Nights at Seaside

by Addison Cole

  He steeled himself against her words, as he’d done with Roach so many times in the past. “My parents need this win, Sky.”

  Her voice trembled as she reached for his hand. “And I need you. We’ve just found each other, Sawyer. You could have been injured for life today, and what’s worse is that you knew this was a risk. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because it’s the same crap they’ve been saying for years, Sky. They say it to everyone.”

  “It sure didn’t seem that way, Sawyer.” Her voice escalated. “Even Roach doesn’t want you to fight. I can see it in his eyes.”

  “I’m fighting, Sky.”

  “Don’t you care about us at all? Don’t you care about your family? What about all that talk about a future? Was that all bull? You just decided to write with your father so you would have something with him for the future. The future, Sawyer. Remember how much you wanted that?” She pushed away from the bed and paced, her arms crossed over her chest as tears fell from her eyes.

  “Of course I want a future with you. But I’m a fighter, Sky. It’s who I am.”

  She stopped pacing and leveled him with a cold, teary-eyed stare. “You told me that fighting was what you did, not who you are.”

  “I was wrong. I have one thing to give to my parents. And this is it.”

  “Then you need to make a choice, Sawyer, because I love you too much to sit back and watch you suffer brain damage because of some jerk who hits you upside the head on your way out of the ring—or worse, to watch you die.”

  “How can you ask me to choose between loving you and my father’s well-being? My parents’ entire future?” Anger brewed in his gut, for the brutality of the illness his father faced and the unfairness of the battle he and Sky were having.

  “I’m not asking you to choose between me and your father. I’m asking you to love yourself enough to want to live a whole life, with all of your cognitive functions intact.” She sucked in a breath through her tears. “And to have faith that together we’ll find another way to make ends meet for your father’s medical bills.”

  “Sky, you gave up your life to help your father get through rehab. You gave up your friends, your job, your apartment, and you moved back here to run his business. How can you not understand this?”

  “It’s different! I couldn’t have died helping him.” She was trembling so badly that he wanted to wrap her in his arms and make the pain go away—make the decisions go away. He wanted to reverse time to before he got hit in the head and pretend everything was just fine and that the doctor’s warning didn’t exist.

  He’d pretended so well for so long.

  “Sky.” His voice was a thin thread as he tried to rein in his anger.

  “No. No more Skys, Sawyer. I love you too much for this. I lost my mother to something she had no control over. You’re losing your father to a fate that’s out of his hands. Your fate—our fate—is in your hands. You once said that you didn’t want to leave our future to chance. Well, Sawyer, that’s what you’re doing. If you don’t love yourself, or us, enough to do what it takes to save yourself, then we have nothing left to talk about.” She spun on her heel and walked out the door.

  “Sky!” he called after her as he rose to his feet to go after her, but the room spun around him. He gripped the edge of the bed for stability, trying to make sense of what had just happened. He lifted his eyes to the door, and the room continued to spin. One step sent him off-balance, and he fell to his knees on the cold floor. His head and chest ached like never before. The ache of a broken heart, it turned out, was all consuming and ten times as bad as any punch could ever be.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “SKY, IT’S BEEN two days. You have to do something,” Bella urged. “Call him. Go see him. At least talk to him.”

  She and the girls were sitting on Bella’s deck having breakfast, as they’d been doing for weeks—only it no longer felt as wonderful as it had just a few days ago, when Sky knew that any moment Sawyer would come jogging around the bend with Tony, Pete, or Caden. Over the last two days Sawyer had called her a number of times, asking to see her, but when she’d asked if he was still going to fight, he’d said he had to. They were at a standstill. She refused to see him and had even put her phone away, because if she had to see his picture on the screen when he called, or look into his eyes and see his love for her, the love she knew he had in his heart, she’d give in. And giving in meant opening a door to his getting hurt irreparably—and she couldn’t do that to him or to herself.

  “I can’t,” Sky said softly. “I’ve thought about it, and it’s not fair of me to come between him and his parents’ future. Sawyer was right about that, but darn it…” She swallowed past the thickening in her throat, which seemed ever-present since she’d stormed out of the hospital. “He said he wanted a future with me, but he’s not willing to protect that future. I just can’t. I don’t know what to do.”

  Amy leaned over and hugged her. “Honey, you’re sure about what the doctor said?”

  Sky leveled a narrow-eyed stare on Amy. They’d asked her the same question a hundred times. She wasn’t an idiot. She’d heard the doctor loud and clear. “The problem isn’t what I heard the doctor say, Amy. The problem is what Sawyer didn’t say.”

  “You are truly between a rock and a hard place.” Jenna held up her palm, as if she were weighing something. “Over here is his need to win that fight for his dad.” She held up her other palm. “And over here is your relationship. How can he choose? Could you choose?”

  Sky pushed away from the table. “I don’t know, okay? The only thing I know is that I love him. I love him with every ounce of my soul—and when you love someone that much, you don’t do something that might tear you away from them. And he’s doing just that, which means he doesn’t love me the same way I love him.”

  “Sky.” Bella’s voice turned serious. “Aren’t you doing the same thing by walking away?”

  She wiped tears from her eyes. “Whose side are you on?”

  “I’m just saying that there’s no right answer. That’s his father. He loves him, and he loves you. How can the guy choose?”

  “I. Don’t. Know! I realize it makes me selfish to ask him to protect himself in this instance. I get that. I’m selfish, fine, whatever. I love him, Bella, and my heart tells me that something else can be done to get that money. There has to be another way. He wouldn’t even consider the possibility of other options. There are other options. There has to be. Loans, other jobs, whatever.” She stormed off the deck.

  “I’m sorry. I’m a mess and not at all rational right now. I don’t mean to yell at you guys, so I’m going to leave and go to work, where I can take out my frustrations on cleaning, or painting, or bury my heart in a tattoo.”

  “Why don’t you take the day off?” Amy suggested. “We can hang out at the pool and relax.”

  Sky glanced down at the pool, and the memories of making love with Sawyer before going skinny-dipping with the girls came rushing back.

  “I think I need to be alone, but thanks for the offer.”

  By midafternoon Sky had rearranged her shop, given three customers tattoos, and thought about Sawyer every single second. She couldn’t shake the feeling that Bella was right. By walking away, she had done the same thing he was doing. She’d walked out on them. Ended their relationship. Torn them apart. But was that her fault? Did she have any other choice? Maybe she should wait it out. Pretend he wasn’t fighting that one last fight and then go see him when it was over.

  If he wasn’t brain damaged—or worse.

  She couldn’t go a minute without thinking about him. How could she pretend he wasn’t risking his life in a fight? And why should she have to? Shouldn’t he love her—himself, his family—enough to want to remain healthy and cognitively aware?

  He does love his family. That’s why he’s fighting.

  Even her own brain was making her crazy. She walked outside and inhaled the fresh air, hoping to clear her he
ad. People of all ages walked through the streets laughing and talking, carrying shopping bags, eating ice cream, and holding hands. A month ago she’d have been just fine chatting with people as they passed by the shop, but now? Now she wanted to cry just watching people enjoy what she’d never have with Sawyer.

  She tried to distract herself from the pain by tallying what she still had.

  I finally own my own tattoo shop.

  I have a great apartment.

  Great friends.

  A wonderful, loving family.

  She glanced in the window of Lizzie’s store and saw her talking with Blue. She’d been hoping they’d start dating, but now she almost wished they wouldn’t. She didn’t want either of them to ever go through the pain she was going through.

  “How is my favorite tatty girl?”

  Sky turned at the sound of Marcus’s happy voice. He was dressed as Marcus today, in a pair of dark cargo shorts and a yellow tank top, his hair brushed away from his face and not a speck of makeup on his clean-shaven face. His eyes rolled over her face, and his smile turned to a grim line.

  “Oh, my, sugar.” He opened his arms and pulled her into a hug. “You look like someone stole your tattoo guns. Let Marcus make it all better.” He patted her back, and when he drew away and searched her eyes, it was all she could do to keep from crying. “Come.” He pulled her down to the stoop in front of the shop and sat with one arm around her, the other holding her hand in his. “Tell me all about it.”

  “I’m fine,” she lied.

  “You are fine, as in hot, but this.” He used his index finger and drew circles in front of her face. “This is not fine. This is I’ve given up on even trying to look fine. I smell trouble with Mr. Sawyer.”

  Sky exhaled and dropped her eyes. She couldn’t talk about Sawyer, because if she did, those tears she’d been holding back would break free, and that was the last thing she needed.

  “Marcus, can I ask you a really unfair question?”

  He narrowed his eyes and tilted his head. “Doesn’t everyone?”

  She knew that Marcus and many of the drag queens around Provincetown were asked tactless questions by inquisitive tourists.

  “This is really unfair, and you don’t have to answer me, but I don’t know how else to figure this out.” She met his gaze and took another shaky breath before asking, “If Howie had opted not to get treatment for his cancer, how would that have made you feel?”

  Marcus shifted his eyes away, and now it was his turn to take a deep breath. “You don’t pull any punches, do you, sugar?”

  “I’m sorry. You don’t have to answer.”

  “It’s okay. If it’ll help you, I’ll tell you. Howie and I actually talked about this a lot. When we were in the thick of his illness, I couldn’t imagine him not getting treatment. We fought over that, because he had done his research, and he knew that even with treatment, his life wasn’t going to be a life at all. It was going to be time between treatments, most of which was spent sleeping, or fighting skin infections due to radiation, or bouts of nausea.” Marcus swallowed hard. “I know he went through the treatments because I needed him to.”

  “Do you regret asking him to?” she asked, trying to figure out her own feelings.

  “Those treatments gave me Howie for another two years, and even if those years weren’t the best years of our lives, it was two solid years of holding him. Kissing him. Caring for him. Loving him while he was still here with me.”

  “But? I hear a but.”

  “But I knew from the start that he didn’t really want to go out of this world that way, and I still live with the guilt of that decision.” His eyes dampened, and he rested his head on Sky’s shoulder. “Maybe it would have been better, or kinder, to have let him die on his own terms. To leave me sooner. I just loved him too much to honor what he really wanted. I’m not sure there’s a right answer. Either way I lost the only man I’ve ever loved, but I do know this. Whether he had died after a month or two years, I did everything within my power to treasure every second of the time we had. And I’m glad I did, because I’ve known love, Sky, by the most remarkable man who has ever lived. He showed me enough love in those days to fill my soul for a lifetime. I was just gluttonous. I wanted more.”

  He lifted his head from her shoulder and looked at her. “What is this all about, Sky?”

  She shook her head, unable to answer. Did she love Sawyer too much? Should she be happy for whatever time they had together and not worry about the future? She knew the ache of losing someone she loved. Her mother had left a hole so vast she thought she’d be navigating around it her whole life. She lifted her eyes to the alley across the street, remembering the first night she and Sawyer had gone out and the way he’d waved and run back to get her phone number. That was when things had begun to change—the ache of losing her mother had started to subside. Sawyer had begun filling that great abyss.

  What about the immense hole he’d leave behind?

  Could she survive losing Sawyer?

  Reality hit her a moment later.

  I’m already losing him.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  SKY PRESSED SAWYER’S speed-dial number for the third time as she drove down Route 6 toward his house with her heart thundering in her chest. His voicemail picked up again, and she left another message.

  “It’s me. I’m sorry for walking out and not taking your calls. I want to talk. Call me?” She ended the call and set the phone on the passenger seat. Sawyer had left her five messages apologizing and asking her to please return his calls. The sixth message had cut Sky to her core. Sky, how am I supposed to just walk away from us? I no longer know how to be me without you.

  She drove off the exit in Truro and navigated the narrow streets to the private sandy road that led to his house on the dunes. The house came into view over the treetops, and her pulse sped up. She didn’t know if what she was doing was right or wrong. She only knew that two days without Sawyer had been torture, and the idea of not being with him ever again was incomprehensible. She needed to see him, to talk to him when he wasn’t lying in a hospital bed having just been knocked out. When she wasn’t still on the verge of a breakdown from thinking she’d lost him forever. They’d communicated so well with each other until now. Their hearts were made of words and love and all things in between. They had to be able to figure this out together.

  She pulled into his empty driveway and her stomach sank at the sight of a “For Sale” sign in the center of the front yard. Her jaw dropped open as she stared at the sign. He was moving? After two days? Tears sprang to her eyes as she slammed on the gas and backed out of the driveway. She had to find him. She had to talk to him and find out what was going on. She sped down the road and headed to the one place she knew she’d find him—the club.

  Out on Route 6 she tried his number again and left another hasty message. “You’re moving? Where are you going? Don’t move, Sawyer. Call me back, please?” Her finger hovered over the End button, and she added, “I love you. Please call me.” She put the phone in the cup holder in the center console, hoping he’d call back.

  Her phone rang a few seconds later, and she fumbled for it, blinking away tears. Amy’s name flashed on the screen. She put the phone back down. She couldn’t talk to Amy or anyone else until she spoke to Sawyer. She sped down the road, confused, upset, and feeling like her heart was being torn to shreds. Had she already lost him for good?

  Ten minutes later she pulled into the club parking lot—and Sawyer’s truck wasn’t there. She slammed on the brakes, staring at the building. They have to know where he is. She parked out front and ran inside. Brock looked up from behind the registration desk with wide eyes, which turned serious as she hurried to the desk.

  “Hi, Sky.” His eyes traveled over her face.

  She knew she looked a wreck, but she didn’t care. She had to find and talk to Sawyer. “Do you know where I can find Sawyer?” She was breathing so hard, she felt like she’d just run a mile.r />
  Brock dropped his eyes. The muscle in his jaw flexed. “Haven’t seen him since the fight. He met with Roach last night, but I haven’t seen Roach either.”

  “Was he okay?” She started to wonder if his concussion had been worse than the doctor thought.

  Brock shrugged. “If I see him I’ll let him know you came by. Are you okay?”

  “I honestly don’t know anymore.” She hurried from the gym out to her car and started the engine. Where was she going? She had no idea where to look next. He could have gone to his parents, but she wasn’t about to show up there looking like this. She glanced at her phone. She’d missed another call from Amy—and none from Sawyer.

  Clutching the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles turned white, she gave in to the tears streaming down her cheeks. Sobs began in her chest, bubbling up and coming out loud and tortured. She’d messed everything up. He’d messed everything up.

  She drove back to Seaside, completely drained and confused. She drove by the pool and saw the girls lying in the sun. Maybe she needed to disappear into them for a while after all. She definitely couldn’t weather this storm alone.

  SAWYER HEARD TIRES on gravel before he spotted Sky’s car driving up the road. He tightened his grip on the leather notebook he’d brought with him, silently hoping his unhappiness wouldn’t keep him from making sense when he spoke to her.

  He knew she needed time and they needed space to figure this out. They needed to talk with clear heads, but clear heads went out the window when she stepped from the car with tears streaming down her cheeks and a look of dismay on her beautiful face. Her T-shirt and shorts were wrinkled, and she had no bangles on her wrists or necklaces hanging around her neck. Her hair was tousled, and her nose was pink. Sawyer rose to his feet and closed the distance between them.

  “Sky.” He opened his arms, and for a beat she just stared at him, slack-jawed, and then the edges of her lips curved up as sobs sprang from her lungs—confusing him and killing him in equal measure as he gathered her in his arms.