36. Beckett
BECKETT
Sawyer’s Cravings:
- Cool Ranch Doritos with nacho cheese sauce (red label)
- Spicy pickles
Because the baby was due in less than a month, and there was a very real chance Sawyer could deliver early with her condition, we made the decision to go ahead and start moving her things over. Most of it would stay with us at the cabin, but the baby furniture was going straight to our new place.
There was still a lot that needed to be done in our home, but Lukas was already on the job.
We met on Monday to look over mock-ups he had stashed away.
Since this house had been with his family for so long, he had plenty to choose from.
Each one was carefully designed to elevate the original architecture while updating it to basic modern standards, such as a dishwasher.
A must for Sawyer.
Tuesday was paint samples. Sawyer walked the aisles, eyes sparkling as she ran her hand along the swatches.
It was little things, like picking paint, that had me falling more in love with her every day.
She was full of joy as she spoke animatedly about color schemes and aesthetics.
There was a theme for every room—plans she’d spent her whole life making that now she would be able to bring to life.
I didn’t really understand much of what she was saying, so I just decided to nod and hand her my card at the check-out line.
The original paint tested positive for lead, but Lukas had already taken care of it. His crew had repainted the rest of the house already, save for one room.
The only thing Sawyer was dead set on was taking care of the nursery ourselves.
It didn’t matter that neither of us knew what we were doing, and there was a real chance it would look like shit.
She said it’d always been a dream of hers.
Who was I to deny her? My one concession was having the crew take care of taping off the edges.
I didn’t trust myself to make the lines straight, and there was no way I was letting her on the stepladder to do it.
“Is that the last one?” I asked.
Sawyer finished taping a cardboard box and glanced up to see me leaning against the doorframe. She let out a long exhale as she leaned back on the bed. “For now. We’ll still need to go through the rest of my stuff once we finish the nursery.”
“That’s fine. I can come back by tomorrow and grab whatever’s left,” I said.
We spent most of the morning loading the sum total of her life into a handful of boxes. Most of the space had been taken up by mountains of baby supplies. Sawyer hadn’t been wrong, Liv was going a little overboard. It didn’t include the gifts she got us at the baby shower, either.
I glanced around, looking at what was left.
It was a little overwhelming to think about one tiny human needing all of this stuff.
There were so many clothes in different sizes that I wasn’t sure how we were supposed to label everything.
And don’t get me started on the number of toys we had no idea what to do with.
Maybe we could ask Lukas to build a matching storage unit just to store our stockpile of diapers.
Everything had moved so fast since Lukas handed me the keys last week.
Olivia and I met the next day, where she handed me a fully prepared contract.
The asking price left me feeling uneasy.
It was far under market value, and she knew it.
When I argued with her, she threatened to tear up the contract on site and gift the damn thing to Sawyer, so I couldn’t fight her on it.
In the end, we both signed on the dotted line, and I wrote her a check for a quarter of a million dollars from my trust. I’d spent every day since waiting for a phone call from my father, which still hadn’t come.
Richard had already contacted Montgomery Holdings to tell him that he had approved the Bennetts’ proposal and issued the necessary permits.
Neither of us had been surprised that he hadn’t taken it well.
Richard elected to step away from his current position before my father could drop a headline about bribery in small-town government offices.
My phone should’ve rung the moment his call with Richard ended.
If the permits were issued, that meant I failed.
We didn’t have any other bargaining chips to play against Olivia and Duke.
My father should’ve wanted to throw my failures back in my face.
To remind me why I would never be as successful as he was.
He’d done it before, and those were deals he didn’t even really want.
So, why hadn’t he called?
Technically, he’d given me till the end of April to finish the job.
We still had a week to go, according to those terms, and I planned to use every one of them to make sure I’d never have to set foot in New York again.
I’d already contacted a moving company to pack up my penthouse in the city.
All the furniture would go into storage until we figured out what we wanted to do with it.
I wanted to make sure Sawyer could decorate our place however she wanted.
She could paint the walls hot pink or hang flowers from the ceiling, and I wouldn’t care so long as it made her happy.
Sawyer looked around at the boxes stacked all around her childhood bedroom.
She’d lived her entire life here, never knowing anything else.
I couldn’t imagine what that must’ve been like.
I left home the moment I turned eighteen and never looked back.
My dad immediately converted my childhood bedroom to a poker room, stripping away any sign it’d been my prison cell.
The moment her lips drew in tight, I pushed off the doorframe and crouched by her side.
“It’s a lot, I know. If you aren’t ready, it’s okay.
We don’t have to do any of this right now.
” I might’ve caught some grumbles from Duke because of it, but that was fine.
He didn’t scare me as much as he used to.
“God, no,” she said, laughing as she wiped a stray tear away. “It’s not about that, it’s just…” she paused, looking around the room once more before meeting my gaze. “This used to be my mom’s room. And it’s the only thing I really have of hers.”
I tried to think back on anything I knew about her mom, but came up blank. I wasn’t sure she’d ever even mentioned the woman before. It was always about her Grams. “Do you mind me asking what happened with her?”
Sawyer nodded, glancing down at her belly. “She had me not long after she graduated high school. According to Grams, she wasn’t really the maternal type, which was pretty clear when she left in the middle of the night with a half-assed apology on the back of a receipt.”
“Sugar, I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to pry.”
“No, it’s okay. I’m not sad for myself, but I hate it for my grams. Her daughter just left one night and never called again. How could you do that to the two people you’re supposed to love more than anything?”
I wanted to be able to give her an answer, but the truth was that I’d been asking myself nearly the same question all my life.
Some days, I felt genuine love and affection from my mother, but it felt guarded.
Like she didn’t want to get too attached for fear it’d be ripped away.
I wouldn’t put it past my father to dangle me over her head to keep her in line.
My father made it clear he didn’t give a shit about having a son. He cared about an heir. Nothing more, nothing less. And when I didn’t fall in line exactly like he wanted, there wasn’t an ounce of family understanding to be found.
“Yeah, I know what you mean. It’s harder to wrap my head around now that I’m becoming a dad. I already love our son, and he isn’t even born yet. I can’t imagine how much that’s going to change when he is.”
She squeezed my hand and smiled. “I’ve never really talked about this to anyone except for Liv. We bonded over mom trauma. Apparently, it’s common.”
“I’ll tell my daddy issues that there’s a new star in town,” I said.
Sawyer groaned, covering her face with her hands before peeking through her fingers. “Ugh. Is it awful to admit that, as much as I hate the thought of you suffering, I’m kind of glad you understand familial trauma? Like, does that make me a bad person?”
I didn’t think it was awful at all. People judged what they didn’t understand.
Some of the guys I used to call friends would tell me they wouldn’t care what their parents did if it meant they never had to work another day in their lives.
I always laughed it off with them, but it made me sick to my stomach.
But Sawyer never once balked as I skirted around the issues with my father. She knew, better than most, how complex parental relationships could be, and never tried to play devil’s advocate.
“Could you imagine if your one-night-stand turned baby daddy had,” I did an exaggerated gasp, “a healthy childhood?”
She let her hands fall away, lips twitching slightly. “Thank god for that.”
I stood, helping her up. Everything was marked so the guys knew exactly what was going where. “Can you check under the bed for me?” Sawyer asked. “I’d do it myself, but,” she pointed to her belly, “I’d never get back up again.”
I did as she asked, getting on my knees to do a quick sweep when my gaze snagged on a small spiral notebook near the back. “Got something,” I said, pulling it free. Sawyer’s cheeks pinked as I held it up between us. “Want this?”
She snatched the thing out of my hands so fast and clutched it to her chest. “Oh, thank god. I thought I’d lost it.”
Curiosity got the best of me when she opened it up and sighed. “What is it?” I asked, pushing to my feet and peering over her shoulder.
There was a date scribbled at the top, and Sawyer’s neat scrawl filled the lines below. She’d doodled baby rattles in the margins around a grainy black and white image that didn’t look like much, but it held our entire future.
“I wanted to do a scrapbook thing, but didn’t know how.
It felt silly to spend all this money on something I wasn’t sure I’d keep up with, so I grabbed an old notebook I’d never used and started jotting things down.
” She turned the page. There wasn’t a picture this time, but there was a doodle of a ferris wheel in the corner.
“It helped me process everything as it happened. There were only so many times I could listen to Liv’s unusual positivity.
” Another page, a new doodle of a stuffed giraffe.
“Would you ever let me read it?” I asked. “I’d love to see more from the beginning.”
Sawyer turned over her shoulder, studying me closely. “I don’t know if you’ll want to. Those first months were rough. Some days I hated you. Some I wanted you back.”
“Oh, I’m under no delusion that those pages are filled with praise, but I don’t care. There’s nothing that could change how I feel about you,” I answered honestly. “I just want to know what I missed.”
Sawyer was still coming to terms with her guilt over not telling me. It would be a long time coming until that went away, but I hoped my eagerness to learn even her worst thoughts would show her I didn’t scare easily.
“Okay, you can read it.” She held it out, snatching it back before handing it over. “As long as you promise not to hate me afterward.”
“Baby, what’d I just say? You’re stuck with me. There’s nothing you could do to scare me.” I took the notebook from her grip and kissed her. “Unless you called me a pussy about the ferris wheel. My pride can only take so many blows.”
She pulled away, gently smacking my shoulder. “We’ve got to get you better with heights.”
“Everyone has a weakness!” I protested, leading her into the living room. “That’s mine.”
“Mine’s this damn hip,” Gram said, smacking her right side. Beckett nearly bowled her over. “Seizes up when it’s cold, makin’ it hard for Harold to give me that good mornin’ sugar.”
I stared down at the eccentric woman who couldn’t have been more than five foot three. She was standing in front of me, leaning on her cane with a beaming smile.“You know, I’m always excited to see what shirt you’ve got on, Maeve. This one might be my favorite.”
She grabbed the bottom of her shirt and held it out proudly. “Harold said I shouldn’t wear it out in public, but I think it’s pretty clever myself!”
The words “Good Boy” were printed across her chest in large, bold letters, but the O in boy was in the shape of a dog collar.
“Grams, oh my god,” Sawyer said, covering her face. I saw the smile beneath her hands. “I, for one, agree with Harold. That needs to stay within the confines of this trailer.”
Her grandma stuck her tongue out. “Don’t you go turnin’ into one of those boring moms on me. I didn’t raise you to be a stick in the mud—”
“I’m not, but—”
“—and we definitely don’t kinkshame!” Grams finished. “Now, I know you’re getting out of here, but I wanna give you one thing before you do.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a gold necklace.
“Grams…”
“Hold out your hand, girl,” Grams said softly.
Sawyer did as she was told, her jaw slack as her grandma deposited the jewelry into her waiting palms. “Now, my daddy gave this to my momma on the day I was born. They didn’t have much, but he saved up to make sure she knew how proud he was of her.
And when I told them I was pregnant, they gave it down to me.
Told me to always remember what was important in life.
” Sawyer stepped toward her grandma when her voice wavered.
“I tried to do the same with your momma, but that didn’t work out too well, so we’re trying this again. ”
“Grams, no…”
Sawyer tried to hand it back, but she refused. “You are going to be a damn good momma. I’m honored to be the one to give this to you.” From what I could tell, it was a simple heart locket. Well worn and well loved. “I put a picture of myself in there for when you miss me, though.”
Sawyer laughed, wiping away a quick tear. “Please tell me you’re not wearing this shirt.”
“‘Course not, baby.” Grams patted her cheek. “I have my Team Charlie shirt on. Figured you’d like that one best.”
“Like the dad from that vampire movie?” I asked. “Why?”
They both gave me a strange look, turning toward the door instead of answering me. Duke and Grady looked up as we wandered out onto the porch, and I gave them a nod. Smiling, they moved past me to load more boxes into the truck.
“Alright, get outta here. Let the boys work.” She grabbed one of the patio chairs, dusted it off, and plopped down just as Lukas stepped out of the cab. “I’ll just be right here.”
“Doing what?” Sawyer asked.
Grams winked and leaned back, propping her legs on an overturned planting pot. “Supervising.”