Chapter 41 Sawyer
FORTY-ONE
Sawyer
I didn’t know where her head was at. Hell, I wasn’t even sure where mine was.
So, I soaked it up and let myself have this—her—while I still could and hoped I wouldn’t hate myself when she inevitably walked away.
She was sprawled across my chest, asleep, hair sticking to her skin, still warm and flushed. It was just after nine in the morning now, but neither of us had moved much since we fell asleep a few hours ago.
I brushed her back lazily and leaned in.
“Hey,” I murmured.
She groaned, her eyes still shut. “Sleep.”
I grinned. “What if I told you I brought the journal?”
Her eyes snapped open. “You didn’t.”
I shrugged. “Figured after almost getting arrested, it wouldn’t hurt to bend the rules. It’s safer here. No chance of us breaking and entering again.”
She sat up, the sheet slipping dangerously low. “You could’ve mentioned that earlier.”
I smirked. “What, when you were too drunk to remember your own name? Or maybe when you were too busy riding my f—”
She slapped a hand over my mouth, her cheeks flushed. “Sawyer.”
I laughed under her palm, and she pulled it away. “Suddenly shy, are you?”
“Asshole,” she muttered.
I got up, grabbed the journal from my drawer, and held it just out of reach.
“One page,” I warned.
She looked up, her eyes bright. “Yes, sir.”
“Careful, El.” My voice came out rougher than I meant it. “Or I’ll occupy you in other ways.”
But I gave her the journal anyway, because I already knew I wouldn’t say no to her. She smiled at me and flipped it open.
I can’t stop noticing him. The way he moves through the kitchen. The way the drawer slams when he’s angry, like it’s meant to remind me I’m not safe.
Sometimes, he doesn’t even look at me when he speaks, but I flinch anyway. I’ve done things I shouldn’t have. Things that would make this worse if he ever realized.
I keep my son close. I whisper nonsense to him, sing a silly song, make him laugh, anything to keep him from noticing. He shouldn’t see it. He can’t.
I try to tell myself it’s nothing, that I’m just tired, but it isn’t nothing. Every step I take feels like it matters too much. Every pause, every glance, every snap of a cupboard handle makes me feel small and pinned.
I stay quiet. I smile when I have to. I do what I need to. But the fear is getting heavier, like the walls are closing in, and I don’t know how much longer I can keep breathing.
She was quiet for a beat then nodded and went back to the pages. “He was definitely suspicious.”
“Yeah.” I rubbed a hand down my face.
“Maybe…” Her fingers curled tighter around the journal. “That’s what pushed him over the edge. This definitely wasn’t an accident. Why didn’t the real father come back? And who is he?”
I sat up straighter. “I don’t know. Maybe he got scared too. She said before that he needed more time.”
Ellie’s thumb rubbed the corner of a page, thoughtful. “You think the real dad’s still alive?”
“I mean, even back then, he could be anyone between, what? Twenty and maybe forty, realistically. We don’t know anything about him. It’s possible he’s still out there somewhere.”
I watched her reread a line again and again, like she was trying to memorize it.
“You okay?” I asked.
She exhaled, slow and uneven. “I don’t know. It’s just… She kept it all inside, as if the second she told the truth, it’d get her killed. Except it wasn’t her who died.”
I nodded.
“This whole time, we’ve been treating it like a mystery,” she went on, her voice quieter. “Like a puzzle to solve. But this wasn’t just clues in a journal. She was begging someone to hear her.”
I leaned forward, elbows on my knees. “You want to stop?”
“No,” she said quickly. “I want to keep going. I just…” She closed the journal and held it against her chest. “For once, I’m ready to put this down for a moment instead of wishing we could read another page.”
“Yeah…I’ve got to start getting ready soon anyway.”
She blinked, like the shift in topic caught her off guard. “Right. The game.”
“Yup. NFC Championship today.”
She sat back a little, as if she was recalibrating. “Is this the furthest you’ve ever gotten?”
“Yeah.”
She squeezed my arm. “How are you feeling?”
“Excited, mostly.” I let out a breath. “We’ve made it this far before, but we’ve never pulled it off. This is my last shot.”
“You’ve got this.” She leaned in to press a quick kiss to my cheek.
But I wasn’t in the mood for quick. I caught the back of her neck and pulled her closer. Her lips met mine, and her hand pressed into my chest. She leaned in without hesitation, and for a moment, it was just her, me, and the way we fit together.
The game, the noise, everything else—it didn’t matter. Not with her here, letting me take a little more. For a second, I let myself imagine I could have both: her and the win.
But I knew I wasn’t that lucky.
I eased back, though it took more effort than I cared to admit.
“My family’s coming today,” I said. “They’ve got an extra ticket. You should come.”
She blinked. “Wait, really?”
“Yeah. I would’ve asked you before, but I figured you wanted a little space.”
She nodded with a shy smile. “You want me to come through?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“They’re not gonna think it’s weird?”
“Ellie, they already think we’re dating. Plus, they love you.”
“Well…” Her mouth pulled into the start of a smile. “I don’t have a show until the day after tomorrow.”
“See? Meant to be.”
Her smile grew. “Okay. I’m in.”
An hour later, Ellie was in my passenger seat, looking like the cutest fucking thing I had ever seen, all decked out in my jersey. The wind tangled her hair as she flicked through my phone, skipping songs like she had a personal vendetta against every single one of them.
After another abrupt skip, I shot her a look. “You know, most people pick a song and stick with it.”
Her eyes stayed glued to the screen. “Most people don’t have to survive your playlists.”
That pulled a laugh out of me.
“Survive?” I shook my head, easing the car around the curve. “Baby, you were singing every word five minutes ago.”
She finally looked over. Her eyes sparkled with a smug tilt of her lips that I could feel in my damn chest.
“Desperate times,” she said. “Your playlists are either me or a man crying about his truck and the girl who dumped him.”
“Nothing wrong with that.”
She flicked through another song, and I glanced over, giving her a look.
Her tone went sweet—too sweet. “Eyes on the road, Sawyer.”
I obeyed but not before catching the glint in her eye.
“Good boy.”
Dammit, I already wanted to fuck her again.
Eventually, she finally settled on Anywhere but Here by Ruby Lynn Hayes. The road stretched out ahead of us, and her foot bounced in time with the beat.
She caught me staring and smirked, like she knew exactly what she was doing to me. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?” I asked, even though we both knew.
“Like you’re about to pull this truck over and make us late.”
I dragged my gaze back to the road. “Not my fault you look like that.”
She laughed, low and throaty, before kicking her feet up on the dash.
“God, you’re shameless,” she muttered. “We both know you really, really wanted me to wear this.”
“What I really want is to fuck you wearing only that.”
She hummed, a teasing little sound that ran straight down to my dick. “I could be down for that.”
Fuck. She was just sitting there, wearing my name on her back and smiling as if she was unaware of the storm she’d caused in my heart.
“At least you don’t have to go out there and fake being my girlfriend now,” I said, my voice low and rough.
Her grin grew wider. “Oh yeah?”
My fingers curled around the wheel, holding steady because every other part of me wasn’t. “Mhm.”
She bit her lip, barely holding back a laugh. She kept her eyes on me, chin tilted just enough to make it impossible to look away.
I swallowed hard, eyes dragging over her that smug look she got when she knew she’d won.
She did. She already fucking did.