23. Knox
Knox
My father’s been drinking since noon. In reality, he’s been drinking every day since the accident weeks ago. I’ve gotten so used to hearing his tone go from clipped to slurred, his footsteps go from solid to stumbling, that it doesn’t even fucking bother me anymore.
If I could get by being plastered all day, maybe I would join him.
He hasn’t gone into the office in the same amount of time, either, which is why I’m sitting in his home office at nine at night, sifting through his fucking backed up emails and invoices. Invoices he doesn’t have money to pay.
And I’m goddamn exhausted.
A good night’s sleep can’t fix it, either.
This level of exhaustion comes from being the supporting beam in a run-down building, the last thing holding it back from collapsing.
I haven’t gone back to the doctor since my hospital stay, and I know my shit’s healing wrong.
My ribs still ache when I cough, my back still catches when I twist a certain way.
The pain is a daily reminder that I survived something I shouldn’t have.
Maybe having that reminder is a good thing.
My mother’s slippered feet shuffle around the house.
She’s been going from bedroom to sitting room and back again, rearranging things.
Moving vases, rehanging photos in different spots, all while clicking her tongue like whatever she’s doing is satisfying some internal need.
Earlier, I heard her call the interior designer she hasn’t been able to afford in years, leaving him a voicemail.
She sounded fucking nuts if I’m being honest, describing a new color palette for the living room, detailing fabric samples she ordered that morning, rambling on and on, sounding composed but hollow all at once.
I don’t know what to do with her. With either of them, actually. She’s spending money we don’t have on rooms we don’t use to grieve a son she can’t get back. And my father is drinking to the bottom of another bottle while I sit here trying to figure out if we can afford payroll next month.
This is the family I dropped out of school to save. It’s fucking…I don’t know, crazy? Sad? Infuriating?
I push the invoices aside and open my laptop.
The Aldrich Group’s accounts are a disaster I know by heart now, every deficit and deferred payment, every creative accounting decision that kicks a problem six months down the road.
They’ve all been my burdens to bear. We’ve been playing this game since the Thorne scandal blew the company in half.
I close the laptop and rub my bloodshot eyes before I spiral.
Instead, I pull out my phone. I haven’t checked on Sawyer since I got to my parent’s hours ago.
She’s been at her apartment all day. No idea what she’s been doing there, but it makes my chest loosen to know she’s safe. That her little marker has been exactly where I want her.
It’s not something I’m proud of—watching Sawyer.
Not that it’s new. I’ve kept tabs on her for years, but not like this.
I’ve told myself a hundred versions of why it’s not what it looks like.
Made up speeches of bullshit excuses I’d say if I ever got caught.
She’s alone. She has no one watching out for her.
After the accident, someone needs to know where she is.
Oblivious Owen isn’t here to do it anymore.
But I know what it is. I’ve known since a few days after the funeral, when I opened the app and saw she’d driven to the cemetery at two in the morning.
I sat in my car down the block, watching her headlights in the dark for forty minutes before following her home.
I watched her apartment lights come on from the cracks in her drapes and waited, knee vibrating from anxiety, until they went off. Until she was asleep.
I didn’t go in. I’ve never gone in uninvited. It’s enough, just barely, to know where she is, that she’s safe, that no one else is touching her.
It’s obsession, plain and simple. It scratches an itch, barely, but it’s something.
But when her location loads this time, it’s moving east of her apartment, away from Ashford, toward the outskirts.
It’s 9:48 PM. There’s only a few places she could be going. I watch it for a few seconds, and when she passes the twenty-four hour diner and keeps going, I know there’s only one spot she could be heading to.
I stand up from the desk, not bothering to clean up the mess of paperwork. It’ll be waiting here for me tomorrow, anyway. Getting to Sawyer is more important.
As expected, I find her car parked at The Hideaway. This place is a damn shithole, but it’s the spot to go if you don’t want to run into the Ashford country club assholes. They wouldn’t be caught dead here.
This place has been around for at least fifty years, gone through different owners, name changes, and a year-long health code shutdown, but somehow it’s still kicking.
In all that time I doubt a new barstool has been purchased, or a mops have been used in the place.
There’s probably a permanent indent in the first four barstools from the same group of guys who have claimed them since the early 90’s.
I’m convinced they either live here, or are supernatural creatures who don’t require basic necessities like sleep and exercise, because I’ve never been here and not seen them.
I park next to Sawyer’s car and sit for a few minutes, watching the door.
Do I really want to do this? If I go in there, I’m consciously making a choice with full knowledge of what it means.
Sawyer will know I’m watching her. Internally, I know I have no business being here.
But hell, I’ve always been better at knowing what I shouldn’t do than at stopping myself from doing it.
Once I step foot inside, it takes me all of two seconds to find her.
She’s at the bar, already drinking something fruity-looking from a glass.
Her hair’s down and wavy, and she’s wearing loose fitted jeans and a tank top.
From her posture, it’s obvious she’s not here to have fun.
No. She’s here because her place got too quiet and her head got too loud and she needed noise and booze to make it all stop.
I know because I’ve done the exact same thing in this exact same place many times.
That’s the thing about Sawyer, she never falls apart where anyone can see it.
She finds a dark bar away from anyone who matters and handles it alone.
I’ve always respected that about her more than I’d ever say out loud.
There’s two younger guys at the far end of the bar that keep glancing her way. She either hasn’t noticed them yet, or she has and doesn’t care. I force myself to take a calming breath. She should care when drunk assholes are leering at her.
Yet another reason why it’s good that I’ve been watching her. She has no fucking self-preservation.
I sit at the stool two down from her, leaving one empty between us.
She doesn’t turn to me, doesn’t react at all. Maybe she hasn’t seen me? Or is pretending she didn’t, like the stubborn princess she can be. With her, it’s always hard to tell.
I signal the bartender and order a beer that’ll probably be piss warm.
“You’re following me.” She states it as a fact, not even sounding angry or surprised like I expected.
“Just felt like coming out for a beer,” I say.
“Yeah, at the exact bar I’m at. This late at night. Don’t bullshit a bullshitter.”
I hold my hands up in surrender. “Not like there’s lots of options in the area. Don’t flatter yourself, Thorne.”
She picks up her glass and takes a slow sip, still not looking in my direction. “How long?”
“How long, what?”
“How long have you been keeping tabs on me?”
I contemplate lying to her, but there’s no point. She always sees through me eventually. “I’m not keeping tabs on you. I just…happen to know where you are.”
She scoffs, tracing the lip of her glass. “Same fucking thing, Einstein.”
“Not from my viewpoint,” I say, picking up the beer the bartender just dropped in front of me. And it’s warm, like I figured. “Keeping tabs implies effort. This is more of a passive awareness.”
She finally turns, shooting me a look that makes blood rush to my cock. “A passive awareness?”
“Yup. Like knowing the weather.”
Her eyes narrow. “You’re comparing stalking me to walking outside to check the weather.”
“Stalking’s a strong word.”
“It’s the correct word.” She turns back to her drink. “You’re insane.”
“Probably.” I take a sip. “But I’m not the only one.”
She’s quiet again, sipping what I now see is something mixed with cranberry, probably deciding if it’s worth it to keep goading me.
I hope she does.
“Have you really been watching me?”
I sip my beer, shrugging. Heat spreads to her cheeks, turning her fair skin a cute shade of pink.
“Come on, Knox. How long?”
“Does it matter?”
Crossing her arms, she twists on the stool so her whole body faces me. I can’t help but let my gaze drift to her tits. I mean, fuck, with her arms crossed, she’s pushing them together and they’re perfect. Just like the rest of her.
“Yes. To me, it does.”
I drag my gaze back up to meet her eyes. Her blazing eyes, narrowed in contempt. “A while.”
“Define a while.”
I huff. “Probably longer than any reasonable person would.”
She laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “You really are fucking crazy. You know that, right? You have a girlfriend. You run a company. You presumably have things to do that aren’t monitoring my location at—” She checks her phone. “—ten-thirty at night.”
I shrug, knowing it’ll piss her off more.
“You could have just texted me. I was…” She hesitates, sipping her drink again. A thin red dribble escapes the corner of her mouth and tracks to her chin, and I think about leaning over and catching it with my thumb. Or my mouth. “I was kind of expecting to hear from you after what happened.”
Yup. The funeral. Owen’s room. I’m a dick, and I know it.