by London Casey
“You’re a fucking hustler, Tate,” I said.
“It’s what I do,” Tate said. “But I wasn’t done talking.” Tate put a finger to my chest. “You came back for two things, you said. You’re here, Sawyer. The shop is here. You can do anything you want with it. Except change what I’ve built. But you wanted to get Kate back.”
“I’ve already seen her. A bunch of times.”
“At the diner.”
“Yeah. So?”
“You really think it’s that easy? You think time just stood still when you left?”
“What does that mean? Were you the comforting best friend, Tate? Huh? You get yourself a little pity fuck here and there? Is that what this is?”
Tate smirked again. “I’m not giving you the satisfaction of answering that question. But you should go talk to her. Outside the diner. I can tell you where she lives.”
“Right,” I said. “For the record, the plans for expansion are smart and should be moving forward faster with each day. We can scout the best talent in the country and bring them in. I don’t care if we have a shop of guys and women that float in and out. Bring in the best, pay them a shit ton of cash, and watch the people flock.”
“Already there, Sawyer.”
“But the reality television shit… no way.”
“It’s good money.”
“So is being the last person to sell your building to a builder willing to pay whatever you want. Whatever money you need to make this happen, I can pay.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Tate said. “You’re putting up cash to buy your way back?”
“Tate,” I said, grabbing his shoulder. “I’m fucking back. Cash or no cash. This is my business. My name is on the neon lights. And from the day this idea hit, I brought you in and we wanted to run with it. I don’t need to buy my way into anything. I’m just being real. Which is what I’ve always been. Yeah, maybe taking off wasn’t the smartest thing I’ve ever done. But I needed to do it. And I’ll face whatever consequences that wait for me.”
“You do that, Sawyer.” He shook my hand away. “Hey, where are you staying?”
“Motel,” I said.
“That shit hole outside of town used for sex?”
“Yeah. It’s a little noisy at night.”
“Christ. Get your shit and crash at my place.”
I laughed. “Are we friends again, Tate?”
“Fuck off, Sawyer. Go see Kate and see where that shakes out. And feel free to crash at my place if you don’t want to catch some kind of disease over at that motel.”
“I’m going to find a place soon,” I said. “I’m here to stay, brother.”
“Right,” Tate said.
I watched the look on his face. Cocky prick knew something I didn’t and figured I was going to take off again.
It would take something really crazy to make me leave town again.
4.
When I realized where I was going, my heart sank a little. Back in the day, this area was called the dump. It’s where all the druggies and burnouts hung out and lived together, got high together, and died together. The cops did their best to clean shit up though. Developers tried to come in and buy up the area to put in fancy apartments but it never went through. So it was always a give and take relationship in this part of town. I fucking hated the idea of Kate living here. Whether it was cleaned up or not, she deserved better than this. She deserved a nice house with a yard on a quiet street. Where neighbors knew each other, talked, helped, and planned out stupid shit like yard sales and summer picnics and Christmas cookie exchanges and all that grown up life shit.
I pulled into the apartment complex and shook my head. The exterior of the building looked like shit. But that was every building down here. At least it was quiet though. Back in the day you’d come down here and there would be groups of people everywhere. Dealers on the corners, whistling notes and offering deals to see and taste the stars. Women walking around half naked, looking for a night of comfort in exchange for a few bucks.
It was different now. Everything was different.
I climbed off my motorcycle and went into the building. It smelled like wet dust. The stone walls were cracked, the paint peeling off in chunks. I went up to the second floor and stopped outside the door that Tate said to. Maybe he was setting me up to get my ass kicked by someone else who wanted to get back at me.
I meant what I said when I told Tate I was back to reclaim my shop and Kate’s heart. I wasn’t going to let love slip through my fingers again. Not that I ever stopped loving her. There was nobody else like Kate. From the day I met her up that moment when I knocked on the door.
She was the only one that got to me. She was the only one who could hurt my heart. She was the only one that made my heart race the way it did as I stood there, waiting for her to open the door.
When the door opened, the look on her face was priceless.
Her eyes wide with surprise and her mouth slowly falling open.
“Hey, darling,” I whispered. “Sorry to show up like this.”
Her mouth hung open.
I reached forward and gently put two fingers under her chin and closed her mouth.
“There, darling,” I said. “You okay?”
“What happened to your face?” she asked.
I forgot about my fight with Tate. That’s another thing Kate did to me. She made me forget about pain… unless she was the one causing it.
“Oh, nothing,” I said.
“Nothing? You’re bleeding.”
I touched my lip. “Shit. Yeah, I am.”
“What happened?”
“Tate,” I said. “We had… uh… a business meeting.”
“Jesus, another business meeting?” Kate asked. She swallowed hard. “It’s like stepping back in time.”
“No, darling, it’s not like that at all,” I said. “It’s today. Tonight. Right here. Right now.”
“Fucking Tate,” she said. “I’m going to kill him.”
“No you’re not. I came back for two things, Kate. My shop. And you.”
I reached for her and she shot her hand out and put it to my chest. “No. It doesn’t work that way, Sawyer.”
“Then how does it work? Because I’m not going anywhere. We can talk about today. Years ago. Whatever you want, darling. That’s why I’m here.”
“Sawyer, this isn’t a good time,” she said. “Seriously. You have no idea…”
I looked beyond her and into the small apartment. “What is it? You have a guy in bed?”
“Seriously?”
“What? You have a boyfriend? You and Tate together? What?”
“Stop it,” she said. “I’m not doing this right now.”
“At least talk to me for a minute, Kate. Give me a minute to talk to you. Not at the fucking diner. Not while you’re running around. Just you and me. For a minute.”
“Fine,” she said.
She stepped toward me, exiting the apartment.
Her perfect body was just inches from mine. Wearing pajama bottoms and a too big t-shirt, yet I could see all the right curves in the all the right places showing through. She was dressed for bed and it was driving me fucking crazy.
“You still keep your hair pulled back, huh?” I asked.
“What?” Kate asked, reaching for her hair. “That’s what you want to talk about?”
I smiled. “You know I loved it when you would let your hair down.”
“Sawyer…”
“Right. Sorry. I’m not here to talk about how beautiful you look. How you actually look prettier than I remembered.”
Kate turned her head and sighed. She could play it off but I saw the way her cheeks turned red.
I smiled. “Look. I don’t know where anything is supposed to go here, Kate. We let so much stuff build up between us that I can’t even figure out what drove us apart. I can stand here and apologize to you for hours if you want. We hurt each other, darling. The night I left, everything just exploded at once. Tat
e wanted to move the business in a different direction. He was talking to people behind my back. He was making deals and shit. I felt cut out.”
“You cut yourself out, Sawyer. From the business. Tate. Me.”
“I know that,” I said.
“All you did was drink and pick fights.”
I inched closer to her. I could smell her sweet skin. The smell of her soap and shampoo tempting me.
“To be fair, darling, you did the same thing to me.”
She swallowed hard and looked at me, nodding. “I know I did. All we did was hurt each other, Sawyer. We took cheap shots. I goaded you into beating people up. I messed with your head. You messed with mine.”
“Remember the night we went on a double date… well… you went out with that loser from the auto shop. What was his name? Wrenchy?”
“Ronnie,” Kate whispered.
“Yeah. I took out that stripper.”
“Snowflake?” Kate asked.
“Sarah,” I said with a grin. “We did everything to make each other jealous. Everything, darling. And then we ended up in the women’s bathroom, fucking each other senseless. Your hands clawing at my shirt as I pinned you against the stall. Unable to control ourselves.”
“I was there,” she said.
“And now I’m here.”
“And now you want to take me into a bathroom, Sawyer?”
“That’s one option,” I said.
Kate put a hand to my chest again and pushed. “Please. I don’t know who you think I am. I’m not that person anymore.”
“That’s okay. We have time, Kate.”
“Time for what?”
“To start over. To make everything right again. To figure out what the hell went wrong and never do that again.”
“Here’s a start. Don’t fucking leave.”
Her voice was stern yet broken.
Tears filled her eyes.
I hated when she cried.
“Darling, I’m not going to leave,” I said. “What happened before was wrong. I’ll take the brunt of that. Okay? But now…”
I realized what I was doing. The one thing I swore I’d never do or become.
Weak.
I swallowed the rest of the bullshit words and rubbed my jaw.
I looked down at Kate again.
Sometimes words mattered and sometimes words just got in the way.
I gently placed my hands to her hips and pushed her back until she hit the wall outside the apartment. Her hands reached up and touched my arms.
I saw the look on her face. Desperation. Fear. Exactly what I expected from her.
“Oh… shit…”
She whispered those two words as my lips closed in on hers.
I kissed her softly at first, savoring the taste of her lips. A familiar feeling and taste, my lips forever memorized her years ago. I pulled away for a second and kissed her again. And again. And again. Each time I kissed her, I breathed harder, kissed her harder, our mouths opening at the same time, our tongues tangling with all the words we could have said and should have said. My grip on her hips tightened as I pressed my body against hers. She dug her fingers into my arms, hesitating on whether to pull me closer or push me away for good.
My hands started to inch up, following the lines of her curves.
That’s when she made a fast move and grabbed my wrists.
She turned her head, groaning as she tried to catch her breath.
I didn’t stop though. My lips needed her. My tongue craved the taste of her skin. A lifelong addiction that had been quiet for years was now alive again.
I kissed her neck, the smoothness of her skin driving my hard body crazy.
“Sawyer… Saint… please…”
She was whispering with a moan that echoed in the hallway.
“Fuck,” I growled as I let my teeth scrape along her skin.
With my right hand I reached for the door and shoved it open. I pushed her with my left hand, putting her back in the doorway to her own apartment. I stepped toward her and had one foot in the apartment when she stopped me.
“Wait,” Kate said in a breathless voice. “Wait… please…”
I pulled back a little and gritted my teeth. “Kate. Whatever it is…”
“You don’t get it,” she whispered.
“What don’t I get?” I asked.
Instead of answering, she jumped at me to kiss me again.
Well… fuck…
I slipped my hands to the small of her back and stepped forward. I was inside her apartment now. Ready to scoop her up and find my way to her bedroom. Pick up where we left off, starting with the one thing we never fought about and the one thing that meant so much between us.
I felt Kate hesitating again, pushing at me.
The kiss broke with a loud sound.
I growled as she touched her lips.
“Sawyer… I’m…”
“Mommy?”
I heard the little voice and did a double take.
I stepped to the side and saw a young kid standing in the hallway next to the living room. He was rubbing his eyes, wearing dinosaur pajamas, holding a dinosaur toy.
When I looked at Kate again, a stray tear fell from her eye. “Sawyer…”
“You have a kid,” I said. “Holy shit, Kate. You have a kid.”
“I have to go,” she said. “You have to go.”
I stepped back as Kate shut the door and locked it.
I lifted my hand, ready to knock on the door. I wanted some damn answers about this. Before I could hit the door, I thought about the little kid’s face. Tired. Confused. Shuffling out of his room to see his mother with some guy.
“Shit,” I whispered.
Last thing I wanted to do was scare a little kid.
But something was obvious…
Me and Kate were far from being done hurting each other.
TWELVE
KATE
1.
I let Jason sleep in my bed. The only time I allowed him to do that was when he was sick. But tonight, well, I was the one that needed him. He didn’t ask anything about Sawyer being there. He woke up from a bad dream and just needed to know I was there and everything was okay.
He slept and I sat up in bed, looking down at him.
I wasn’t even sure if crying was an option.
I wasn’t sure how to handle the Sawyer situation. Him just showing up and showing up to the diner and wanting to be sexy and flirty. That was fine. That was one thing. But showing up to my apartment… and I let myself slip. I let myself fall back into the past as we kissed.
But the kiss was so good. It was what I remembered and what comforted me.
Truthfully, I wished he was still there with me. So I could tell him everything that had happened while he was gone. Tell him everything about Jason. What Sawyer saw and what he thought were probably two different things.
I reached across the bed and touched Jason’s hair.
I lowered my head and felt my heart twisting and aching.
I should have taken off when Sawyer did. Gotten out of Hundred Falls Valley and away from the world of St. Skin. But I didn’t leave. I stayed with the hopes that Sawyer would come back. Everything in my life was put on hold because I believed in my heart that Sawyer would return.
But he never came back. And the pain and confusion of losing him was replaced with the responsibility of Jason. He became the number one person in my life to care for. I wouldn’t change it though. I loved Jason with all my heart and promised to make sure he had the best life I could provide. The last thing I needed was the storm called Sawyer to enter his life and cause any problems. Stepping on my heart was one thing. But stepping on Jason’s was something else. That’s why I shut the door and locked it on Sawyer when he saw Jason. I knew there were conversations that needed to happen, but it wasn’t time yet.
I wasn’t ready yet.
I was afraid when Sawyer knew the truth, he’d leave - this time for good.
2.
At least I knew Jason was okay for the next few hours.
I got into my car and considered going to the diner. To be a customer, not an employee. Yes, I was that person, on her day off, still wanting to go into work. If anything, I should have been using my days off from the diner to help Maggie with her business. Then eventually work for her. And to work for St. Skin. Make actual money that could take me and Jason from the apartment and into a decent house.
I skipped the diner and just went back home.
It was a good day to relax on the couch and forget about life for a few minutes.
Only that wasn’t in the cards for me.
The second I saw the motorcycle, I knew it was Sawyer’s. My heart skipped a beat and my breath caught in my throat. I could have kept driving and just avoided him. Or maybe swing by St. Skin to tattoo the word asshole across Tate’s forehead for telling Sawyer where I lived. But Tate meant well. He always meant well. That was part of his own downfall. Forever believing the fate between me and Sawyer. And yet Sawyer had this notion from time to time that me and Tate were having a thing or had a thing. Yes, Tate had been there for me after Sawyer left. Big shocker - I hugged Tate several times. I slept in his arms more than once, crying myself to sleep. On his couch. And, yes, there were even a couple times we shared a bed.
But my heart was forever loyal to Sawyer. It was almost like being cursed.
Cursed to love him.
I parked my car and went inside to face Sawyer.
I found him on the second floor of the apartment building, pacing back and forth like an animal at the zoo desperate for an escape.
“Sawyer,” I said, getting his attention.
He stopped instantly and looked at me. “Kate.”
I swallowed hard.
I felt the color leave my face.
I saw his lip curl.
And he asked the most obvious question.
“Is that kid mine?”