by Claire Adams
“You’re not just sleeping with Jared now,” I mumbled. “You’re the one who he was cheating on me with. All this time, you…”
She giggled and finished her eggroll, looking at Sawyer as his anger boiled.
“I did sleep with Jared,” Lisa admitted. “I’m still sort of sleeping with him. The sex is amazing, but he really carries a lot of that baggage around, oh man.”
“Did you send those photos to my clients?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“I did, actually,” she admitted.
I didn’t know what to say. “…Why?”
“Well, I made your clients quit because you were kind of beginning to take your work for granted,” said Lisa. “It took you losing four clients for you to say anything to anyone. Plus, this is just the world, Hannah Banana. It’s cutthroat; that’s the way it is. I think your weaknesses have really shown during all this: naivety, laziness—you sort of had all that coming. And… Jared was really mad at Sawyer for threatening him when he wouldn’t move out of his own apartment. He wanted to go back to the cops, but he was scared. I thought fucking with you would make him feel better. It didn’t.
“I slept with Jared in the first place because I was horny. He wanted me so bad, Hannah. He texted me nonstop for weeks after he came to the office that one day to see you. I just assumed that you weren’t able to satisfy him and he needed some companionship. He came for me and all over me. It was fun to sleep with him behind your back. I could have your new boyfriend tonight if I wanted him.”
I could hold back no longer. I threw my water in her face and got to my feet. The entire restaurant was looking at our table, but I didn’t care.
Sawyer leaned in to speak quietly to Lisa. “Before the day is through, you will tell your managers what you did. You will clear Hannah’s name, and you will never speak to her or me again.”
“I like you telling me what to do, but I’m sorry, I’m not going to listen to you,” she said.
“I’m not so sure that Hannah would be opposed to me breaking your fingers like I had originally suggested,” he growled. “Do the right thing, or I’ll break one of your fingers every day until you do. I don’t give a shit that you’re a girl. Ask your boyfriend how I make sure justice is served.”
Sawyer and I stormed out of the restaurant. We were a team, and we were going to play our own game by our own rules.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Sawyer
I was covered in oil, downing my second cold bottle of water by the fridge in the Lightning Fast garage, chilling and making small talk with Dave.
“Hannah said she’s taking me out to lunch,” I told him. “Not sure where; she said she wanted it to be a surprise.”
“Oh, do I get to meet her?” he asked.
“Yeah, I guess so! She’ll probably be here any minute.”
“Well, hurry up and finish with that Chevy engine before your lady shows up,” he urged. I took his advice and hurried back over to the truck that I had been working on for nearly three hours.
A week had passed since that fateful day at Hannah’s job and the subsequent revelations made at the Chinese restaurant. Lisa hadn’t done as I’d told her. She never admitted what she did to Omicron management. Instead, she was using up her sick days and not going into work to face Hannah.
Meanwhile, Hannah still hadn’t been fired, despite the record still being unclear regarding the loss of her four big clients. We both wondered if they were afraid to fire her because they feared she could threaten them with a lawsuit. Regardless of the reason, they held onto her, but she was looking ahead to some of Omicron’s affiliates and friends to see where she would work next.
I only had two constant trains of thought running through my mind during the last week: one was about Hannah and how much I was falling in love with her. The other revolved around Jared and Lisa, and the viciousness of their attacks, and the venom with which they stung. They were ruthless, and they each were proving, at an alarming rate, just how many laws they were willing to break in order to get back at us.
I wasn’t afraid of them, but I did worry about the damage they could do. The tactics Hannah and I had been using with Jared had proved ineffective, and knowing that he acquired a partner-in-crime, who happened to be another person formerly close to her, was pretty disconcerting to me.
We discussed our feelings on the whole matter often after it happened, mostly at night before we fell asleep. We were both indecisive, unsure of what to do or how to go about getting it done. It was tempting to return to the old tactic of just ignoring the issue. But this was more than an issue. It was a disturbance.
As I put the finishing touches on the Chevy, I tried to let go of the past and think only about the future. I imagined driving Hannah down the Pacific coastline, where we would let our skins cook in the hot California sun. I thought about opening a bike shop somewhere in Oregon where I could take those bikes down a majestic mountain pass. I wondered what it would be like to live out east. I couldn’t picture myself anywhere out there, but I had always wanted to visit Washington, D.C.
I thought about taking a heavy wrench and ending Jared’s life with it.
Before the future and the past could wrestle, I was greeted by my present: Hannah’s car pulled in and parked nearby. Hannah stepped out wearing a tight black leather jacket and tall boots. She always looked good, but she looked damn good walking up to me. I caught some of the other mechanics eyeing her, but it didn’t last once they saw who she had eyes for.
I slid out from under the Chevy, wiping myself with my rag, attempting to make myself somewhat presentable.
“Hey there,” I said to her.
“Hi yourself, grease monkey,” she said to me.
We went in to embrace like we always did, but ceased once we stopped to register just how grimy I was from working. We settled for a quick peck and handholding.
“You’ve been hard at work,” she said.
“Always,” I said. “How about you? How’s… hell?”
She chuckled. “Well, it doesn’t feel quite as much like hell anymore. Lisa quit over the weekend.”
I wasn’t happy yet. “Did she tell your managers the truth before she retreated into the cavern from whence she came?”
“She did not.”
I sighed, biting my lip in aggravation.
“I decided to tell them about what Lisa did,” she continued. “And they didn’t believe me, like I said they wouldn’t. So, I decided it was time for me to go, too. I gave them my two-week notice before I left. I fucking quit, baby.”
I nearly grabbed her for a hug but stopped myself again.
“That is good news,” I said. “You escaped hell!”
“I guess so,” I said. “I kind of want to just quit now; I’m not going to make any more sales for these people.”
“Well, they need these two weeks so they have time to find the two salespeople who are going to replace you,” I said kissing her nose. I accidentally left a tiny black dot on her nose, but it didn’t look bad on her.
I looked behind me and saw Dave hovering close by. I waved him over to join us.
“Hannah, this is my coworker and good buddy, Dave,” I said, introducing them. “Dave, this is Hannah Stone.”
“It is a real honor to meet the woman who was able to tame Sawyer Smith,” said Dave, planting a kiss on Hannah’s hand.
“The honor was all mine,” she said, putting her arm around me. “I’m lucky.”
“No, please,” said Dave. “The lucky one is my boy, Sawyer. He downplayed how pretty you are.”
“Thank you, Dave!” said Hannah.
“Yeah, thank you, Dave,” I said with sarcasm.
“Do you know where you’re taking him?” Dave asked her.
“I do,” she replied. “It’s a surprise.”
“I hope it’s good,” he said. “Is it somewhere fancy?”
“It’s somewhere… nice,” she said looking up at me.
“I have no idea
what that means,” said Dave.
“Me either, but it sounds delightful,” I said. “Dave, I’m finished up with the Chevy. I’m gonna go ahead and take my lunch.”
“Have him back no later than an hour and a half,” Dave said to Hannah. “An hour and forty if you end up making out.”
“Wow, thank you, Dave!” I said to him.
I removed my cover-alls and walked with Hannah over to her car. I got in the passenger seat and reclined, relaxing from the strains I felt after operating on the truck.
She got in and turned the car on. Fortunately, the car hadn’t been off long, so the heat worked quickly and well. I closed my eyes.
“You got your heater fixed?” I asked her.
“My coolant system needs to be fixed. I topped it off and voila! I’ll have to get it repaired some point soon. But for not I can make this work.”
“So, we picking up fast food and hanging out at home?” I asked her.
“No, silly,” she laughed. She reversed out of the parking area and got out onto the road. “I told you, I’m not going to tell you. I would have made you put on a blindfold, but I didn’t want to rip off your idea.”
“I appreciate you respecting my patented moves,” I said.
She turned on the radio, and we sat listening to music for a few minutes. My mind continued to have its dramatic shifts, and I was tired of keeping a lot of those thoughts to myself, even if I was worried about how Hannah would perceive them.
“I want to kill Jared for what he did to you,” I said aloud. “I feel like that’s the only way our terror goes away. Who’s going to miss him anyway?”
“Sawyer…”
“Then, I could quit over at Lightning Fast,” I continued. “And I’d use what’s left of my money and the money I take from Jared’s wallet after I kill him, and then we could use that money to put a security deposit on a new place somewhere far away from here. Have you thought about moving at all?”
“I definitely have, but not like this,” she said laughing. “We can’t start a new life by burying my crazy ex in a Wisconsin forest somewhere.”
“I am serious though, Hannah. I do want to kill him. I want to watch life leave his miserable existence for all the fucked up stuff he did. He deserves it.”
She pulled her car over to the side of the road, coming to a halt, and putting the car in park. She grabbed both of my hands, and we stared into each other’s eyes.
“I’m sorry if that scares you or upsets you, but that’s how I feel,” I said. “I don’t want to go through life always wondering if Joker and Harley are gonna try and pull some more crap.”
She smirked at my reference, but her eyes remained kind.
“We already agreed that it would cost too much to sue him,” I said. “How am I going to let this go if I don’t kill him? What’s the right answer?”
“I don’t know, but it isn’t murder,” she said, squeezing my hands. “Okay?”
“Hannah, after everything he did—”
“Exactly,” she said. “After everything he did. Sawyer, I want to kill Jared for what he did to me. If I saw Lisa in front of us right now, I would genuinely contemplate running that bitch down and leaving her paralyzed, no joke.”
“Holy shit,” I said laughing.
“It wouldn’t be worth a stain on anyone’s conscience to take a life, even his,” she said wisely. “Even if you never got caught… you’d know what you did. You’d have to live with that forever.”
“I know, and I’d be proud,” I responded.
“I’m not so sure you know yourself all that well, tiger,” she said. “I think you’d feel pretty damn guilty about killing him.”
“I don’t know. I was standing over him, beating him up, and it felt pretty damn good,” I said. “What else is he capable of though? You know? It’s the unknown that really freaks me out.”
“Doesn’t the unknown freak everyone out?” she asked rhetorically. “But, please… if you are serious, don’t kill him. I’m afraid that would be a deal-breaker.”
I leaned over to her, and we kissed. I sat my seat back up, cueing her to return to the road.
“Just so you know, if you wanted to kill Jared or Lisa, I would totally support you in any of those cases,” I said to her.
She laughed and rolled her eyes. “Good to know. Remember, Sawyer; I do want a future with you. I want you with me, no matter where I am.”
Chapter Thirty-None
Hannah
I drove us to the spot in the field where Sawyer and I had parked to look up at the stars. I got out and went to the trunk. He was watching intently.
I pulled out a picnic basket, being careful not to rattle the contents. I closed the trunk and opened the backseat of the car. I crawled in with the basket, followed closely by Sawyer, who found his way in after me, closing the door behind him.
It was cramped, but it wasn’t that confined. It was cold, but it was warmer inside the car with the heat running. It was unorthodox, but that’s how I’ve always defined Sawyer and me. He was extraordinary, and he still seemed too good to be true.
“I thought maybe we could eat on the hood of the car, kind of like how we laid out to look at the stars,” I told him. “But, it’s fucking cold, you know?”
He laughed. “Wisconsin winter, baby. When do they get old?”
“Oh, I’ve been done with winter for weeks; I’m ready for the summer,” I said. “This March has been brutal so far, right?”
He rubbed his hands together. “So, what do we have in our picnic basket?”
I took out each item one-by-one. “Turkey and ham sandwiches. Potato chips. Dip. Canned soda and bottled water. Assorted fruits. Baby carrots. And, cupcakes for dessert.”
“That sounds wonderful, darling, thank you,” he said to me.
We each ate large portions of our sandwiches, enjoying them. We had both worked up an appetite.
“So… you sounded like you would be fine with quitting Lightning Fast,” I said. “Then again, you also sounded fine with homicidal rage.”
He sighed, shaking his head. “Hannah, it’s not a rage. I’m looking out for us. He humiliated you. He did a terrible thing, and I don’t think he should walk away without suffering some kind of consequence.”
“It really has nothing to do with him trying to put you in jail?” I asked him.
“This has nothing to do with me,” he said angrily. “I don’t care what he does to me. It’s different, I love y—”
He stopped speaking midsentence, catching his words before they kept falling out of his trembling mouth. I put my sandwich down into the basket.
“What were you about to say, Sawyer?” I asked him excitedly.
“I love the time we spend with each other,” he said rapidly.
“That’s not what you were going to say,” I said.
I knew that he was lying. I finally saw what lying looked like on Sawyer. He was bad at fibbing. I loved that the only thing he was bad was lying.
“I wasn’t saying what you thought I was going to say,” he said.
“What do I think you were about to say?”
“I’m not falling for that.”
“Just say what you were going to say, Sawyer.”
“What I was going to say,” he said while backtracking, “was that I’m only angry at Jared and Lisa because of what they did to you. I don’t care what they did to me. I was just a pawn they wanted to use to make your life worse.”
“But wouldn’t you say that we won?” I asked him. “If you look at all of this like a game, in the end, I think we won. They each tried to tear us apart, and they didn’t succeed. Everything they worked for was for nothing.”
“Hannah… they sent out naked—”
“I know what they did,” I said cutting him off. “I’m upset by what they did. I cry a lot over it.”
“I haven’t seen you cry,” he said morosely.
“I don’t cry in front of you. I do that in the bathroom,” I said.
/> We sat in silence for a few moments, trying to choose our next series of words carefully.
“I don’t want to carry that weight into the future with us, Sawyer. I want to be rid of all of it, to be perfectly honest. We can’t let thoughts of them ruin our day. You get so angry when you think about it.”
“I feel like I’m the only one sometimes,” he mumbled.
“You are the only one most of the time,” I corrected him. “You can’t keep thinking about it, otherwise you’ll be pissed off all the time. I know I would be.
“I can’t believe I’m the one giving the ‘realist’ pep talk,” I continued. “What are our options if we never let go? Well, there’s killing them, like you suggested first.”
“I didn’t say I would kill Lisa,” he corrected. “You’re the one who’s killing her, remember? Running her down in this very car?”
“Let’s just take murder off the picnic area, shall we?” I suggested. “That option is not acceptable. So, the next step would be probably to try and sue them. Remember how that talk went with the legal counsel on Friday? ‘You’ll either lose, or you’ll win and still lose a lot of money in court. You might get a settlement, but Exhibit A will be those nude pics.’ I know he was trying to sound like a lawyer in a TV show, but his speech was effective. Revenge-porn is not taken seriously by anyone, and things will get dicey the moment I tell them that I sent Jared those pictures willingly. So that option is out, too.”
“I think we still have a case,” he resisted. “But they’re your photos.”
“They are, and I decide what to do with them,” I affirmed.
“So what’s the next option?” he asked.
“We let nature run its course,” I replied. “Sawyer, toxic people like that don’t do well in society. Eventually, those two will inevitably mess with the wrong person.”
“Yeah, that person is me,” he said stubbornly.
“No, the person I’m looking at is a good man with a big heart,” I said, scooting closer to him. “But, trust me, my love… it’s not worth it to stay angry.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Your love, eh?”
“I know you love me,” I said, leaning over on my knees. “You love me, and we are not getting out of this car until you say it.”
