Chapter 36
brIE
Sawyer hasn’t stopped smiling, and he doesn’t seem to know how to keep his hands to himself. Not that I’ve asked. There hasn’t been one moment this entire weekend when he’s stopped touching me, biting me, crudely inhaling me.
After we showered and made some food, he set blankets up against the couch to read together in front of the fire.
It was all so innocent and sweet. But then he put on his thick-rimmed reading glasses, and I felt that familiar tug of desire.
My gaze kept darting back to the sexy man in glasses next to me, so I angled myself away and lay my head onto his shoulder in an effort to focus on my book.
It became our downfall. I felt as much as heard him take in a deep breath, then watched as his pants tented.
It was like espresso directly into my libido.
The next second, we were making out like our lives depended on it, and a minute after that he was hooking my leg over his shoulder, yanking my shorts to the side, and eating me out like the weight of the world rested on me coming against his mouth.
Saturday, as I hulled strawberries for a snack in the kitchen, dipping one in his homemade whipped cream and popping it in my mouth every so often, he looped his arms around me from behind and began nibbling my neck.
Before long, he was inside me, thrusting from behind.
I dipped my finger in the cream, fed it to him, then sucked his tongue into my mouth, the taste of strawberries and cream mingling between us as he pulled two orgasms from me with expert efficiency.
The rest of Saturday and all of yesterday continued on like that, with us unable to keep our hands off each other.
And last night, the sky was clear, so he brought out the only outdoor chair he owns and set it in the clearing of his yard.
We sat watching the stars, wrapped in a blanket, my legs strewn over his lap, utterly content as our breaths fogged in front of us.
As stars winked, comets soared, and the moon arced closer to the horizon, he caressed my face, giving me deep, gentle kisses until he carried me inside and lay me down.
Now, we bump along the gravel drive and, just before he turns onto the mountain road, he stops and lets go of my hand to engage the brake.
I angle my body toward him.
Before I can ask a question, his hands cradle my jaw, lips on mine as his tongue coaxes my mouth open.
I make a small sound in the back of my throat.
One of his hands moves to my still-damp hair, tugging to angle my face upward.
Heat flutters through me as if this is the first time we’ve kissed, as if we didn’t just spend days holed up in a sex-fueled bubble where nothing else mattered.
After a minute, our lips separate, and he leans his forehead against mine. We watch each other, panting.
“I like you,” he says. “So much.”
I take both his hands in both of mine, kissing each of his knuckles, then lean over the center console to kiss his smooth jaw, the corner of his mouth, his eyebrow.
Because telling him “I like you too” doesn’t feel like enough, I kiss him everywhere I think I might have neglected over the weekend, infusing all the feelings I’m not ready to speak yet into each gesture.
As he drives us over the ridge, the taste of him still on my lips, I suck in a sharp breath at the scene below.
“Wow.” It’s all I have the capacity to say.
Sawyer rests his large hand on my thigh. “Blue Ridge has its faults, but aesthetics isn’t one of them.”
The town is blanketed in white, which happened a few times in my youth, but this is the first time I’ve seen it from this angle.
We’re closer than at his cabin, details starker.
It’s so different. In the fourteen years I’ve been away from Blue Ridge, my memory of it was small and dingy.
Dirty, even. Now, the snowy little town looks idyllic: white, pristine, and peaceful.
It’s breathtaking.
Sawyer reaches over and laces our fingers together. I smile over at him.
Maybe this could work.
But as the mountain road flattens out and makes its seamless transition into United Avenue, an anxious flutter forms in my stomach, like I’ve just swallowed a small hive full of bees.
We have officially reentered the real world.
The brick box that is the school comes into view, and Christopher crashes into my mind. The bees, panicking now, form a bottleneck at my throat trying to escape.
What have I done?
Christopher was just a colleague. Sawyer is the principal of this school and, in the eyes of the town, he’s still the Prince of Blue Ridge.
I’m a substitute for shit’s sake, one no one asked for.
It would take zero paperwork to get rid of me if this thing with Sawyer goes up in flames. Because isn’t it bound to?
This thing is fragile and new, everything that happened between us was isolated from the rest of the world.
How could it possibly stand up under the weight of scrutinizing eyes and whispered words?
And when it crumples, the entire town will probably chase me out themselves, appalled I attempted to sully the good name of their prince.
And unlike Christopher, I actually like Sawyer. A lot. When I leave, it’ll be with a broken heart.
When. Not if. Because Blue Ridge isn’t home.
Completely unaware I’ve been sitting in Sawyer’s car spiraling, my car door opens.
His wide grin only churns my anxiety more as he dips his head to catch my eye.
Guilt worms its way through me. Since my first day here, Sawyer hasn’t asked why I left my old school in such a hurry even though he’s had every right to.
I should tell him.
The embarrassment at my own naiveté at letting Christopher manipulate me and the ensuing meeting with the Everett Academy administration is like a lead weight in my stomach.
He’ll understand. I can trust him.
Heart pounding, I get out of the car. He moves closer, resting his hand on my hip and kisses me deeply. It unfocuses my mind for a second, and I sigh into him. My back hits the truck and his hips are flush against mine as my hands curl around his neck.
The rusty creak of the external school door pierces the air.
As if I haven’t already experienced every emotion this morning in flashing technicolor, adrenaline rushes through my blood stream.
My hands come up and with one forceful shove, Sawyer is off me, and we’re both breathing hard enough that it’s painfully audible.
“Professional,” I huff. “I want to be professional.”
His hand goes to the back of his neck and he nods, eyes dimming. “Whatever you want.”
He thinks this is about him. My stomach churns.
There are two choices: I can keep on like this, tell him I want to be professional without giving him any context. Or, I can tell him about Christopher, every mortifying, humiliating detail.
An image of Sawyer in his cabin solidifies in my mind, red eyes blinking rapidly as he relived the ghosts of his past in an effort to be honest with me, apologized for actions provoked by pressure too complicated for a child to parse on his own.
I don’t know what it took to do that. The thought of revealing my own deeply-buried traumas, even to Sawyer, is like injecting ice straight into my veins.
Telling him about Christopher is cake by comparison.
I swallow.
Be brave.
Stepping forward, I say, “Sawyer?”
His eyes search mine. “Yeah?”
I open my mouth when Tess’s voice cuts in. “Hey, guys!”
Her grin is wide as her sparkling eyes travel from my face to Sawyer’s.
Licking my lips, I open my mouth again, but this time Senora Martinez’s tinny voice comes through the loud speaker by the alcove to the door. “Principal Strong, you’re needed in the main office. Principal Strong, you’re needed in the main office.” Then, “Sawyer, you’re three minutes late.”
“We’ll talk later?” Sawyer asks, concern painted over his face.
I inhale, and when I let it out, I put on my teacher-smile. “Yes. I will talk to you later.”
Tess is already at the teachers’ lounge when I arrive for lunch. The tornado that ensues after a long unplanned break made it impossible for us to have a conversation this morning, which is why I spent the last few hours spiraling about what, exactly, to tell her.
When she notices me at the door, she prances toward me.
“What did I witness this morning?” she asks. “Because I’m pretty sure it looked like you and Sawyer were . . . touching. Like, in a kissing sort of way.”
“What?!” My voice is three octaves too high.
She shrugs. “Before you pushed him away.”
I wish there was a shark tank somewhere in Blue Ridge that I could throw myself into, it would be less painful than this. This isn’t how the rumors about me started at Everett Academy, but it’s close enough.
But Tess wouldn’t betray me like that, would she? As far as I can tell, no one’s heard about me making out with Funny Bunny in my classroom.
Knowing this, and how Tess shared with me about her ex, I sense a connection with her I’m not used to. It’s enough to consider telling her everything. About my history with Sawyer, his confession at his cabin, my worries that I’m repeating history.
I almost do it. I open my mouth, the words in my throat.
But I quickly swallow them down, the enormity of what happened at the cabin comes crashing down on me like an avalanche for the hundredth time today.
I, Brie Casey, social pariah and generally deplored citizen, slept with Sawyer Strong, beloved principal and town treasure. Sure, he may have paved his own path in the eyes of his dad, but the town doesn’t know that. They all still adore him.
Tess watches me expectantly.
“Um,” I blather as I walk to the microwave.
I pull out my lunch, leftovers Sawyer and I cooked together yesterday, and an errant thought hits me: I wonder if he’s eating his right now. An ache forms in my chest, and it takes me a second to realize what it is. I miss him.
Focus, I tell myself. This is how I’ve operated all morning, and it’s driving me insane. If I’m not anxious over him then I’m missing him.
Tess tips her head up and shows me her palms. “Look, if you don’t want to tell me, that’s really okay.”
I’m simultaneously touched and guilt-ridden. Tess understands better than most my desire to keep parts of myself under lock and key.
“But,” she goes on, “I’m not dumb. It seems like you and Sawyer are a thing now even though you swore it’d never happen.”
I press my lips together because, as much as I hate to admit it, this is different than when she caught us in the classroom. I still hated him then. Now, my chest inflates at how it felt just this morning to wake up with his body wrapped around mine and his lips on my hair.
She pulls me to the table. I automatically sit down.
“This is Blue Ridge,” she says, not unkindly. “People are going to know about it. Heck, people probably already know about it if you drove past a single soul on your way in together.”
Once again, the magnitude of it all weighs down on me.
I didn’t see the thing with Christopher coming at all.
I was naive and got caught out. The smart thing for me to do here is to cut things off with Sawyer completely.
Say, That was fun while it lasted, and be done with it.
But I can’t do that. Just the thought of it has my heart writhing in discomfort, my gut twisting.
I’ve never experienced with anyone else what I experienced with Sawyer these past few days, and I want more. More of it, more of him, more of us.
How do I do that and maintain some modicum of professionalism?
Even though I haven’t said a word, Tess keeps talking as if she can read my mind. “I’m not trying to burst your bubble. I just want to reset your expectations if you think you can keep something secret in this town.”
I drop my head to the table, already imagining the phone tree alight with news of Sawyer shacking up with the likes of me.
I have to tell him about Christopher. It’s the only way he’ll understand why I need to remain professional at school. Even if we can’t hide it.
Tess prods the top of my head. “It’s alright,” she soothes. “Sawyer really is a good guy.”
“Ms. Casey?”
I lift my head to find a fifth grader I recognize as one of the front office helpers.
Putting on a smile, I say, “Hi, Jorge.”
“I have this for you.” He hands me a folded note, then waves and leaves.
Holding my breath, I unfold the note. In Sawyer’s sharp handwriting, there are four words.
My office. After pickup.
I look up, sure Tess can hear my heart’s deafening thumps.
Her overly nonchalant face tells me she read the note.
And that’s how I spend the next few hours spiraling. Again.