7. Knox
Knox
She’s not yelling at me to go home.
Shocking, but it’s something. A breadcrumb that I’ll savor like a meal.
I keep reminding myself of that as I follow her off the train and up the steps into the heart of Midtown.
After everything I told her, I can’t believe she didn’t tell me to go the hell home.
All I got were those two words. I know. Then the train stopped and she picked up her purse and stood when the doors opened, sidling past me and not checking behind to see if I was following.
Of course I was.
I’m still behind her now, half a step back, watching her navigate the sidewalk, sidestepping pedestrians and tourists. Turning to look in store windows or glance up at street signs.
Her hips sway in that tight skirt, taunting me with every step.
We’re heading west, that much I know. She seems like she has a destination in mind. Or maybe she just wants to keep up this facade of determination. Either way, I’m right there with her.
After a crosswalk, I fall into step beside her.
She doesn’t acknowledge me, just keeps moving, eyes forward, chin up.
The city surrounds us, swallowing us whole.
It’s hard to focus on my thoughts with the blaring horns and music bleeding from open doorways.
With people everywhere—talking, laughing, or just weaving through traffic like water around a riverbend.
Neither of us speak for blocks.
This is the most time I’ve had with her in weeks. I’m not going to waste it by opening my big fucking mouth before I have something worth saying.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. There’s no way I’m answering whoever the hell it is.
It keeps going. Buzzing again and again until I silence it without looking.
Sawyer glances at my jacket pocket, then back at the sidewalk. If she has anything to say, she’s keeping it to herself.
We pass a couple arguing outside a restaurant and I watch her turn her head ever so slightly toward them. I wonder what she’s thinking. If she’s remembering a time she argued with my brother. Or maybe she’s thinking about me?
I hope it’s me.
My phone buzzes again. Jesus Christ.
“You can answer it,” she says, not looking at me.
“I know.” But I silence it again.
She shakes her head and makes a sound like a laugh but not her real laugh. The one that could wake my frozen limbs. Pull me back from the dead. No. This laugh is her disapproving of my bullshit. But it’s something other than silence so I’ll take it.
Three blocks later, she stops in front of a little restaurant—more like a pub, I think—studying the menu in the window.
A couple walks out, letting the scent of greasy bar food waft through the door. My stomach growls loud enough that I’d bet she could hear.
“When did you last eat?” I ask.
“Today.”
“What did you eat?”
She doesn’t answer, which is its own answer.
“Sawyer?”
“I’m not hungry, Knox.”
I let it go…for now, but there may be a food truck hot dog in my near future.
We keep moving and I fall back half a step again, letting her lead the way. From back here, all I can see is her ass in that skirt, and I’m not the only one. Some creep next to me is staring at her, so I quickly fill the space between us, blocking his view.
And God, I want to wrap my hands around her waist. Pull her against me. Skim my lips over the sensitive spots on her neck until her breath catches.
Her in that skirt could be used to get me to spill international secrets. The way the slit opens with every stride, a flash of her thigh catching the light from passing windows. She has no idea what she’s doing to me. Or maybe she does and is enjoying herself.
I’m so fucked.
She stops at a crosswalk, waiting for the light, and I step up beside her, taking the time to study her. Noticing small changes since the last time I was able to get this close.
Her cheeks are pinker and her summer freckles are lining the bridge of her nose. She changed her nose ring out too. It’s not a hoop anymore, but a small diamond stud.
A cab leans on its horn somewhere behind us and Sawyer flinches, grabbing my hand.
“I’ve got you,” I say.
But I shouldn’t have opened my mouth, because she realizes what she’s done and drops my hand immediately.
The light changes and Sawyer steps off the curb. I follow her uptown, hands in my pockets to keep myself from reaching for her.
Once we get past some of the main tourist areas, the sidewalk traffic thins and I breathe easier. My mind wanders to the last time I was here. A simpler time when I came in to meet an old high school friend going to school here.
It was purely for me. For fun. No agenda. No stress.
Before my father destroyed my life and a roller coaster took away any ounce of fight I had left.
She ducks under the scaffolding on the next block, shoes thudding against the metal plates, and I watch her tilt her head back to look up at the building above us.
I don’t know what she sees. I’m too busy looking at the curve of her neck and the way her cropped shirt rides up, showing her perfect smooth skin.
We round the corner onto Central Park West and she stops walking so abruptly, I almost slam into her. I follow her eyeline and there it is. The museum, lit up against the dark sky, the steps empty, the place locked up for the night.
She stands there, taking it in. It’s subtle but her expression softens. That neutral mask she’s been wearing all night slips and I know why.
She starts walking again toward the steps and I follow. There’s a pressure behind my eyes when I look up at the place. An ache that feels like gravity pushing down on me harder than normal.
We climb to the middle landing and she sits, smoothing her skirt over her knees as best she can, but that slit doesn’t cover much. I sit beside her, breathing her in. Trying to keep from pushing too hard, too soon.
She looks out at the park across the street, messing with the zipper on her purse. And my gaze stays fixed on her.
I wait quietly.
I’m happy to just sit beside her while memories play through her mind.
“Owen really committed to that bit.” She says it so softly I almost don’t hear her.
Something loosens in my chest. I had a feeling she was thinking about that day. “He charged that family thirty dollars for the tour.”
Her head turns toward me. “Was it that much?”
“Yup. Thirty bucks cash. Told them it was a donation for the museum foundation.”
She stares at me for a second and then she laughs. Her real laugh this time. The one I haven’t heard in so long, it almost knocks me sideways. “That was a good day.”
“Yeah,” I say. It really was.
Me, Owen, and Sawyer wandering the museum for hours on my birthday before collapsing on a park bench eating pretzels and picking which bars we wanted to try to get into. I had just turned twenty, they were seniors. The day was almost perfect…would have been better if it were just me and Sawyer.
Then my buddies from my school took the train down, none of us managed to get into any bars, and we rode the last train home, exhausted in the best way.
Sawyer pulls her knees up, wrapping her arms around them. “Owen was so proud of himself for keeping up the ruse.” She shakes her head, lost in thought. “Remember how happy that guy at the park was when he gave him the money?”
“Of course.”
Owen wasn’t a total shit…at least not then. He may have taken money from a family of tourists, but he gave it to an unhoused man who needed it.
“He was so much fun that day,” she says. “That’s the thing that gets me. He could be so genuinely good. I think he pulled it out of us too. I mean, look at us now.”
“Yeah.” I breathe out. “Maybe he did.”
She turns her head to look at me. “Did you have a good birthday? I always wondered since we kind of hijacked it. Then there were the bar fiascos and everything.”
The question catches me off guard. I don’t know why. “It was the best one I had in years.”
She holds my gaze for a second, then looks back out at the park. “I wish I could separate it…who he was from what he did. Keep the good parts and just make the rest stay hidden.” She exhales. “But it doesn’t work like that.”
I know she’s not only talking about Owen.
“No.” I think about all the things I wish I could forget. All the good parts I want to hold onto before saying. “It really doesn’t.”
She nods and adjusts her skirt, keeping her eyes straight ahead.
It’s a comfortable silence, but I already miss the sound of her voice.
“I’m starving,” she finally says.
“I know a diner.” I stand up before she can change her mind.
We head south for a few blocks while I hope the place I have in mind is still in business all these years later.
It’s the perfect place for comfort food, just like the diner we always went to during our summers on the lake.
Fluorescent lighting, rotating pie case, walls covered in framed photos of past patrons, and sticky vinyl booths.
“There it is,” I tell Sawyer, nodding my head toward the sign across the street. “Jean’s Place.”
“You sure we won’t leave clutching our stomachs and searching for the nearest open bathroom?”
“Is any diner ever a sure thing?”
She smirks but heads toward the crosswalk. A bell jingles when we push through the door. A waitress with a silver braid down her back and a waist apron smudged in ketchup barely looks up from the coffee she’s pouring. “Sit anywhere, hon.”
The place is a ghost town and it has me reconsidering whether or not we’ll leave here with food poisoning.
We slide into a corner booth with small tears in the vinyl anyway.
Sawyer picks up the laminated menu and I watch her eyes move down it.
She flips through each page, reading carefully, before starting from the beginning again.
“You know you want chicken fingers,” I say.
Her brows scrunch and she leans in, elbows on the table. “Maybe I’ve changed.”
I keep my gaze locked with hers. She won’t admit that I know her almost as well as she knows herself. Fuck, maybe more. She’d rather sit here and let me believe otherwise than give me that.
I flag down the waitress as she passes by, Sawyer watching me with interest. “Good evening,” I glance at her name tag, “Sally. Can we please get two chocolate milkshakes, chicken fingers with fries, and a grilled cheese? Oh, and extra honey mustard.”
Sally jots it all down on her pad before glancing down at Sawyer. “Anything for you, hon?”
Sawyer looks at the menu, barely, then sighs. “No, thank you. What he said is fine.”
Sally heads toward the kitchen and I keep my mouth shut. I don’t even look at her. It’s unnatural and I hate it.
“Not a word,” Sawyer says.
“I haven’t said anything.”
“You’re thinking it…loudly.”
I laugh, and lean closer, hoping she doesn’t smack me. Or maybe hoping she does. “So now you can read my mind, Thorne?”
“When it comes to you being a smug prick…yes, I can.” She settles back against the booth, putting some distance between us.
“Kinda like how I can read your mind when you’re being a spoiled princess brat.”
Fuck. It slipped out.
She blinks then laughs, mouth open in surprise like she didn’t mean to let it out. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
“Spoiled princess brat. That’s what you’ve got?”
“It’s accurate.”
“That’s rich coming from the person who sulked for an entire summer because Owen got the bigger bedroom.”
“That never happened.” I fold my arms across my chest, not breaking eye contact.
She mirrors me, folding her own arms and lifting her chin. “It absolutely happened. Owen and I were eight. It was when your parents bought the lake house.”
“I was ten, so I remember better.”
Sawyer raises an eyebrow, staying quiet. The blender starts whirring, probably Sally making our milkshakes. Sawyer doesn’t have to try to talk over it. Her expression says enough.
I hold out for another five seconds. “That bedroom had a window seat.”
“Fucking knew it,” she says, before bursting out laughing. Her whole face lights up, and the sound lands deep in my chest.
When she notices me watching her, she packs it away, forcing herself back into that neutral box. But hell, I’ll take what I’ve gotten so far.
“To be fair, a window seat is a completely legitimate thing to sulk about when your favorite thing to do is read.”
“And I’m the princess?” She shakes her head, letting a small smile slip out. “Such an ass.”
Sally arrives with our milkshakes, passing them to us along with thick straws wrapped in paper. The food comes out a few minutes later. Sawyer wraps both hands around her milkshake, taking a long pull from the straw, closing her eyes for a second.
Her lips have my thoughts automatically going to a place they shouldn’t be. I focus on my sandwich.
We eat quietly, but now it feels like a different kind of quiet than the train. Easier, not by much but something changed after we sat on those museum steps and talked about old times. She hasn’t gone back to how it was before yet, so I’ll hold on while I can.
I’m on my last bite of grilled cheese, contemplating a slice of pie, when my phone buzzes in my pocket. Sawyer looks up from her plate, waiting to see if I answer it.
I pretend I don’t hear it.
“If I get some apple pie, will you eat some?” I ask, changing the subject.
She reads me like a book. “You can answer your phone. I really don’t care.”
“Nah, I’m good,” I say. “About that pie—”
It buzzes again.
Fucking hell.
I pull it out and feel everything I just ate sink in my gut like lead. Vince Moretti’s name is lit up on my screen. Sawyer’s eyes move from the screen to my face. Her expression mirrors how I feel.
“Ella’s dad?” she asks. “You should answer.”
I stare at it, hoping the fucking phone will evaporate into thin air.
It stops but starts again seconds later.
Sawyer sets down what’s left of her chicken finger and sits back, fidgeting with her fork.
Our easy quiet, the spell that this diner cast over us, is already gone.
I don’t have to say a word to her to know.
I breathe out and steel myself, then hit answer. “Hello, Vince.”