10. Sawyer
SAWYER
Ienjoy getting under Raven’s skin. Only a few tasks into this project, and I’m already dreading the day it’s over.
I’m desperate for more time with her. To prove to her and myself that I can be what she needs.
Plus, the pencil wizard is the coolest fucking kid, and I really want to impress him. And his mom.
Maybe I’m a masochist, but I would endure anything Raven wanted to put me through.
I spent ten years married to a woman who did nothing but criticize my every move.
Nothing was ever good enough. At first I went above and beyond to show her my worth, but once I realized I was never going to please Jocelyn, I stopped trying.
I worked long hours in a high-stress job, and when I came home, all I wanted to do was relax, something that is nearly impossible with kids, especially when one of those kids has ADHD and never stops moving.
It’s not like I expected my ex-wife to do all the cooking, cleaning, and child-rearing—I contributed in all of those departments.
But Jocelyn was insistent on everything being fifty-fifty at all times, and there were days when my brain or body couldn’t give one more thing.
If she cooked, I had to immediately do the dishes.
Sometimes I wanted to sit down and digest my meal, and I’d get to the dishes eventually.
That wasn’t good enough for Jocelyn. If I didn’t do everything her way on her time frame, I was a bad husband.
And after years of her telling me how awful a husband I was, I started to believe it.
What was wrong with me that I couldn’t just do the things she wanted me to do?
We had different ideas of what marriage should look like.
I wanted a partner. Someone who would carry me when I couldn’t go on and someone I could support when they needed it.
Some days the burden might be split evenly, but other days one person may carry more than the other.
It would even out in the end. But Jocelyn wanted it even every single day.
We tried to make it work, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t give her what she wanted. And that failure haunts me every day.
I poured myself into being the best father I could be, which only seemed to piss off Jocelyn more.
Our co-parenting relationship has been tenuous for all six years of its existence.
It doesn’t help that we share the kids every other day during the week and every other weekend.
Some weeks I get the kids for three days, others four, and I can never seem to keep up with the schedule, so I’ve had to make myself a dozen reminders on my calendar.
I’d suggested we do every other week, but that didn’t mesh with Jocelyn’s work schedule.
And this renovation is gonna be tricky since I’ll need to bring the kids with me in order to stay on Raven’s timeline. Luckily, our kids are already friends.
Once I finish ripping out the drywall, I measure the opening for the doorframes. I’ve really got to focus on the task before me, but my mind tends to drift down rabbit holes.
Fuck, it’s hot up here. I throw back the last of my lemonade and realize I need to pee, but I’ve turned the water off to the upstairs bathrooms. I head down the stairs to the half bath near Raven’s office.
All that liquid is running through me as I shuffle, trying to tug my pants and boxers down, but the sweat is making it difficult. Why do I always wait till it’s an emergency to pee?
As soon as my ass hits the seat, I know I’m fucked. My balls land on something solid, and before I can stop it, pee streams out of my dick. I can’t make sense of what’s happening. Did I forget to lift the lid? I look down and can clearly see the water beneath me.
“Shit! Fuck. No!” I scream as I grab my dick and try to point it down, but there’s a plastic layer preventing that from happening. What the fuck? Did someone wrap this toilet in… “Raven!”
Her muffled laugh sounds from behind the bathroom door. “Did you forget how toilets work?”
Pee is still going everywhere. She’s pumped me so full of water and lemonade that I can’t stop the stream.
I look around, desperate for a towel or something to catch the liquid, but there’s nothing.
Before I can think better of it, I make a fist and punch the plastic between my legs, clipping my left testicle in the process.
I let out a guttural wail as I try to break through the plastic, but it’s no use. Is this industrial-strength cellophane? I manage to make a dent in the plastic wrap, creating a bowl, and I point my dick into it, filling it quickly.
“Need any help in there?”
“Did you wrap the toilet in plastic wrap?”
“Did you pretend that Tic Tacs were your teeth?”
Touché. Even though my pants are covered in pee, along with the floor, I can’t help but laugh.
She probably expects me to get mad or yell, but it’s just a little pee.
Or a lot of pee. Either way, it’s fixable.
I have a boy with ADHD who can’t sit still long enough to pee in a toilet without making a mess.
I know how to clean a bathroom, and sitting down to pee normally makes that easier.
“I hope you have some towels to clean this up with.”
The door opens and shuts so quickly, I barely have time to catch the roll of paper towels hurled at me. “Cleaner is under the sink.”
Once I clean up my mess, I emerge from the bathroom holding my soiled pants. By some miracle, my boxers remained dry.
“Where are your pants?” a voice snaps from behind me.
I whip around and flash Raven a smile. “They got wet during your little prank. Mind if I do a quick load of laundry?”
“Help yourself.” She motions for me to follow her. I start the washer and head towards the stairs when her voice stops me. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“I need to finish the demo before Jonah gets home. I still need to cut some lumber to frame the door, and the saw is loud.”
“You’re not going back to work dressed like Pooh.”
My face scrunches. “Pooh?”
“Winnie the Pooh.” She points to my lower half. “You know, because he only wore clothes on his top half.”
“And because of my belly?” I lift my shirt and wiggle it and don’t miss the way her eyes track the movement. Is she actually attracted to my stomach? I figured she was just fucking with me earlier.
“That’s not what I meant. I didn’t make that connection. Pooh is pantsless. You’re pantsless. That’s all I meant.” Her eyes roam down to my exposed legs, and I revel in the way she’s drinking me in. Does she know how hard she’s staring? “You can’t work like that. It’s—”
“Distracting?” I finish for her.
“A safety issue.” My chest deflates a little. Did I read her leering incorrectly? “I still have some of Kris’s old pants. I moved them to this house for storage.”
I think Kris is her late husband, but I lift an eyebrow and wait for her to share more.
She motions for me to follow her to her room.
She’s done a lot to the space since I was last in here.
“I like what you’ve done with the place.
All the pillows.” I gesture around awkwardly. “Not sure about the candles, though.”
Her head spins to look at me. “I’m not lighting them. I learned that lesson. They’re purely decorative.” She doesn’t look at me as she speaks while digging through boxes in her closet.
“So who’s Kris?” I ask, swinging my arms as I try to dispel my nervous energy.
“Kris was my husband. He died about two years ago. But he was thinner than you. And shorter. And into men.”
I nearly choke on my saliva as I cough. “Come again?”
Her head shoots up. “I can’t believe I told you that. Forget I told you that.” She thrusts a pair of gray sweatpants at me.
I hold up the comically small pants. I’m a large man, and there’s no way my thighs will squeeze into these, but I sit on the bed, pulling them on. When I stand to tug them up the rest of the way, they get stuck on my thighs. Raven chuckles behind me.
“I don’t think those fit.”
“Ya think?”
“Here, let me help.”
The second her hand slips between the elastic and my skin, my dick twitches, thinking it’s go time. She manages to get them up another inch and gestures for me to turn around. And I do, gladly. I do a lot of squats, so my ass is probably my best feature.
“Holy shit. How do you fit that thing in normal pants?” She tugs the elastic up until it’s resting right under my ass.
I swear on my life if she touches my ass I might come in my pants.
“Well, I don’t think these fit you.” She backs away from me, and while I instantly miss her warmth, I don’t think my dick could have taken much more.
I look at my watch. “We’ve got two hours before the bus drops all the kids off. I should be able to finish cutting wood by then, but I’m gonna have to Pooh Bear it.”
“All the kids? Are your kids coming here?”
“Yeah, it’s my day with them. I figured it’d be easier than me stopping to go get them. They’ll come here, then we can get out of your hair if you want.”
“No. If Tommy is coming, Jonah will want him to stay. If he leaves, it may cause a meltdown.”
“Sorry, I can be kind of impulsive sometimes. I shoulda checked with you.”
“We’ll figure it out. Maybe it’ll motivate Jonah to do his homework.” She looks me up and down. “So what’s the plan?” There’s an edge to her tone that makes the hair on my neck stand.
“What do you mean? For the kids?”
“No, the plan. For all this.” She waves her hands in the air like I’m supposed to know what she’s referring to.
“For the renovation?”
She starts pacing. “For everything. I need a plan. I need to know what’s coming and what to expect. I gave you a list of things that need to be done, and you keep flitting from room to room, starting projects and not finishing them. It’s chaos. I need to know what to expect.”
It clicks. “Because it helps you know how to prepare?”
“People assume I’m controlling, and I won’t say that’s never the case, but knowing what to expect is necessary, otherwise my anxiety is on high alert. Structure and routine help calm the chaos.”
“What happens when the plan derails?”
“That’s fine. Once I know the plan, my brain has already whipped up dozens of contingency plans.”
“And when you’re calm, you can keep Jonah calm.”
Her eyes soften, and she nods.
“How about this? I’m gonna finish cutting two-by-fours so I can put up the saw before the kids get here. I can help them with homework, and then there are a few kid-friendly tasks they can help me with so you can keep writing.”
She blinks slowly. “You’re going to manage four kids by yourself?”
“You don’t think I can?”
“What about the rest of this project? What’s the plan?”
“I’ll come over on my off days and work on the loud parts while the kids are at school. Barring any major fires that pull me away, I can come over after my shifts end, and I’ll text you beforehand to give you a heads-up.”
“How long do you think all this will take?”
“I should be able to finish everything by Halloween.”
“So six more weeks of being inconvenienced,” she says softly as if she’s talking to herself. “And the pranks?”
I grin. “What about them?”
“They need to stop.”
“Sorry, RJ said—”
“My brother is a meddling idiot.”
“Funny. He said the same thing about you minus the idiot part.”
“Look, I appreciate a good prank, but between the house, managing two kids, and my deadlines, I don’t have the bandwidth right now to deal with pranks and the planning and cleanup they entail.”
“If you think my pranking skills are superior, you can just say that.” I flash her a smile and enjoy the way her eyes linger on my lips a little too long.
Her responding laugh comes out as a snort, and she rolls her eyes, walking off with me trailing behind her. I really enjoy getting a reaction out of her, and I’m determined to spend the next six weeks getting as many as I can.