Sawyer Says

by Carey Heywood

  “What’s so funny?” he asks, nuzzling into my neck.

  I trace my hand up his thigh and feel him twitch inside me. ”You never even took off your jeans.”

  He presses wet kisses up my neck to my ear. His hands move to the hem of my shirt. His lips only stop touching my neck as he pulls my shirt off me. I arch my back as the rough pads of his thumbs stroke my nipples. He reaches back to push the coffee table away from the sofa and lies down, pulling me with him.

  “If this is turning into round two, you’re wearing too much.” I laugh and tug at his shirt.

  He leaves me for a minute to undress and toss the used condom. When he returns, he’s naked and gloriously hard. I know this is just sex, but his body may be ruining me for anyone else.

  “Do you ever sleep with more than one person at a time?”

  I tilt my head. “Like a threesome?”

  Jared shakes his head. “Like what we’re doing.”

  “Oh.” I think about it. “Not really. Once it stops being fun, I move on.”

  He lowers himself onto me. “Things aren’t supposed to be fun all the time.”

  “Why not?” I ask, trailing my hands up his arms to his shoulders.

  His weight feels delicious on me, a pleasant pressure that covers me. His skin is warm against mine. I don’t want to talk. I want to feel. I capture his lips with mine, ending any more discussion. Afterward, I pluck my plate from the coffee table and rest it on his chest to finish my dinner. If he’s annoyed, he doesn’t show it.

  “Are you still thinking about going to see that Jase guy?” Jared asks, rinsing his plate.

  He passes it to me, and I load it into the dishwasher. “Maybe. Now that Sarah’s wedding is all done, I feel like I’m just bumming around. I need to do something.”

  “What happened to that yoga place?” He passes me a glass.

  “It won’t open for another couple months. The contractor can email me if anything comes up.”

  It’s my little project, my own studio. The space is simple. It’s the end unit of a strip mall fifteen minutes from the condo. I’m having the space sectioned off into three areas, a large room for yoga classes and two smaller rooms, one for a masseuse, another for facials. I plan on teaching the basic yoga class a few times a week and already have some friends lined up to cover the rest. There isn’t really anything I can do there right now, so why not get out of Dodge?

  I pause, glass in hand, and lean against the counter. “Do you want to go?”

  He cuts off the water. “It’s kind of my peak season.”

  I place the glass in the top rack and close the dishwasher. “Of course. Silly of me to ask.”

  I start to walk away, but he stops me. “Let me check at work tomorrow.”

  “No big deal,” I add.

  He turns me so I’m facing him and lifts my chin. “I’d like to go with you. Let me see what I can do.”

  I nod, regretting even mentioning it. If we aren’t careful, we might trick ourselves into thinking what we have is something when it isn’t. I don’t want him to become attached to an idea that will never happen. I’m comfortable, I’m familiar, I’m awesome, and he’s still getting over all that bullshit with his ex. I have no illusions that he’s actually interested in me. That’s not how this works. This is sex.

  I didn’t really need to check with anyone at work; I make the schedule. It would just be a dick move to leave them hanging when it’s busy. As long as there are people willing to cover without bitching about it, I’ll go. Am I being jealous? Yes. I don’t care if this Jase dude is already with someone else.

  We haven’t discussed what we’re doing. I sure as fuck don’t want to push her. I’ve known her long enough to know what will happen if I do. She’ll bail. I don’t know where she’ll go, but she’ll take off. I’m on to her, though, as long as I don’t do anything stupid.

  I swap my beginner lesson with Carl for his intermediate group. I need a couple trips down the mountain to clear my head. It’s early, and it snowed a bit last night. I like it this way, before it’s all packed down and cut up from other people’s boards and skis.

  Besides, this early on a weekday, it’s not as busy. I don’t have to watch out for other people. The slope is mine. I’m looking for speed. I want my heart racing and my brain only focused on not wiping out. I ease up as I near the bottom. There are some posers grouped up at the bottom of the hill. Idiots. That’s a stupid place to stand and chat.

  I swoop past them. “Move,” I growl, laughing when they jump.

  Teenagers, they have an almost empty mountain to shred and they’re just standing around doing nothing. I shake my head; just like I did nothing for years, even though I wanted Sawyer for myself.

  “Do you even still want me to come?”

  I giggle at Jared’s question considering our current location. He has me bent over the vanity in my bathroom. I know he’s talking about Fiji, but he did just say come while he was inside me. He groans and pulls my hips back hard.

  Afterward, I answer, “I wouldn’t have asked if I hadn’t meant it.”

  He hesitates, like he doesn’t believe me.

  “Look, Jared. I don’t get why this seems confusing for you. If you want to come, come. If you don’t, well…don’t.”

  His eyes meet mine in the mirror. “I think I should stay here.” He trails his fingertip down my spine, making my knees shake, and walks out of the room.

  My mouth drops as I watch him leave. What just happened? Does he want me to beg him to go? That isn’t ever going to happen, ever. It’s as if he doesn’t even know me. I throw on some yoga pants and a t-shirt and think about calling Sarah. I decide not to. This is stupid. This right here is exactly why I don’t date. All it does is complicate shit. He doesn’t want to go that’s his fucking problem. Who the fuck doesn’t want to go to Fiji?

  I open my laptop to email Jase when I notice a new unread one from my grandmother’s attorney. I open it without a second thought to learn my only living relative on the planet, my grandmother, has died. I push my computer away from me and have to consider if I actually feel anything about it. Do I have any emotion knowing she has died?

  Not finding any, I pull the computer back and finish reading the email. He is the executer of her estate, but as her sole heir, he needs me to go to New Hampshire and clean out her house. There goes Fiji. I open an internet browser and buy a ticket.

  “I didn’t mean it.”

  I look up to see Jared standing in my doorway. “You didn’t mean what?”

  “I want to go with you, if you still want me to.”

  I snap my laptop shut and pull my knees up to my chest. “Trip’s off. My grandmother died. I have to go to New Hampshire to clean out her house.”

  He crosses the room and pulls me into his arms, his mouth in my hair. “I’m so sorry, Sawyer.”

  I pull away and slide off my bed. He trails after me as I hurry into the kitchen. “I barely knew her.”

  I pull a beer out of the fridge. I hand it to him to open. Then I take a healthy gulp after he hands it back to me.

  “I don’t remember you mentioning her.” He pulls another beer out for himself.

  “She’s the reason we met,” I say after another drink. “She didn’t want a kid so she conned your mom into watching me.”

  “You know my mom loves you,” Jared says, rubbing my arm.

  I raise my beer. “Come on. Don’t you know? Everyone loves me,” I pause, “except for her.”

  He pulls me against him, and this time I don’t fight it. Why do I even care?

  “I’ll go with you.”

  I pull back and look at him. “You don’t have to.”

  He tucks my head back under his chin. “Shut up, Sawyer.”

  Three days later, we pull up to my grandmother’s house in Hanover, New Hampshire. It’s a sprawling three-story Victorian with a widow’s walk.

  “Here we are,” I say, stating the obvious.

  I let Jared carry our bag
s while I search for the hidden key the lawyer promised would be hidden under a potted plant. He failed to mention there were fifteen potted plants on the front porch. Jared holds the screen door open for me while I introduce the key to the lock. It appears as though they have not previously met.

  The house is exactly as I remember it, shocking given the two days total I had spent there almost fourteen years ago. As if the déjà vu wasn’t already powerful enough, the smell really did it. It still smelt like Old English furniture polish and stale potpourri.

  I grab my bag and head upstairs. Jared is right behind me. I take the front guest room and have him put his luggage in the room across from the hall bath. He pauses by my door before moving forward to his room.

  I drop my bag and follow him. “Want to order a pizza for dinner or run to the grocery store tonight?”

  He falls back onto the double bed. The springs groan loudly. “Pizza sounds good.”

  I hit his foot. “Are you going to nap? Come on. Let’s check out the place.”

  He makes a production of getting up before following me downstairs. My grandmother, my father’s mother, hadn’t been a hoarder, but she also hadn’t followed the whole minimalist approach to design. Each room was full of antique, New England style wooden furniture. The stuff you see on Antiques Roadshow, not my style at all. I’ve held on to a few silly keepsakes over the years. Otherwise, I’m all clean lines and uncluttered spaces.

  I walk around from room to room on the main floor. I have no clue what I’m going to do with all of this stuff. I don’t even know if she has anything of my dad’s.

  Jared follows me. “What’s the game plan?”

  I lean in closer to check the signature on a painting in the living room. “The lawyer gave me the number of an appraiser and an auction house that can handle the pricing and selling of everything. I’m just supposed to go through the house first to see if there is anything I want.”

  “Do you want any of the furniture?” he asks, running his hand across the back of a dining room chair.

  “I don’t know. It all feels too grown up for me. I wonder if I should ask Sarah if she wants any of it.” I mimic his movement and run my hand across the back of the chair opposite of him. “It seems well made.”

  “Want me to text her while you look through stuff?” He reaches for his phone.

  “Sure. I’m going to look around some more. Can you order the pizza too?”

  I walk away before he answers.

  Room by room, I wander through her house.

  She never wanted me. Why should I want any of her stuff?

  The main floor is made up of six rooms: a parlor, a formal dining room, the kitchen, a library, a breakfast room, and a den that had been converted into a first floor master at some point over the years. The breakfast room is easy. There isn’t much in it. I figure it can be the place in the house where I put anything I might want.

  Going through everything in the library is daunting, with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves on three of the four walls. The fourth wall is devoted to a large picture window that overlooks the front drive. There aren’t just books on the shelves but little knick-knacks here and there as well. Some of the books look old, like first edition old.

  “Whoa,” I hear.

  I turn to watch Jared walk in. “I know, right? There’s no way I can go through everything.”

  He walks between the overstuffed armchairs to come stand by me; he gives my hand a squeeze. “You got me. We’ll just go shelf by shelf until the pizza gets here.”

  As much as I love books, while knowledge is power and all that, I don’t have the space for a library of them. Besides, with the exception of some keepsakes, including an oversized monkey I seriously need to donate to Goodwill, I don’t have many possessions. I like the idea of taking off with all of my earthly possessions in a bag. I’m not crazy about being too tied down to anything. My condo is a big deal, owning something. It seemed less of a big deal when Sarah split the cost with me, like it was just an overpriced apartment.

  Now that I’ve gotten used to that, I’m branching out with the yoga studio. That feels like a commitment because people are depending on me. With the condo, if I had to bail, Sarah would have been cool about it. The place is paid off now, so even if I left, Jared wouldn’t need me to live there. The studio is different. It’s in a strip mall. I can’t buy the space. I just lease it. I’m tied to a monthly commitment and employees. I could probably hire someone to do that. I just haven’t been able to.

  I’m lost in my thoughts when Jared clears his throat. “I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you.”

  He holds a book up, his eyes cautious. “Dude, I think I found your dad’s high school yearbook.”

  I rush over to him, eyes wide. I sink right to the rug-covered floor with the book in my hand, and Jared sits with me. The book is bound in navy blue leather and wide gold letters across the front and spine: Hanover High School, 1979.

  “I think he graduated in ’79,” I say, flipping to the senior class and looking for his name, Henry Sterling.

  My fingers ghost over his face when I find him staring back at me with teenage eyes. He was handsome and popular, guessing from the number of signatures crowding each page. He was on his way to Dartmouth, where he would meet my mom his junior year. Dartmouth was practically in his backyard. For my mom, it was an ocean away.

  She was Dutch, studying abroad. I seemed to get all my physical traits from her. I am naturally blonde, with pale blue eyes, and petite like her. My father was tall and broad with dark brown hair and eyes.

  Sometimes I wonder if I had looked more like him, would my grandmother have kept me. It didn’t matter anymore, though. You can’t go back. You can’t become too attached. When the doorbell rings, Jared leaves to pay for the pizza. I go to the shelf he had been looking at to see if there are any other yearbooks. When I see that there aren’t any others, I take this one into the breakfast room and set it on the table. I want this.

  “Do you want to eat in here or in the library?” Jared asks, putting a slice for me onto a plate.

  “Here’s good. Thanks for taking care of the pizza.” I stand on my toes and kiss his cheek when I grab my plate.

  “You can pay me back later,” he replies in a way that tells me he isn’t talking about money.

  Once we’re done eating, we work in the library until I’m too tired to stand. Jared carries me upstairs. His lips on my neck revive me. Apparently, I have a debt to pay.

  The next morning, I wake blanketed by Jared. I’m surprised I slept so well. I usually like my space when I sleep. For some reason, last night doesn’t bug me. I take the opportunity to watch him as he sleeps; his face is so close to mine. I reach up and trace the scar that runs just to the side of his left eye. When he was fifteen, he had been jumped by some older kids at his school and was hit in the face with a board. He was in the hospital for three days. His dad pulled him out and homeschooled him after that happened.

  I wonder about him, how he’s so good at taking hurdles in stride. This time last year, he was married with a baby on the way. How does that not affect him? My pondering is interrupted when his weight shifts in a way for me to make my escape. The bathroom is my first stop before I head downstairs to make some tea. I poke around the kitchen thinking about what we’ll need from the grocery store. I’m halfheartedly making a list when Jared walks in.

  “Tea?” I ask, standing.

  He nods before lifting his arm and yawning into his elbow. “Dude, I’m beat. We didn’t even stay up that late.”

  I arch a brow over my shoulder. “I wore you out?” I ask, joking.

  He comes up behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist as I turn the stove on to heat the kettle. “You must have.”

  After the tea, he takes a shower, and I call Sarah back. She had offered to come up and help, but I know Will would probably come too and then it would feel couple-y, and I don’t want that. I don’t want Sarah giving me a look every time Jared does somet
hing sweet around me. That is something coupled up people don’t get about wanting to be single. They don’t understand that some people actually want to be single.

  Even if I ever end up in something long term with someone, I don’t want to get married. What’s the point? A piece of paper that holds some sort of magic claim that it will last forever or until death. I’d believe it more if the divorce rate weren’t so high.

  Either way, she knows Jared and I are having sex. I don’t need her getting any ideas that it’s more than what it is. I catch her up on what we’re doing here and ask her if they need any furniture. She seems interested in the dining room set and mentions Jared had texted last night but forgot to send a picture.

  She asks again if I need her to come up. When I tell her it’s cool because Jared is here, she gets very quiet. This, right now, is what I was trying to avoid in person. She thinks something is up. I tell her again that it’s not. When I hear the water from Jared’s shower shut off, I end the call. I take and text her a pic of the dining room set on my way upstairs.

  He’s standing in the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist while he shaves.

  “I like you scruffy,” I say, coming up behind him and laying my cheek on his warm back.

  “I’d look stupid if I stopped now,” he replies as he keeps going.

  I stay there in a standing-lean on him. I feel the muscles of his back lift and fall as he moves his arms. That and the lingering steam of his shower relax me. I feel like going back to bed, but there is still so much for us to do. When I don’t feel the muscles move in his back for a minute, I lift my head. He turns, pulling me flush to him.

  “I should shower,” I say, not moving.

  “Want me to get you all dirty first?” he asks, his hands gripping my ass.

  My hands move to his towel and I unwrap him, letting it fall to the floor. I’m not opposed to bathroom sex but don’t stop him when he picks me up and carries me back to my room.