Chapter 6 #2
“I’m not sure how much longer I can keep it from going off.”
It was a delicate threat. A promise, even. But what did it mean?
That I would hurt him?
Or he would hurt me?
And why don’t I care if it’s the latter?
“I think you already know,” my mom says.
“Sawyer has never made any kind of move toward pursuing a relationship with me, Mom.”
“What do you know about Sawyer’s life before the military?”
“Not a lot,” I admit. I know he was in and out of foster care, but that’s about it. I never got the impression it was an overly great childhood, but he’s never gone into it.
“Exactly. A man doesn’t shield his past from view because he’s proud of it. You keep saying that in six years, he never made a move past friendship…did you ever give him a reason to think it would be okay?”
I gape at her. “So you’re saying this is my fault?”
“Of course not. But sometimes you come across as guarded, honey. I think losing your dad when you did gave you a reason to put up walls that you don’t take down often. Losing Violet only thickened those barriers.”
The mention of my childhood friend brings a fresh wave of pain crashing down on top of me.
“Sawyer being in the business he was, fighting someone else’s battles, left you open to losing him, too, so you held him at arm’s length. But he’s still here, sweetheart.”
He almost wasn’t.
The image of a blood-stained sidewalk swims to the front of my memory. Sawyer not answering his phone…I almost did lose him. He’d gone out for a run and not come back. Not until my brother, Garrison, and Ryker found him bleeding out from a gunshot wound.
My mom reaches across and covers my hand with hers. “I’m not saying jump all in. And the distance he put between you two without giving you any explanation at the time wasn’t fair. But can you try to put yourself in his shoes? What if he had told you how he felt? Would you have left Jack?”
No.
The truth behind that single word hits me in the gut.
I wouldn’t have left Jack. Not because I didn’t feel something for Sawyer but because his friendship was too important to me to risk on anything.
I would have pushed him away, likely ending our friendship much in the same way he did by keeping his distance.
Thanks for the hard truth, Mom. I rub the heel of my palm against my chest.
“Just give him a chance to explain, sweetheart. Maybe, at the very least, you guys can move back toward friendship.”
“And at most?” I ask, almost afraid to be hopeful.
My mom smiles. “That’ll be the fun part, won’t it?”
With leftover soup and a tray of coffees in my hand, I make my way across the parking lot toward Sawyer’s shop. It’s well past six, so I know he’s shut down for the day, making him the only one inside. Which is perfect, just in case he tosses me to the curb as I did him the other day.
Nerves dance through my body, twisting in my gut, but I push through. Sawyer and I have been friends for a long time. I’m just trying to fix where everything went wrong. After my mom left, I sat for quite a while, trying to decide exactly what it was I wanted to do.
And I decided that, above all, I miss my friend.
If she’s right—and she almost always is—then maybe Sawyer is telling the truth. He really was just trying to give Jack and me distance. Which, in true Sawyer fashion, is completely unselfish.
Ugh, I can be such a jerk.
After setting the hot bag down, I raise my free hand and knock on the door of the shop. If he’s in his office, he’ll hear me. If not, then I’ll just go around and climb the steps to the studio apartment above his shop.
A light flicks on inside, and my pulse jumps as Sawyer comes into view through the window. He’s still wearing what he was earlier, his coveralls still folded and tied around his trim waist.
His tank top still smeared with motor oil. His baseball cap backward on top of his head. There’s even a bit of oil smeared on his cheek, right above the scruff covering his jaw.
He looks rugged, masculine, and far too gorgeous for my own good.
Oh boy.
I can’t even bring myself to smile as I lean down and lift the bag.
Sawyer pulls open the door and pulls the red sucker from his mouth. Which, of course, brings my attention straight to his lips. I have to force my gaze back up.
The smell of motor oil fills my lungs, a scent I shouldn’t have missed so much, but I did. Because, combined with the pine bodywash he uses, it’s so Sawyer.
“Hey,” he says.
“I brought peace offerings.” I hold up the tray of coffee and the hot bag with my mom’s soup.
His caramel gaze locks on mine, but there is no humor in his expression. No typical Sawyer sarcasm. No random quips about coffee with dinner.
Please tell me there wasn’t too much damage. Please, Lord, help me fix this. Emotion burns in my throat.
“Come in.” He takes the coffee and moves to the side so I can come through. I try to ignore my body’s reaction to his closeness when my shoulder brushes his chest on my way in.
Such a simple touch.
How many times have we touched in the past six years? How many casual brushes of our hands against each other? Did each one feel like this? As though we’re handling a bomb that could go off at any moment? How did I miss it?
“My mom made soup earlier, so I brought some just in case you were hungry.” I start to step into his office, but my gaze lands on his desk, and seeing it reminds me of the last time I was in here.
Six months ago, when I told him I missed him and everything that had already been strained between us snapped.
So instead of going into the place where what we had was broken, I head down the hall a little ways and walk into the break room like I own the place.
I set the bag of soup down on the round plastic table, then grab two paper bowls from a shelf and two plastic spoons from the organizer on the counter.
Sawyer takes a seat at the table and removes the cups from the paper carrying tray. He sets his down in front of him—a black coffee with no cream or sugar. And mine—a hazelnut latte with cinnamon—he sets in front of my chair.
Still, he doesn’t say a word.
“Thanks for letting me in.”
“You’re always welcome here,” he says. His tone is sharp, his jaw set.
It’s so unlike him. So alien when compared to the man who brought me a stray kitten in the rain.
He’d tucked little Axel into his jacket and raced across the parking lot so the small animal wouldn’t be cold.
“I miss you, too, Anastasia,” he says, tone defeated.
I’m caught so off guard that I spill some soup. Broth splashes, then begins dripping off the edge of the table. I catch it with my hands. “Oh no! Napkins, hurry!”
Sawyer chuckles softly and retrieves some paper towels. He carries them over and helps me keep the spill from dripping over the side of the table.
“I’m sorry. Clumsy. I didn’t sleep well.”
“It’s fine.” He finishes cleaning it up, then tosses the towels into the trash can and takes his seat. “Why didn’t you sleep well?”
Aside from dreaming about you all night? “As if you don’t know. Seriously, Sawyer, prank calls are juvenile, even for you.”
A line forms between his brows. “Prank calls?”
“Yeah. Two last night, one the night before. You hung up before I could even answer.”
His expression never shifts toward the humorous ‘I got you!’ that I expected. “I didn’t call you,” he says.
“You didn’t?”
He shakes his head. Sawyer and I have rules of engagement for any pranks.
They were necessary after the rotting eggs fiasco a few years ago, when I’d hidden hard-boiled eggs in his shop.
The stench was so bad that it even dropped business at my coffee shop.
Ever since, when one of us calls the other on a prank, we have to admit it, then assist with cleanup.
So if he says he didn’t do it, then I know it wasn’t him.
“Fantastic. More spammers then. They’re getting desperate.”
“Do they say anything when they call?”
I shake my head and take a bite of soup. “By the time I answer, there’s no one on the line. Likely just bot callers. They do that to test your number’s validity.”
“Hmm.” Sawyer eats some soup.
I take a moment and study him in the bright lights overhead. In the past six months, his body has changed slightly, giving him more muscle definition in his arms.
“So, listen. About the other night. I was upset. Jack leaving hurt, plus I felt so guilty for letting the relationship go on as long as I did, and I took all of that out on you. That wasn’t fair.”
“I was the closest target. And I hurt you. It wasn’t on purpose, but I take responsibility for that.”
“Still, I shouldn’t have treated you the way I did. I should have given you the chance to explain yourself, and I’m sorry.”
I shouldn’t have gotten so close that all I’ve been able to think about is your lips on mine.
I shouldn’t have stoked what I’d hoped was between us, only to weaponize it the way I did.
“I should have explained why I was taking a step back when I did it. After everything Jack risked for us, it felt unfair for me to keep pushing the way I was.”
“Pushing?”
Sawyer takes a deep breath and removes his backward baseball cap to run his fingers through his hair. “I felt like our being so close was putting a wrench in your relationship. I only ever want you to be happy, Anastasia. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
Then tell me how you feel. Because I’m starting to believe I won’t be happy until I’m with you.