5. Knox
Knox
The waitress has refilled my water glass three times. I’ve been watching her out of the corner of my eye, the way she glances at our table every few minutes, hovering, looking for a reason to come back. I know exactly what she’s doing. Who she’s looking at. It’s Owen. It’s always Owen.
She swings by again, and I stop her, gesturing to Sawyer. “She needs a side of honey mustard.”
Owen looks up from his onion rings. “How do you know that?”
“She’s always dipped her fries in honey mustard.” I take a drink of water. “You’d know if you paid attention.”
Ella glances between us, keeping whatever she wants to say to herself. Sawyer’s looking at me with an expression I can’t fully read. Surprised that I remembered that small detail…and maybe guarded too, like she wants to respond but is holding back.
Owen stares at me for a second, then goes back to his food. Done. Forgotten. That’s my brother.
He’s completely oblivious, always has been.
He’s too busy pressing his shoulder into Sawyer’s and stealing her fries while she pretends to be annoyed about it.
I go back to doing what I’m apparently very good at—watching her micro expressions from across the table and keeping every single thought about it locked behind my teeth.
Ella is beside me, close enough that her arm keeps grazing mine. It’s more and more irritating the longer we sit here, but I don’t move. There’s no point. She’ll just come closer again.
Sawyer scoots toward the end of the bench and stands, grabbing her bag. “I have to pee.” She points at Owen. “Do not eat my fries while I’m gone.”
Owen puts his hands up in mock surrender. “The accusation.”
She shakes her head at him and disappears toward the back of the restaurant. I watch her go for exactly two seconds before I force myself to look back at the half-eaten burger on my plate.
Owen waits until she’s through the door, then reaches into the front pocket of his shorts and sets a ring box on the table.
What the fuck?
I’m silent while I take it in. We’re all silent, like all the air gets sucked out of the booth.
“So, I have news,” he says so nonchalantly that I could scream. “I’m going to ask her tonight.”
Ella makes a sound somewhere between a gasp and a laugh. She leans forward, reaching for the box before Owen offers to show her.
“Can I—” She doesn’t finish the question. Owen flips it open himself and holds it out to her like he’s been waiting for her reaction and loves it.
The ring shines from the overhead light. It’s big, flashy. Something my mother would wear to show off her wealth. She probably helped him pick it.
But it’s not Sawyer.
Sawyer doesn’t wear much jewelry. When she does, it’s small.
Understated. The kind of pieces you have to be close to notice.
Owen’s been with her for years and somehow got her a ring that belongs on someone else’s hand.
I only hope he found a way to pay for it on his own, because my parents sure as fuck can’t afford it.
I pick up my water.
“Owen.” Ella’s voice has gone soft in a way I don’t recognize. She reaches out and takes the box from him, tilting it slightly like she needs the angle to believe it’s real. “It’s perfect.”
“Yeah?”
“So perfect.” She sets the box down and touches the stone with one fingertip, and I don’t know why, but that gesture has me clenching my water glass. “She’s going to lose her mind.”
“That’s the hope.” Owen grins. That fucking grin that gets him everything.
Ella lifts the ring from the box, and I watch, my eyes wide, because what the hell? She slides it onto her finger—just the tip, not all the way—and holds her hand out toward the window like she’s checking how it looks in the light.
“God,” she breathes. “I can’t wait until I get engaged.”
“It’ll happen,” Owen says, sounding like he cares more than he should. His eyes slide to me.
Is he fucking nuts?
Ella laughs and takes the ring off, carefully setting it in the box. Her fingers linger on the velvet for a beat too long before Owen closes it and pockets it again. I drain the rest of my water and avoid looking at Ella.
It’s quiet again while all of our minds work, clearly thinking different thoughts.
The monotonous restaurant sounds float around us.
A baby crying a few tables over, chairs scraping, forks clattering, some Elvis song playing on the speakers.
I’m glad for it because I don’t think I can form words at the moment.
“She doesn’t know?” Ella asks.
“Nope. No idea.”
Ella’s shoulders sag, but she recovers quickly, smiling again. “You’re such a romantic.”
Owen leans back in the booth, resting his hands on the ledge behind him. “I try.”
I set my glass down and tap the table. “It’s a ring, not a handwritten sonnet.”
Owen looks at me. “Don’t be bitter.”
“I’m not bitter.”
“You look bitter.”
“I look like myself. You just don’t know the difference.”
Owen throws a sugar packet at me. I let it bounce off my chest. So fucking immature. Ella’s hand finds my forearm under the table, palming it with light pressure, reminding me she’s there. I let it stay for a few seconds, then I reach down to pick up the sugar packet off the seat.
“So, do I have your blessing?” Owen asks me.
“Why the hell would you need that? I’m not her father.” Ella lets out a small giggle at my comment.
“I don’t know. You’re my big brother. Seems like the right thing to ask.”
I look at the sugar packet in front of me, at my plate, at anything else. Then my eye catches on the bathroom door swinging open.
Sawyer’s coming back through the dining room, weaving between tables with her bag over her shoulder, scanning the booth before she reaches us. Always looking for Owen.
But her eyes find mine first. It’s nothing. Just a normal look, but I feel it in every cell of my body. She looks away quickly.
Once she’s back in the booth next to Owen, he slings his arm around her and presses his mouth against her temple. “So what did I miss?”
After Owen’s big reveal, I’m too sick to my stomach to eat another bite. Plus, this lunch is dragging on now. I need to move, to get some space. Not from her, but from everyone else.
Owen eventually pays the check, like the kiss ass he is. It’s his thing, and he always makes a show of refusing when anyone else reaches for the bill or tries to hand him cash.
Whatever.
We’re back out in the heat, and it’s louder now after being inside the restaurant. Kids are shrieking from every direction, game bells dinging one after another.
Owen’s all over Sawyer, to the point of obnoxiousness.
He gets like that sometimes, where it seems like he’s overflowing with emotion he doesn’t know what to do with, so he fixates it on her.
I’m sure today it has to do with the ring burning a hole in his pocket.
I wish he’d go back to staring at the park map on his phone.
He turns to face me, one arm around Sawyer. “Hey, so…what do you think about splitting up for a bit? Meet back around six?”
Sawyer looks up at him. Then at me. Ella stills beside me.
“Sure,” I say, trying not to sound pissed.
Owen grins. “Perfect.” He turns Sawyer gently by the shoulders, already steering her into the crowd. “Come on, Sunny. I want to win you something tacky and overpriced.”
“You’re terrible at these games,” she teases him.
“I have hidden talents.”
Their voices fade as they move off through the crowd. I watch until they round a row of game booths and disappear between the bright canvas awnings.
Ella is quiet for a couple seconds.
“He didn’t even ask if I minded,” she says. “Kinda rude.”
“He asked.”
“He told us.” She crosses her arms, watching the space where they vanished. “There’s a difference.”
I start walking and she follows. We stay in the same general stretch of the park for a long time, riding a few smaller rides, and wasting money on some claw machines.
Close enough that Sawyer and Owen are never out of sight, far enough that they won’t spot me watching.
It’s practical. Keeps me less on edge. It’s a crowded park and splitting up completely is how you end up separated for hours.
It’s not because I want to keep my eyes on Sawyer. Not at all.
Ella is still talking when I get in line for a soda. She hasn’t stopped since we separated from them.
“It’s just…don’t you think it’s a little soon? They’ve been off all day. I noticed it at lunch. Did you notice it at lunch? Something’s been weird between them and he decides today is the day he—”
“Ella.”
“I’m just saying it’s a lot of pressure to put on her in front of your parents. It’s not—”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“But—”
“I said I don’t want to talk about it.” I say it slow and even, hoping she’ll get the message. I hate having to repeat myself to her.
She bites her lip and finally goes quiet. Thank Jesus. Fuck. Why the hell does she care so much? Yeah, she knows Owen. They met when we did—through that business dinner with her father. And Sawyer’s practically a stranger to her. I don’t know what her deal is.
Through the game booths, I catch a flash of Sawyer’s hair swinging as she laughs. Her head tips back, showing off her neck with that fucking hickey.
I look away.
“I just think,” Ella starts again, softer this time, like a different approach might work, “that if he’d talked to someone about it first—”
“He didn’t want to talk to someone about it.” I turn to look at her. “It’s his proposal. It has nothing to do with us. So whatever you’re working through right now, work through it quietly because it’s the last fucking thing I want to talk about.”
She presses her lips together and crosses her arms. “I have to use the bathroom. I’ll be right back.”
She pulls out her phone, and turns to make her way around the other people in line.
“Take your time,” I say.
I watch her go, heading the opposite direction from the restrooms we passed ten minutes ago. She’s typing furiously, barely looking where she’s going.
I hope she’s not texting her father, telling him I’m being a dick. Which I know I am. That won’t end up well for me.
I turn back toward the game booths.
Owen and Sawyer are sitting on a bench a few feet from where they were before, and they look…Fuck, they look so happy.
I hate how that makes me feel. It’s bubbling up from my gut, physically manifesting in ways that I know aren’t healthy. I already have a headache from clenching my damn jaw all day, and now my chest is tight, my breathing ragged. What the hell am I supposed to do?
The person behind me taps my shoulder and I glare at him unintentionally. He clears his throat. “Sorry. It’s just your turn to order.”
I run my hand through my hair. “Oh, sorry.”
I order a Coke that I don’t even want, and end up chewing the ice more than anything else before dumping it in the trash.
They kiss. It’s nothing crazy, only a bit more than a peck, but it hits me like a bullet to the chest.
I need to get out of here. Grab Ella, and go home, back to Ashford, out of Lake Mercer.
I don’t want to be here for this proposal…
I can’t stand another second of perfect Owen and pretend Sawyer.
She can’t be as happy as she looks. I know her.
The real her. And it’s my own fucking fault her lips are on my brother’s and not mine.
That’s what kills me the most.
I pull out my phone to text Ella when I notice Owen get up, looking at his own phone.
He says something, then they start walking.
I pocket my phone and follow.