13. Sawyer
CHAPTER 13
Sawyer
DANCING IN THE DARK
I don’t realize the band is playing “Two Dozen Roses” until Ava starts bopping her head to the beat.
“One of your favorites,” I say without thinking.
“It is, yeah.” Her green eyes flick to meet mine. “You remembered.”
“How could I forget? It came on, and then you offered to body-slam me.”
She laughs. “I had some memorable lines that night, didn’t I?”
Yes you did, pretty girl. I remember them all.
“I think my favorite was, ‘Thanks for not killing me.’”
“Hey.” Ava lifts Junie off the bench. “Not all of us can be as smooth as you are.”
I should probably get back in the barn. Help finish framing that wall. We only have a few hours of daylight left to get the job done.
But Wyatt was coming to take over, right? I’ve been here since noon. A little break can’t hurt. I’m suddenly gripped by the fierce desire to dance. Maybe because I haven’t done it since dancing naked with Ava in my hotel suite.
Ava’s favorite song is playing. I feel like the universe is begging me to make a move.
“What do y’all think?” I help Ella off the bench too. “Should we go dance?”
“I can dance,” Junie says.
I squat, my knees cracking. The hammer in my tool belt claps against my outer thigh. “Bet you get your moves from your mama, don’t you?”
“I actually haven’t taught her the sprinkler yet,” Ava says with a chuckle.
She doesn’t regret that night if she keeps bringing it up, right?
I puff out my chest a little, knowing she enjoyed it that much. I’m dying to ask her if she’d like a repeat. I have no clue what I want from her. Sex? Or more than that?
I just wanna be wild with her again.
I had the thought back in Austin: that freedom, that spark, was what I’d been missing in my search for a significant other. After Lizzie and I had decided we’d be better off as friends, I tried dating some. Nothing had ever panned out, though.
Now I’m realizing that maybe I was looking for the lightning I felt with Ava. The chemistry. The immediate, intense connection.
I made the mistake of thinking I could create chemistry with Lizzie, but I was sorely mistaken. Connecting with someone—the ability to just be yourself with a person—is rare. Even rarer when you live in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere.
Without that sense of connection, there’s no way I could fall in love. And that’s ultimately what I’m after—falling so hard, so completely, that I have no choice but to make that person mine forever.
Needless to say, trying to play it cool with Ava is fucking killing me.
“What about you, Elly Belly Boo?” I hold out my hand. “Can I have this dance?”
She leaps into my arms, giving me a big old bear hug. “Yes, Daddy. Can you carry me though?”
“Yes, baby, I’ll carry you.” My hammer claps me again as I stand up with an exaggerated groan. “Dang, Ella, did you grow even more overnight?”
Wrinkling her nose, she holds her fingertips over her mouth and giggles. “I think I did. I’m a big girl now.”
“Big girls use the potty every time, remember?”
Ava lifts Junie onto her hip. “Are y’all struggling with potty training too? It’s been slow going for us.”
“I’d rather get thrown by a horse than go through this again.”
“So much poopy underwear.” Ava shakes her head.
I shake mine too. “So much.”
“I didn’t poop,” Junie replies.
Ava smiles. “That’s good news. All right, you wanna show Mr. Sawyer how you can dance?”
“Okay.” Junie nods solemnly. “I’m very good at it, Mr. Sawyer.”
“I’m a good dancer too,” Ella says. “My uncle Wy says so.”
Junie reaches for Ella’s hand. “I love dancing.”
“I love it too!” My daughter giggles, letting Junie have her little hand.
I laugh too, heart twisting. I love seeing Ella open up like this. She has a few friends at school, but overall, she’s a quiet kid.
I love seeing her laugh.
Now that our girls are holding hands, Ava and I are close . Close enough that our arms brush as we head for the grassy clearing in front of the band.
Some older couples are already there dancing cheek to cheek, the Wallaces among them. My heart twists again. Can’t help but think of my own parents, how they’d definitely be out here crushing the two-step together.
This July marks what would’ve been their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary. By the time Dad was my age, he had been married for five years and already had a kid with another on the way. Hurts thinking about all the stuff he’s missed out on.
Everything I’ve missed out on. I wanna be married too. I wanna raise a bunch of kids too. I know I’m still young and have time to do all that, but I always imagined I’d have that shit figured out by now.
Instead, I feel lonely and more than a little lost.
But that’s some depressing shit, and I don’t have time to be depressed today. I might not have my dream life, but I do have my baby girl. So I take my daughter’s hand and begin to sway to the music, feeling a twinge in my lower back as I hold her on my hip.
Worth it, though. Ella giggles, glancing over her shoulder at the old man playing the steel guitar up on stage. He winks at her, and she buries her head in my chest.
“It’s okay, Ella!” Junie shouts over the music. “He’s just saying hi.”
My eyes find Ava’s and we laugh, the two of us twirling beside each other with our babies on our hips. Ava sings the lyrics while Junie watches her intently, a huge smile on her sweet little face.
The connection they have is obvious. If I had to guess, I’d say Ava is definitely the primary parent—the one who takes on the lion’s share of responsibility. Is her ex a deadbeat? Or does he just have a job that takes him away a lot, the way Lizzie’s does?
Hit. The. Brakes .
Finally, my self-preservation is kicking in. I’m thinking about Ava’s ex way too much. I’m thinking about Ava too much, period. Yeah, we had some really great sex, but we’re still strangers. She made sure I didn’t dig too deep, find out too much. She wanted to keep the encounter as anonymous as possible.
But dancing beside her, our kids between us—this feels anything but anonymous. Especially when Ava sets down Junie, and Ella immediately squirms to get out of my arms. The second I set her down, Junie is grabbing Ella’s hands and trying to twirl her.
Ella, though, refuses to budge. It’s hilarious.
Ava doesn’t miss a beat. Leaning down, she takes one of Junie’s hands and one of Ella’s, and together they rotate in a slow, silly circle that has June in stitches.
It takes a minute for Ella to warm up to the idea. But then June is grabbing her hand, and Ella smiles, and they’re spinning faster and faster. Ava hollers with delight, her eyes catching on mine for a split second before the song ends and she collapses dramatically to the ground.
“Y’all, I’m so dizzy!” she says.
June and Ella fall into the grass beside her in a giggling heap.
“I’m not dizzy,” June replies.
Ella shakes her head. “Me either!”
I nearly die laughing, though, when Ella tries to get up but immediately falls back down.
“Yeah, you’re dizzy,” I say.
She leans her head into Ava’s lap. “Just a little.”
“Yeah, Dad, just a little,” Ava says, patting Ella’s back. “Take all the time you need, sister.”
Something that makes me dizzy? How quickly Ella is warming up to Ava and June. That doesn’t ever happen with my little introvert. Hell, we’re several months into the school year, and only now is Ella able to walk into her classroom without any tears.
Ava just has this warmth about her. It’s magnetic. And really fucking sexy.
But this being real life, the fun comes to an abrupt end when my daughter finally stands up with a look on her face I know well.
“Daddy?”
“Yes, Boo?”
“I think I pooped.”
The familiar clench of frustration in my chest has me biting back a cuss word. “It’s all right. We’re gonna have to head home, though, because you already used the extra pair of undies I brought?—”
“I have some extra.” Ava digs a hand into the pocket of her coat and pulls out a tiny pair of pink panties. “Never leave home without ’em.”
I’m grinning like an idiot for more reasons than I can count. “I call BS.”
“What’s BS?” Junie asks.
My face flushes with heat. “Um. I—sorry, I shouldn’t have said?—”
“It’s an adult word, that’s all,” Ava replies easily, lips twitching. “Seriously, Sawyer, don’t worry about it. I use adult words far too often myself.”
I run a hand up the back of my head. “I am super smooth today, aren’t I?”
“I got the joke.” Ava passes the undies to Ella. “Set you up real nice for that one.”
We lock eyes.
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
A beat of charged silence stretches between us while Ella examines the little butterflies on the underwear.
We really should get going. By the time I get Ella cleaned up and we drive home, she’ll be ready for bath time, and then it’s early to bed. Ella’s had a full day.
Just another epic Saturday night in the Rivers’ household.
Goddamn, I wish I had real plans. Or any plans, really. Ones preferably that involved Ava.
Should I ask her out? Ask for her number at least? I don’t want to scare her off. But I also don’t want to snub the universe after it dropped this incredible woman in my lap not once, but twice now.
Heartbeat throbbing in my ears, I pick up my daughter. “So, Ava, now that you know I’m really not a serial killer, I’d love to get your n?—”
“ Daddy .” Ella starts to cry. “My bottom hurts, so very bad.”
I bite the inside of my cheek. It’s like this kid knows just when to lose her shit, right when I’m about to say—do—something important.
“All right, Boo,” I manage. “I think it’s time for us to go.”
Ava wipes her backside as she rises to her feet. “I totally get it. Great seeing you, Sawyer. And great meeting you, sweet girl.”
Ella, however, is anything but sweet. She starts howling, the kind of sobs that have people looking at us.
“Let’s run into each other again, yeah?” I say. “A playdate. How about that?”
“Yes!” Junie yells. “Please, Mommy, please please please can we do a playdate? And a sleepover?”
Ava laughs. Am I imagining the flush in her cheeks at the mention of a sleepover? Wonder if her mind immediately went into the gutter the way mine has.
“We’d love to meet y’all for a playdate,” she replies.
“We’re wide open tomorrow.” I don’t think about the words, I just say them in the wild hope I get to see Ava twice in twenty-four hours. “Maybe meet at the park downtown?”
Ava blinks. “Well—tomorrow—yeah, okay. We could swing that. Ten o’clock?”
Holy shit, this is happening. She’s saying yes.
“Ten o’clock,” I say, my stomach swooping.
“Great.”
“Awesome.”
Ask for her number. Just do it.
Only I can’t, because Ella’s literally kicking and screaming now.
Lord save us.
“See ya then, Ava. Looking forward to it.”
She smiles. “I am too. I mean we—we’re, um, we can’t wait.”
Holding on to my daughter as best as I can, I turn, grab the diaper bag, and stalk toward my truck that’s parked in a nearby field.
I’m finally able to calm down Ella after I change her and get her buckled into her car seat. Climbing into my own seat, I start the ignition and crank the heat. Then I crank up some Johnny Cash.
I think about Ava the whole way home.
* * *
“ Please . Please, Ella, put on your shirt.” I hold up a sweatshirt dotted with sequined unicorns, the gathered collar pulled open in my hands. “I’ve already asked you three times to get dressed. We’re gonna be late for our playdate at the park with June!”
Pouting, Ella rolls onto her stomach on the floor. She’s naked, save for a pair of Peppa Pig underwear. “But I don’t wanna go to the playdate.”
I grit my teeth, taking a sharp inhale through my nose. She’s just feeling her feelings. You lose your shit, she’s going to eventually learn to hide those feelings from you. “You had the best time ever with Junie yesterday.”
“I don’t remember.”
Mule, my dog, gives me eyes from his spot in the sunny hallway outside Ella’s room.
“Care to help?” I ask him.
He turns his head and sighs in reply.
I don’t know who’s more traumatized by mornings, him or me. Ella fights me on every damn thing. She asks for oatmeal for breakfast, so I make it from scratch and hide some ground chia and flax seeds in it for extra protein. I also add a good bit of butter and brown sugar. It’s fucking delicious. But when I set a bowl in front of her, she refuses to eat.
She says she loves unicorns, but when it’s time to put on the unicorn shirt we picked out together, she whines about not wanting to get dressed.
Don’t get me started on going potty or putting on her shoes. You’d think I was pulling out the kid’s fingernails judging by how she thrashes when I so much as attempt to make her pee before we leave. And brushing her teeth?
I shudder just thinking about it.
The only thing getting me through is the fact that I get to see Ava. I leaped out of bed like a spring fucking chicken earlier, more excited—more nervous—than I’d been in a while. Yeah, I’ve already downed several cups of coffee. But I have a pep in my step that wasn’t there yesterday.
Still, when Ella picks up a purple Magna-Tile piece and chucks it across the room, it’s all I can do not to yell.
“No throwing, please,” I manage through gritted teeth. “I understand you don’t want to get dressed, but your new friend is waiting for you. I promise you’ll be glad you put your shirt on.”
“Noooo! I’m not going, Daddy. Please let me stay with you today.”
“You are staying with me. We’re going to the park together .”
My phone vibrates in my pocket. I know without looking it’s one of my brothers. Probably Wyatt, because he’s the new foreman and he’s always looking for help with a task somewhere on the ranch.
I feel a potent stab of guilt. While I know my brothers don’t expect me to answer on a weekend, it still kills me not to be the one to ride to the rescue.
Growing up, I knew I’d never be the smartest, or the best-looking, or the funniest. But I could be the one who always showed up. The one who cared the most, and who paid the most attention. That shit’s important when it comes to family.
So, yeah. It’s been tough juggling that role with my role as a single dad. While I’m technically a full-time employee and part owner of Lucky River Ranch, and I get paid the same as my brothers to help run our massive cattle operation, I definitely work less than them.
Much less. All four of my brothers are usually on horseback well before five a.m. on weekdays, and on most weekends too. But I’m not able to join in until Monday, when either my part-time nanny arrives at eight or after preschool drop-off at around nine thirty.
Then there are all the days I miss because Ella’s sick, or my nanny is sick, or I’m sick because, well, my house is one giant petri dish. Don’t forget about the work I miss because of doctor appointments, and occupational therapy appointments for Ella’s poop issues, and shit I keep forgetting to find a pediatric dentist …
My phone vibrates again. My stomach twists. Ella wails. I close my eyes.
Mom. Dad. I really wish you were here to tell me what to do. To tell me that it gets better. I’m trying, but I always feel like I’m messing up. I miss you. So fucking much.
How did they make parenthood look so easy? Rationally, I know it wasn’t easy at all. Not by a long shot. Hell, they had five kids. All boys at that. But what I remember most is them bringing real joy to the roles as mother and father. They were happy, so we were happy.
Opening my eyes, I see that Ella has snuck out to the hallway and is giving Mule a hug that looks more like a headlock. Thank God he’s chill. I debated for a long time whether or not I could handle keeping yet another living thing alive. But I felt so guilty about Ella not having any siblings, and research points to kids getting a boost of self-esteem when they have pets.
So a couple of years ago, we brought Mule home from a shelter. It was love at first sight for Ella. For him? Meh, not so much. But he tolerates her, which I’ll take.
“C’mon, Elly Belly Boo, this will be fun.” I walk out into the hallway and take advantage of Ella’s momentary distraction, yanking the sweatshirt over her head. “Let’s get our pants on?—”
“No pants.” Ella sits up and begins to peel off her shirt. “I want a dress.”
Jesus. Effing. Christ.
Bribery is bad. Or so say the parenting books I read. But I’m out of tricks, and we really are running late at this point.
Yanking a hand through my hair, I say, “If you put on a dress and your shoes and you brush your teeth, I’ll give you a piece of chocolate.”
Ella goes still. “What kind of chocolate? The peanut butter kind?”
“Of course it’s the peanut butter kind.”
Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups were my dad’s favorite. When we were growing up, he always kept a bowl of miniature, individually wrapped ones on top of the fridge in the kitchen. When we were good, he’d let us have some of his stash.
I smile, knowing Ella loves them as much as Dad did.
She holds up her first and second fingers. “Two chocolates.”
“I said one.”
“Two.”
“Ella.”
“Fine.” She gets up. “One chocolate. But I get another if I’m good at the park, right?”
Rolling my eyes, I follow her back into her lilac-painted bedroom. “Sure. Whatever. Now let’s get dressed.”