24. Sawyer
CHAPTER 24
Sawyer
FIFTY-FIFTY
Good thing Ava didn’t spend the night, because Ella ends up in bed with me.
I was woken from a dead sleep by a call from Cash at half past two. Apparently Ella had gone to sleep just fine, but she’d kept waking up and asking for me.
By two o’clock, she was crying her eyes out. I went to pick her up and, too tired to fight her, I let her come into bed with me at home.
She kept me up most of the night. She kicked. Talked in her sleep. Cuddled, but in this weirdly aggressive way where she either elbowed me in the face or kneed me in the nuts.
I wake up feeling like hell.
Grabbing my phone off the charger by the bed, my heart dips when I see a text from Ava.
She sent it twenty minutes ago.
AVA BARTLETT
Having coffee right now. Doesn’t feel right without you.
SAWYER RIVERS
I’m glad I finally convinced you to have it with me at all. Remember that one time you left before I could give it to you?
AVA BARTLETT
SAWYER RIVERS
How are you feeling?
AVA BARTLETT
I’m feeling pretty damn great. Last night was wonderful, thanks again. You?
SAWYER RIVERS
Better, now that I heard from you.
AVA BARTLETT
Thinking we’ll come in a few hours so I can get some stuff done here?
SAWYER RIVERS
Sounds like a plan
AVA BARTLETT
I’ll bring snacks
SAWYER RIVERS
Already bought some cheese and crackers
AVA BARTLETT
Of course you did
SAWYER RIVERS
No rush
Fuck that, I wanna see you. Get your ass here ASAP
Oh and Ella won’t stop asking when Junie is coming over
AVA BARTLETT
Ha no pressure
SAWYER RIVERS
Pretty girl don’t you make me wait
AVA BARTLETT
I’ll do as I damn well please
SAWYER RIVERS
Of course you will. Unless I got you on your back. Then you do as I please
AVA BARTLETT
Gladly, cowboy
My eyes feel like sandpaper and my back is killing me, but I still smile like an idiot as I down cup after cup of bitterly strong coffee. Ella giggles extra hard when I make a big deal out of losing Jenga to her not once, not twice, but five fucking times before I finally tap out.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I’m aware I’m tired as hell. But somehow, I have all the energy in the world as Ella and I go about our morning.
“Somebody’s in a suspiciously good mood,” Wyatt says when he and Sally swing by around nine.
“Date went well, then?” Sally asks, holding out a cardboard cup of coffee.
“Really well. Thanks, Wy, for the wine. It was a big hit.” I take the cup. “What’s this?”
Wyatt shrugs. “We heard you might’ve had a crappy night of sleep.”
“I woke him up,” Ella explains as she munches on her waffle.
My brother lifts her into his arms. “Uncle Cash says you missed your daddy very much. Maybe we need to practice our sleepovers more often, yeah?”
Ella runs her hand over his stubble. “What’s a sleepover?”
“When you come visit your uncles and have the best time ever, like you did that one time at my house.”
“Hey!” Sally smiles. “She visits her aunties too. Here, why don’t you come play with me while Uncle Wy and Daddy have a chat?”
I eye my brother as he hands Ella over to his fiancée. “We’re having a chat?”
“Yeah, we’re having a chat. You’re in love. As your?—”
“Wait, wait. I’m gonna stop you right there. I’m not?—”
“But you are.” Wyatt’s expression softens. “I know that look, because I had it too.”
“Still do!” Sally calls over her shoulder.
Ella is leading her upstairs, no doubt because my daughter wants to show her the fort we built out of her canopy bed earlier this week.
“Anyway.” Wyatt gently pushes me out to the front porch. “As your older, wiser brother who just went through something similar, I thought I’d impart some wisdom.”
I run a hand over my face before crossing my arms over my chest, my coffee cup dangling against my side. It’s sunny outside, but it still feels like winter. The air’s got a bite to it that I hope mellows out by the time Ava and Junie get here.
This is what I hate about this time of year. You’ll get a couple of warm days that make you think spring has sprung, only for winter to return with a vengeance. It’s such a tease.
Wyatt sips his coffee and squints at me. “She’s great. Ava.”
“She is.” I swallow and look away. “She also doesn’t want to get married again or have more kids.”
“Ah. So y’all found the rub nice and early in your relationship.”
Uncrossing my arms, I bring my coffee to my lips. If I have any more caffeine I’m likely to experience a cardiac event, but I feel strangely discombobulated talking about this shit with my brother. The cup in my hand—the smell of coffee in my head—helps me feel slightly less lost.
“I mean, we just met. This is crazy, right?” I keep my voice low in case little ears are listening. “But it felt so natural telling her everything. She’s a great listener, and I feel like she understood where I was coming from. I don’t want to scare her off, but I also don’t want to lead her on.”
“Because you’re in love.”
“Would you stop saying that?”
“Why?”
“Because.” I draw a deep, slightly annoyed breath through my nose. “It’s too fucking soon, Wy.”
“I’m not so sure about that.” He scratches the underside of his chin. “You’ve had lots of practice learning what you don’t want. Makes sense that when you’ve finally found what you do want, you jump in with both feet.”
Leaning against the railing, I tuck my hand into my front pocket and look out over the yard. “Remember when it got real cold that one winter and Dad flooded the yard so it would freeze into an ice rink?”
Wyatt smiles, pointing to a spot several feet away. “Grass still hasn’t grown back. Mom hated it when we played hockey.”
“Yeah, because we used it as an excuse to beat the shit out of each other. We thought Cash broke his nose.”
“That was me.” Wyatt’s finger moves to the feature in question. “Still can’t breathe right out of my left nostril.”
I laugh. “Only what you deserved.”
“That was a lot of blood.”
“So much blood. Dad was gagging, remember?”
“I remember Mom trying not to laugh at what a wuss he was.” My brother toes at the floorboards before crossing his ankles. “Why doesn’t Ava want to get married?”
“Short answer? Gender roles are bullshit. Oh, and her ex is a dick.”
“I gathered as much. Sally’s filled me in on some details.”
“Yeah?” I glance up at Wyatt. “What’d she tell you?”
He lifts a shoulder. “He’s just difficult to deal with I guess—cheap motherfucker. Doesn’t want to help her out more than he has to.”
The lid on my coffee pops off. I grab it just before it tumbles to the ground. Didn’t realize I’d been holding the damn cup so tight.
“I get why she’s not interested in being tied down again,” I say.
Wyatt leans in. “But you don’t wanna tie her down. You wanna treat her the way she deserves to be treated, right?”
“Of course I do. I’d cut off my hands before I ever intentionally hurt that woman. But she knows what she wants, and it ain’t a man like me.”
“See? That’s where you’re wrong. I think you’re exactly what she wants. Keep showin’ her that, and she just might change her mind.”
“She shouldn’t have to change her mind. I don’t want her to. Same as I hope she doesn’t expect me to compromise on what I want.”
Wyatt is quiet for a minute. “You know, a ring is just a ring. Don’t mean a thing on its own.”
“Easy for you to say.” I glance at his left hand. “You want one, and you’re about to get it.”
Sally and Wyatt set a date for May. They’ll be getting married in a big old tent on her parents’ property. Frisky Whiskey, her mom’s band, will be performing, and the bride and groom may or may not have plans to literally ride into the sunset on their horses.
“All I’m saying is that you gotta do some digging here, Sawyer. What is it about marriage that speaks to you? That feels right? Other than the ability to not have to use condoms.”
I chuckle despite myself. “Can you not be gross?”
“Sorry, no. But what about shit like … I don’t know, companionship? Trust? Having a real partner to help you shoulder life’s burdens? None of that requires a marriage license.”
“It does require you to commit to someone, and that’s exactly what Ava doesn’t want. You gotta admit, Wy, women get the short end of the stick a lot of the time in marriage. Dad worked hard on the ranch, but Mom worked harder at home. I mean, think about it. Her work literally never ended, even at night. It was twenty-four/seven, three sixty-five, for decades.”
Wyatt nods. “I hear you. You recognize how unfair that was, though, right? You’re not blind to it. That ex of hers is definitely blind to it. And maybe that’s what she wants to avoid. Not marriage, per se, but guys who go into relationships blind that way. You”—he gestures in my direction—“are not that guy. You can’t be. Not as a single dad raising his daughter practically on his own. You’re the mom, the dad, the wife, the husband. You’re doing it all, and you know how exhausting it is, and you see how unfair it’d be to put it all on one person’s shoulders. Because it is unfair, Sawyer.”
I wipe away the sudden moisture in my eyes. “It’s fucking brutal, man. I don’t blame Lizzie for being gone, but …” I let out a breath. “Hard not to feel resentful sometimes.”
He puts a hand on my shoulder. “You care too much and are too damn smart to ever treat someone like shit. Lizzie is a case in point. She’s able to chase her dream because of you . Show Ava that. Let her show you that she cares too. Help each other out. It’s that simple. Keep doing that, and y’all won’t be able to keep your hands off each other.”
“How sexy,” I scoff, pressing my thumbs into my eye sockets, “the two of us trading, I don’t know, oatmeal recipes.”
“Bet that oatmeal will get you laid.”
“I do make a mean oatmeal.” I blink the blurriness from my eyes and straighten. “Christ, Wyatt, since when did you get … introspective?”
“I feel like I should be offended by that comment. I’m not, by the way. But I feel like I should be.”
“You’re just …” I look at my brother.
He’s about as scruffy and rough around the edges as I’ve seen him. Hair is too long. Tattoos, some of them new, peek out from the sleeves of his jacket.
But he also looks well rested. Well fed. He’s taking care of himself.
Really, he and Sally are taking care of each other, and it shows.
An ache takes root in my gut. I want someone to take care of me that way.
I know I’m capable of taking care of someone else.
Question is, can I let them do the same for me?
“I’m just happy,” Wyatt says softly. “The opposite of the angsty, drunk mess I was three months ago? Why, thank you. If you’d told me back then that I’d be living my dream life with my dream girl, I would’ve laughed in your face and then, like, secretly cried in my room for a week.”
“We’re all crying a lot these days, aren’t we?”
“That’s what happens when you feel your feelings. Ella’s taught us a lot about that, hasn’t she?”
I can’t help but smile. “We’re parenting her, and she’s parenting us too.”
Wyatt meets my eyes. “You told me once to keep moving toward the light. To share my heart.” He pats me on the chest. “I’m going to give you the same advice. Don’t let this woman slip through your fingers, Sawyer. Think outside the box and give yourself a chance. You’ll be glad you did.”