Chapter 44
Forty-Four
Lainey
The knock on the front door has my heart leaping.
A second later, a key turns in the lock and the wooden panel slides open, Sawyer standing hesitantly on the threshold.
“Saw-yur!” Ollie jumps up from the couch. “You’re here!”
“I’m here, bud.” It’s a soft greeting paired with a ruffle of his curls.
Then his gaze comes to mine and my lungs spasm.
Because his eyes…
“Can I talk to him?” he asks softly.
But he means: Can I tell him?
And even though I sent Sawyer off to think about what he was doing and what he wants…I’ve been doing the same thing.
At first, I was scared of what I was feeling—how big it was, how much I wanted it.
Then I was scared of how much I wanted to keep it.
Now…
I’m afraid of losing it.
Afraid that what I said, that what I need may shatter it into a million pieces.
But first…Ollie.
I nod and slip into the kitchen, intending to give them privacy, but their words follow me into the other room.
“Can you tell me a Dad Joke?”
“I—” An exhale. “Sure, bud. I actually had a funny one this morning. What kinds of cats teach college classes?”
Silence then, “I don’t know.”
“Purr-fessors.”
Grinning, I lean back against the counter as they laugh.
Then sober as Sawyer asks, “Can I talk to you about yesterday?”
“Did you not like my songs?” Ollie asks, and he sounds so sad I nearly bolt for the hallway.
A sharp inhale that keeps me in place. “I’m sure I would have loved them, bud. I just…didn’t hear them.”
Another pause, this one filled with confusion. “But I saw you there. Did you have a phone call or something?”
My heart squeezes.
“No,” Sawyer says. “I was late. I got there when it was already over.”
Unable to keep my distance, I move to the hall, see Ollie frowning. “But…why?”
He sighs softly. “I tried to do too many things that day. I’m sorry, I should have made sure I had enough time to be there.”
“Oh.”
“I promised,” Sawyer murmurs. “I told you I’d be there, and I wasn’t. I am so sorry, bud.”
Ollie is silent for a long moment.
Then he leans in and wraps his arms around Sawyer’s waist. “You made a mistake,” Ollie tells him. “Thanks for apologizing.”
Sawyer’s eyes come to mine, and they’re glassy with tears.
He blinks. Once. Twice. Then hugs Ollie back.
A moment after that—and in typical a four-year-old fashion—Ollie drops his arms and leans back.
“Can I open my present now?”
Sawyer chuckles.
Then he ruffles Ollie’s hair again.
“Sure, bud.”
“Faster, Gray!” Ollie calls as he steers the remote-control car along the path.
To varying degrees of success.
Mostly because he’s four and fine motor control isn’t his strongest asset.
Gray, who wandered over earlier, has his hands over Ollie’s and they’re doing their best to make use of the waning sunlight to drive Sawyer’s present along the concrete of the driveway and the winding path that leads up to the front porch.
Where I’m sitting.
Alone.
Because Faye is working and Gray is hanging with Ollie and Sawyer is avoiding me.
Or maybe…hell, maybe it’s that I’ve been avoiding him.
I needed to answer some emails. And I needed to get dinner going. And I needed to clean out the fridge. And I needed to start a load of laundry.
And I needed to jot down one tiny thing for The Book That Shall Not Be Written.
What I didn’t need was to be sitting out here, watching my son play with…
The man I love.
The man I’m terrified to need.
The man who I want more than my next breath.
The man who’s…
Walking my way.
“Can we talk?” he asks softly.
My throat goes tight. “We should stay out here with Ollie.”
“He’s covered,” Sawyer says. “I asked Gray to keep an eye on him until we’re done.”
“You asked him?”
Sawyer’s lips curve. “Yeah, Pages. I did. So…can we talk?”
“Um…” I whisper, but I let him take my hand, tug me lightly to my feet, and draw me inside the house.
Then down the hall and into my office.
He shuts the door, leans back against it. “I need to apologize to you too, sweetheart.”
I wave my hand. “It’s fine. I was upset and—”
“No, Pages.” He sighs, scrubs his hands over his face. “When I left yesterday, all I could think about was all the things I needed to do to fix this.”
Insides twisting, I open my mouth.
But he just closes the distance between us, presses his finger to my lips.
“It wasn’t until Leo slapped me up the side of my head today that I even started to consider that me rushing out for flowers and toys for Ollie and bringing you dinner and cleaning out your gutters may not be what you need.”
Despite the tension between my shoulder blades, I smile.
But it doesn’t last long.
He sighs. “I think…hell, I don’t know what I think. I just know that I can’t keep doing what I’m doing with my mom, with the team, with you and Ollie.”
My heart convulses. “Sawyer—”
“You know a little of what happened with my mom, know that things were hard after my dad died.”
I nod.
“But the truth is that things were a lot worse than hard.”
“How?” I ask, taking his hand.
“She forgot about stuff—small stuff like buying groceries and paying bills—”
I frown.
Because that doesn’t sound very small.
But he keeps talking.
And it gets worse.
“—and big things like taking care of herself. She wouldn’t shower, wouldn’t eat.
I…” A deep breath. “I did what I had to. I stepped in, made sure she was eating and drinking, was cleaning herself. I found her the job with my off-ice training facility, made sure that things were arranged when I was traveling with the team. I thought if I just managed it all perfectly, nothing would go wrong.”
“Oh, Sawyer.” I step closer, wrapping my arms around him. “That must have been so hard.”
“The thing is…it wasn’t.”
I lean back so I can look at him.
“God, you’re beautiful,” he whispers.
“I think you’re beautiful too,” I whisper back.
His eyes flare, and he rests his forehead against mine for a moment.
“How wasn’t it hard?”
“I…” His lids slide closed. “I think it actually helped me with what happened with my dad, you know? Like if I was focused on her and what she needed and making sure we didn’t lose the house then I didn’t have to feel…”
I wait, holding my breath.
“Hurt, I guess,” he says softly. “Or miss my dad. Or wish things could be different.”
Leaning closer, I stroke my fingers through his hair.
“But after a while, I started to resent the calls, the texts.” His lids peel back and his mouth tips up slightly at the corners. “Talking to your mom ten times a day kind of puts a crimp in the social life, especially when you think you’ve met the love of your life.”
My lungs spasm.
“I was seventeen, had a pro career looming, and fell for a girl named Erin at the rink. It was typical teenager shit, but oh how I loved her.”
“Yeah?”
“Enough to put a ring on her finger and promise to bring her along with me every step of the way.”
I take his hand. “I’m guessing it didn’t end well?”
“No,” he says softly. “I was called up by a team that was halfway across the country and they wanted me to play that night. I had to go right then, grab my shit, hop on a plane literally within an hour in order to make it for game time.”
“What happened?”
“Mom flipped out. Lost her mind, but for the first time, I didn’t bend over backwards to make sure she was comfortable, to make sure she had everything she needed. I just told her she’d have to deal and went anyway. And I played well.” He pauses, exhaling shakily.
“You don’t have to tell me,” I whisper.
“I do,” he whispers back. “Because it’s why I’ve done what I’ve done for the last decade.” A deep breath. “The game was over, and Coach came in and—”
I hold him tighter.
“—she made the call to 9-1-1 herself. Said she was going to end things. They sent the police over and her house was empty, except for the note. Coach let me come home, let me look for her, and probably it should have cost me my contract, especially since it took me days to find her. But he kept me on and believed in me…so I made sure he wasn’t disappointed. ”
“You mean you killed yourself to keep him and your mom happy—and anyone else who entered your orbit.”
“No.” He stops. Exhales. “Yes.”
“Especially after Erin dumped you?”
His gaze flies to mine. “How’d you—”
“That’s where this ends, right? The playboy image, not letting anyone close enough to see the real you. You lost your dad. Then your mom disappeared. And Erin left. So, you did everything you could to make sure no one would.”
“How’d you get so smart, Pages?”
I take his hand, press it to my chest, just over my heart. “Because I did my best to not rely on anyone, to do it all myself, to”—my heart skips a beat, but I think after all he’s shared, he needs to hear me say it out loud—“make it so no one I loved could hurt me again.”
He smiles.
Then stills, rasps, “No one you love?”
Cupping his face in my hands, I say, “I love you, handsome.”
“Christ, baby.” He tugs me against him, burying his face in my hair. “I love you, too. I love you so fucking much.”
“I know,” I whisper.
His laugh is watery, but he doesn’t let me go.
Not for long moments.
And that’s okay.
Because I’m right where I want to be.
Then he pulls back. “I know this doesn’t fix everything,” he murmurs. “Know I need to keep working at—”
I press my fingers to his lips this time. “We don’t need to be perfect. I don’t need to do it all myself and you don’t need to spin on your head to spare everyone’s feelings. We don’t even need to know what’s coming next. All we need is to figure it out together.”
He exhales, peels my palm free of his mouth, presses a kiss to the center of it. “That sounds like everything I’ve ever wanted.”
“Me too.”
A brush of his knuckles over my cheek. A warm palm sliding up my back. His mouth lowers to mine—
Just as I hear:
“Mooom!”
We turn as Ollie comes bursting into my office.
“Look, Mom! Look Saw-yur!” he calls. “Gray found Ollie!”
He holds up the stuffed penguin, and though the toy looks a little worse for wear, it indeed is Ollie.
“Where was it?”
“In the flowers.” A guilty look. “Gray was helping me get my car back and he found it.”
Sawyer mutters, almost under his breath, “Damn.”
Brows lifting in surprise, I glance at him. “What?”
“Nothing.” A shrug. “It’s just…the three backups I ordered were delivered today.”
I still, surprise rippling through me. Then I do the only thing I can—I laugh.
And it feels great, feels perfect.
Finally feels like mine.
Like forever.
Especially when Sawyer drops his lips to mine and I get to taste his laughter too.
Aware of our audience, I pull back, brush a little dirt off Ollie’s stuffed face. “How’d we miss you, little guy?” I ask, and as Gray walks into the office, I look up. “In the flowers?”
He nods. “Yeah. The ones right beside the porch.”
My stomach drops.
Because I know I looked there. I know I did.
Sawyer did too.
I glance at him, and the worry reflected in his eyes tells me he’s thinking exactly the same thing I am.
Ollie wasn’t lost.
Someone brought him back.