nuclear option.”
“Does it?” Madison lowered herself to a knee beside Kyle.
“I understand how you’re feeling. I had a hard time cutting my dad out of my life for the longest time, even when he was taking money from me and telling me I was nothing.
And I’m a tough case, not a sensitive artist like you.
But I have one question for you, Doc. When have they ever honored you? ”
Emotion burned in his throat. “Never. Not like I wanted. Not like I needed.”
He was tired of being that scared boy. Who lived in fear of his mother’s disapproval and his father’s neglect.
They were never going to approve of his choices.
Why even text them to explain things? They wouldn’t understand, and they’d find some way to twist his words around to harm him.
The bottom line was that they would never accept his choice to become an artist—even if he had an agent like Beverly Merriweather.
The very thought of undergoing a toxic back-and-forth with them made him sick at heart.
Maybe someday he would compose a letter and send it to assuage the last of his guilt, but not now.
He couldn’t find words other than Fuck you and fuck off.
“Then you don’t need to see them,” Kyle stated. “You have me and Mad and everyone else behind you on this. And my word. You’d call it a vow. Your mother is not going to get to you.”
Madison lifted his chin, her oval face a study in resolve. “We’ll make sure of it. You’ve got my word too.”
“And your cleaver…”
She gave the most beautiful smile he’d ever seen from her. His mind captured her face, and he knew he was going to paint her like this. He would call it Dark Angel.
“As razor sharp as I can make her.” Her hand lowered and she made a slicing motion with it like she was starring in Psycho. “Glad we can joke.”
Kyle helped Madison to her feet, and they glanced at each other.
God, why couldn’t they see how good they’d be together?
Maybe Sawyer would need to do something to help them realize that—but not now.
His legs were still shaking. He downed the rest of his cognac and took a few more cleansing breaths.
His friends continued to watch him with eagle eyes.
He wished he could tell them a joke and break the tension the way Phoebe would.
God, what was Phoebe going to think when he told her about how he’d lost his shit?
Then he stood up straight. God, he hadn’t even seen his parents, and he’d jumped straight to feeling wrong and inadequate.
She’d be angry—no, enraged for him. Like she had when he’d told her the story about him breaking his arm.
She’d probably offer to fly back immediately and pepper him with kisses.
The thought made him smile, although he wouldn’t let her cut her holiday short.
He was stronger than he’d been. As surely as there was some kind of creator in the universe, he wasn’t that scared little boy anymore. He had to remember that.
Then he thought of Nanine giving him that special bottle of wine only a few days ago. No, he was Sawyer and always would be. He knew what he had to do.
“I’m okay now,” he assured them, locking his knees and standing. “When I get home, I’m going to text them that I’m moving forward with my life as an artist and don’t plan to discuss it with them since they disapprove. Then I’m blocking them.”
“Good for you, Doc.” Madison squeezed his arm. “You don’t need me to be proud of you, but I am.”
“Me too.” Kyle extended his hand, and they shook.
Sawyer knew he’d completed a male rite of passage of sorts in this whole growing up and being a man thing.
He managed a smile. “We should get out of your hair, Madison. Go home.”
Home.
Because that’s what he’d found here with his Paris roommates.
“Consider yourself in good hands,” Madison said, sending Kyle a silent message. “Do you want me to call you a car?”
God, did he look that bad? “The fresh air will be good for me.”
“You don’t have a coat.” She made a clucking notion with her tongue. “Hang on.”
She disappeared for a moment behind the server station. “Someone forgot this coat last week and still hasn’t claimed it. I figured it was a tourist. You can use it so you won’t freeze.”
Then she proceeded to help him into it and buttoned it up, checking his collar, being very much like the mother he’d accused her of being earlier. Kyle only watched her, a soft smile on his face.
When Madison finished, she gave him a brief hug—another rarity—and propelled him to the door.
“If you feel faint, you tell Kyle immediately. Do you hear me? Brooke’s got this elaborate holiday photo she wants to take of everybody, and we do not need you having some bruised egg protruding from your forehead.
Kyle, keep a firm grip on him, okay? Do you need some soup? I could have—”
“I’m fine, Madison.” Then he leaned in and gave her a light kiss on the cheek, because he really was. “Thanks.”
“It’s nothing.” She turned and punched Kyle in the chest. “Well, you have your marching orders. Don’t mess it up. Don’t I have enough to worry about with holiday diners coming in, expecting me to make tonight the most magical Christmas meal of their lives?”
“I’ve got him, Mad,” Kyle said, fighting a smile.
“Then go.” She unlocked the front door and opened it. “I’ll see you both later.”
The door closed quickly after they stepped out. Sawyer was grateful for the coat. The wind had come up and was biting. There were snowflakes in the air again.
“Looks like we’re going to have a white Christmas,” Kyle commented, a bracing hand under Sawyer’s elbow. “Dean’s going on about how it’s the most magical of all the holidays.”
Sawyer knew Dean was right. But it wasn’t because of the snow. It was because of them.
His found family.