Chapter 13
NOVA
Ifeel inexplicably nervous when I pull into the parking lot of the Low Bar. You’re being silly, I tell myself, as I circle, searching for a spot. Just because Lawson has never invited me here doesn’t mean I’m not welcome. He’s not going to throw me out or something.
Is he?
“Ridiculous,” I mutter under my breath.
Lawson left his phone in my apartment this afternoon. We’d been a little distracted—he’d made me come three times in a half hour and hadn’t wanted to get out of bed to go to work. By the time I got him dressed—with the promise of a post-shift blow job to motivate him—he was running seriously late.
Hence the phone in my cup holder.
The entire way here I questioned myself.
I’d tried to call the bar but just kept getting a recorded message with a flippant voice—one of his brothers, I thought—telling me that Tuesday night is live music night and they don’t answer the phone on live music night, so whoever is calling better just come down and ask their question in person and drink a beer while they’re at it.
So in the end, that’s what I decided to do. Minus the beer, probably, since I’ll more than likely be getting right back into my car to drive home after handing the phone over. It’s not like he’s going to invite me in to have a drink and meet his brothers, right?
God, this was probably a mistake. He’d made it pretty clear that there was a line between whatever it was that we’re doing and the rest of his life.
Yes, we’ve spent every spare minute together for most of the summer, but it’s almost always just the two of us.
We’ve gone out to eat a few times, but always in Mount Casper.
The only time he ever asks me to come to Solitude is when I spend the night in his apartment.
Even then, he seems to prefer coming to mine, in spite of how small and dingy it is.
He’s hiding you, a nasty little voice sneers in my head. He doesn’t want you around his brothers.
“Then he shouldn’t have left his phone at my apartment,” I snap, then feel stupid. Am I honestly arguing with myself out loud? My frustration grows as I make another circle through the lot—why the hell aren’t there any open spots? Does live music night really bring in this big of a crowd?
Apparently so. No wonder no one is answering the phone.
In the end, I follow a beat up chevy around the building to find additional parking.
It’s probably more of a staff lot but I don’t see any signs telling me not to park.
Besides, I’m going to be in and out. I’ll drop off his phone and leave.
And I definitely won’t be insulted when he doesn’t ask me to stay.
I climb out of my car, phone in hand, and start to make my way back around the building to the front door.
I’m just passing the dumpsters when the back door slams open and a familiar figure comes out carrying two full trash bags.
I stop, my face lighting up in spite of myself at the appearance of Lawson—but then the guy sets off the motion light on the back of the building and under its harsh glow I see it isn’t him after all.
“Sawyer!” A voice calls out, making me jump. A couple is walking behind me, probably the people in that chevy I followed back here, and the guy with the garbage bags—Sawyer, apparently—raises a hand in greeting.
“Jimmy, Renee,” he says. “Good to see you guys.” He tosses the garbage in the dumpster and turns back, his gaze falling on me. His eyes flash with interest—yeah, this is definitely Sawyer, I remember that flirty eyebrow arch from my booth at the fair—and then recognition.
“Nova?” he asks, grinning at me. “That’s your name, right?”
“Uh, yeah.” I give him an awkward wave. “Good to see you again.”
His attention drops down my body in an appreciative way that makes me roll my eyes. He’s so different from his older brother, with Lawson’s intense glances and quiet confidence.
“You here for the music?” He waves again at the couple as they pass, his eyes never leaving mine. “We’ve got a great bluegrass trio from Asheville.” That eyebrow arch again. “Why don’t you let me buy you a drink? We can listen to some tunes, dance a little.”
“Um, maybe another time.” I’m starting to feel like this was a mistake after all.
Lawson could have dealt without a phone for one night.
But it would be weird to leave now, right?
I sigh and hold up the cell phone. “Actually, your brother Lawson was at my tattoo shop today.” It’s not a lie—Lawson had picked me up there before taking me home and ripping my clothes off. “He left this.”
Sawyer’s eyebrows go up, then a knowing grin spreads across his face, making my stomach drop. Fuck, I’m pretty sure he hadn’t bought that part about the tattoo shop at all.
“Sure,” he says smoothly, still smirking.
He holds open the back door and gestures me closer.
“Law’s in the office, I think. Why don’t you go ahead and give it to him.
” His eyebrows waggle and I want to groan.
He couldn’t be any more obvious about what he expects to happen in the office if he tried.
But at least this way I don’t have to go through the front, I tell myself. It would be even more embarrassing to go to the bar and try to track Lawson down with all those people. So, I sigh and follow Sawyer through the door and into a brightly lit back hallway.
“The office is right—”
Before he finishes, a waitress appears at the other end of the hallway. “Sawyer,” she shouts. “The sink is leaking again.”
“Fuck,” he mutters, his knowing smirk replaced by a clearly stressed expression. “You okay to head in yourself?” he asks, already brushing past me to join the waitress. “I gotta take care of this.”
“Um, where—”
“Third door on the left,” he calls over his shoulder, practically sprinting down the hallway. Now that his bar has been mentioned, the guy is all business. “Can’t miss it.”
I take a deep breath and walk to the door. This is fine, good even. I’ll hand off the phone and get out of here. Yes, I’ll have to tell Lawson that his brother recognized me, and maybe he’ll be pissed about that, but there’s not much I can do at this point.
I’ve just raised my hand to knock when I hear something that stops me. A door is partially open a little way down the hall from the office, dim light coming from the crack underneath. That’s not what has me pausing, though. It’s the sound of Lawson’s voice.
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” he says. “Nova and I aren’t together like that.”
My breath catches in my throat. Did he just say my name? Did he just say…I inch down the hall, not sure I want to hear whatever this discussion is, but Lawson’s voice filters out again. “We’ve fucked a few times. No big deal.”
Everything in me freezes. I have no idea who he’s talking to, or why they’re talking about me, but he definitely just said what I think he said.
I peek through the crack in the door. It appears to be a storage room, dimly lit and full of shelves.
Lawson’s back is to me, partially hidden behind a stack of crates.
Whoever he’s talking to is further in the room, out of my line of sight.
There’s a soft murmur, a voice I can’t pick out, and then Lawson again.
“I barely even know her. It was just a bit of fun—sex.” A low laugh that I know comes from him, even though it’s nothing like the softly rumbled chuckles I’ve heard in my bed so many times. This laugh sounds sharp. Cruel. “She’s decent in bed, but beyond that, she doesn’t mean shit to me, man.”
A buzzing noise fills my ears, pain crashing into me.
I actually have to grab the wall at my side to stay up right, the agony is so sharp, bending me at the waist, trying to knock my legs out from under me.
I can’t tell if the people in the storeroom have stopped talking or if I just can’t hear through the whooshing in my ears.
We’ve fucked a few times…no big deal…she doesn’t mean shit to me.
I slap a hand over my mouth to stop the wail that’s trying to rip from my throat. Lawson is in there, saying those things about me. His voice is even, light. He’s not yelling, not upset. He’s saying it all like it’s no big deal, like he’s stating a simple fact.
I barely even know her.
There’s a clatter in the storage room and I jerk away from the wall, the haze of confused pain finally breaking. I have to get out of here. I can’t see him. I can’t look at his face, not now.
I lurch down the hallway, praying that I get away before he comes out. I don’t realize that I went the wrong direction, away from the back door and my car, until I burst through a swinging door into the loud, crowded bar.
So many people, I think in dismay. I want to hide from them, want to disappear. Surely someone will notice me, someone will take one look at my face and realize my heart is being ripped in two.
I shouldn’t be here, in this bar with all these people. With Lawson so close, saying those horrible things. I never should have come here.
Fuck, I should have left this entire state behind weeks ago.
“Are you okay?”
I jerk away from the hand on my arm, startling the woman standing there. She’s wearing a Low Bar t-shirt and a half apron—a waitress. I have no idea if it’s the same one who called Sawyer away.
Fuck, Sawyer. He knows I’m here. My eyes scan the room, praying I don’t see him. The last thing I want is to answer any questions or—
But there he is, standing with the guy who looks just like him—Jonah, his twin.
They’re sitting next to a table with the pretty blond woman from the fair and her little boy.
Ellie and Lucas. That dark haired girl must be the younger sister, Julianna.
She’s gorgeous and she looks happy, laughing at something the man at her side is saying.
I watch as he pulls her onto his lap and she snuggles into his chest. Her fiancé.
I know quite a bit about these people, but they’re still strangers. I can still hear the warmth in Lawson’s voice when he told me about them. But he never wanted to introduce me. Never wanted them to know we were together.
Because you weren’t, you stupid girl.
Another man approaches the table with a waitress in tow, baskets of fries in their hands.
He laughs at something the twins say as he sets down the food, then ruffles Lucas’s hair.
That must be Mac, I think numbly, fresh pain piercing me when he leans across the table to steal a fry from Julianna.
She slaps at his hands, making him laugh.
They look so happy. All of them sitting there together, in this place that they worked so hard to build. They’re comfortable together, laughing and joking.
They look like a family.
Whatever frayed thread that was holding my heart together snaps as I watch them.
I have never had that. I will never have that.
It’s nothing new—I’ve been alone since my mom first chose one of her boyfriends over me, since we left my grandma’s house all those years ago.
I’ve never had a home, never had a family, not like the Barlowes.
But at some point this summer, I started to forget that. I started to think that maybe I didn’t have to be quite so on my own after all. That maybe there was someone out there who could love me, someone that might want to welcome me into his heart, maybe even into his family one day.
I was a fucking idiot.
I turn to the waitress, who’s looking at me like she’s worried I might be about to have a nervous breakdown in the middle of the bar.
You have no idea, lady. I hold up the phone I’m still clutching in my hand.
“This is Lawson’s,” I say, handing it to her.
When she takes it from me, my fingers ache and I realize I was squeezing the damn thing tight enough to turn my knuckles white, like it was some kind of lifeline in the storm of shit I just walked through.
Not anymore. I don’t want to touch Lawson’s phone, don’t want to touch anything of his. I don’t want to stand in his bar or look at his family or hear his low, shiver-inducing voice ever again.
She doesn’t mean shit to me, man.
The woman is still looking at me with that wary expression you give the crazy ranting person on the street. “Can I tell him who dropped it off?”
I shake my head, already turning to go. “Don’t bother.”
Then I walk out of the Low Bar, not looking back at the table of Lawson’s happy family members. None of them know me, after all. I don’t have any connection to anyone in this place, in this town.
I’m alone. Just like I’ve always been. And I won’t ever forget that again.