"Maybe he's been busy. Wasn't he in a band or something? Maybe he had to leave on tour early. Jesus, Billie. What girl has a hot and heavy with someone like that and doesn't exchange numbers?"
"This one. Cell phones weren't a big thing when I dated Logan, but Sawyer didn't ask for mine either." I could have hugged Tricia for trying to find excuses for him, but the way I saw it, he had wanted me, and I'd handed myself to him on a platter. Challenge won, Sawyer Wild.
"Want to get drunk? This is Colby's weekend with Logan and his mad scientist, right?" Tricia offered, like the great friend she was.
Smiling at her loyalty by putting Poppy down, I still shook my head no, even though I was on the phone. I ran a hand helplessly though my hair as feelings of depression threatened to take hold. "Can I take a rain check? That'll be the first chance I've had to take a breath and lick my wounds. I figured a soak in the tub, a good long cry, and a weekend binging on a psycho-killer boxed set may help."
"Don't let the bastard grind you down," she chipped in quickly, her tone full of concern.
"Too late for that, but we live and learn," I mumbled and rubbed my breastbone again. "My one saving grace was that he skipped out before I had introduced him properly to Colby."
"I'm sorry," she said, sounding heartfelt. I heard the regret in her tone that she'd egged me on to give Sawyer a chance at the time.
"No, I'm a big girl. I shouldn't have gone in the first place. But it couldn't have all been a lie, could it? It makes me wonder whether that incredible house, his stories, the tale about his uncle was all some elaborate con. I mean I don't even know if he does play in a band. What the fuck possessed me to get sucked in like that?"
"See, from what you told me, I don't get that. I mean, he'd only bumped into you in the dive bar the night before. He'd have to be a magician to cook all of that up in less than a day."
I sighed. "True. Unless he'd done it before, maybe there was no woman that day he spotted me in the wine bar." Another pause in the conversation made my heart sink lower. "Anyway. I'm going to lay low this weekend and do some self-care … try to get into a better headspace."
Cutting the call, I threw my cell into my bedroom chair as disappointment surrounded me like a dreary day in winter. With every day that had passed, I became more convinced Sawyer would never be back. From what he had said—if he was in a band—the date meant he'd already gone off on tour by now.
Thank goodness for DVD boxed sets to take my mind off my depressed mood. I lay in bed and settled to watch my latest addiction on the television, but after six episodes into the action-packed police drama, my eyes grew heavy and I barely managed to hit the remote before I fell asleep.
* * *
A knock in the dead of night startled me and I lay frozen in the dark upstairs in my bed. My heart raced with the second knock and I squinted bleary-eyed in the dark at the clock on my nightstand. Fear tightened my chest when the green illuminated digits read 4:20 a.m.
The hair on my arms stood on end as I crawled my way down my bed. Stepping onto my floor, I padded across the landing and into Colby's room, whose bedroom window was situated directly above the front door.
Angling the plantation shutter for a better view, I peered out at the dark shadowy figure stood down below, and a burst of adrenaline instantly sent shock waves through me when I saw it was Sawyer.
After almost two weeks with no words, I fought the urge to go to him and took the time he'd once urged me to breathe.
Conflict raged inside me; my racing heart urging me to tear down the stairs, fling open the doors, and run unguardedly into his arms, while my pride and dignity had my stubborn defensive side ignoring him and going back to bed.
Hesitation mingled with an impulse as new hope and excitement flooded through me until my suspicious mind nudged my rational side and reminded me how I had felt in his absence.
The hollow of my chest ached like a freshly acquired bruise, because no matter how much I loved being with him, the thought of living with constant uncertainty and doubt were feelings I could no longer accept, and wouldn't accept from a relationship, no matter what the circumstances. Has my feeling of being deprived of affection, of feeling desired, clouded my judgement?
Footsteps retreating below startled me out of my thoughts and my heart stalled, shocked from the tight clench inside, and it jolted me into action.
The moment I had thought he was leaving, my reactions spoke for me as I flicked the light switch in Colby's room, then on in the hallway as I bounded two at a time down the stairs like a lovesick teenager, keyed in the number on my alarm to disable it, and opened my front door.
"Sawyer?" I called out, then wondered what a mess I must have looked standing in my ratty short pajamas and my tousled, messy bed hair. With everyone still asleep, I heard the soles of his sneakers spin as he turned to look at me before he traced his way back.
With a relieved expression he pushed his hands in his pockets and came back to the door. "Hey," he said as if nothing had changed. Like he hadn't gone AWOL. A warm smile reached his bright gorgeous eyes, the light from the porch making them shine, but instead of making my heart skip a beat like they usually had, his nonchalance filled me with rage.
Folding my arms across my chest, I bit my lip as I tried to bite back words of frustration, which I knew would make me sound clingy.
"Hey?" I asked, my blood boiling quicker with every beat of my heart. "It's 4:20 a.m. and you show up out of nowhere and say, 'Hey?' Do I look desperate to you? Twelve days without a word and you come knocking on my door in the dark? What is it? What do you want with me? No wait. Don't bother answering that—"
"Breathe," he interjected, placing a hand on my wrist before I almost lost my shit and showed him how much his disappearance had affected me. "I can explain. I need to explain, if you'll give me the chance."
I looked over his shoulder then back at him. There was no bike and no car.
"You're not coming in."
"I don't blame you. I wouldn't let me in either after the way I left you hanging without a word or an explanation."
"I wasn't hanging," I lied. "My life is too full to hold my breath for people I hardly know."
His eyes narrowed like he was calling me out. "Don't do that."
"What?"
"Lie to yourself … to me."
"I'm not—" Reaching out, he cupped my chin with his thumb and forefinger and leaned closer toward me. My body warmed to his touch, despite my reservations.
"Won't you at least let me explain where I've been?"
"I don't need your explanations—"
"Monday afternoon—the morning after the argument with your husband—I flew to Arizona. Got a call at 1.00 p.m. from my father to say that my sister, Tammy, the one I told you about with three little girls, had been T-boned by a truck on the way home from dropping her eldest girl off at school."
"Oh my God, is she okay? The other children?" I asked, immediately forgetting my grievance when I thought of how anxious he must have felt when he'd received such horrible news.
"Not really, but she will be. Eventually. The two little ones are fine, they were on the passenger side of her mini-van. For the first couple of days, they kept Tammy under sedation. Five hours on the operating table with a fractured skull and pelvis, a compound fracture of her left tibia, a broken collarbone, internal bleeding, and whiplash injuries. It all happened so suddenly—the call, me getting there—and it was touch and go for a while, but she stabilized pretty quickly considering."
"And now?"
"Now she's regained that smart mouth we all hated until we thought we'd never hear her words again. She's still laid up in traction and quite a bit of pain, but it's getting better every day. Jonathan, her husband has her covered."
"Weren't you supposed to go on tour?" I asked, knowing full well he'd been due to leave the previous Monday.
"Yeah, I did. I've been plane hopping back and forth to Arizona between gigs since I knew she was off the critical list
and stable."
"So what are you doing here?"
"I didn't have your phone number or your last name or even an email address. I didn't even know where you worked. Why didn't we swap numbers?" he asked, throwing his hands in the air. "Anyway, after last night's gig, I flew home to see you because I felt I owed you an explanation in person. I knew how it must have looked and how you had probably thought I'd ditched you, but this past week I've hardly had time for a power nap, much less anything else."
"You didn't have to do this," I protested since I understood now why he hadn't been in touch. At the same time, my heart felt full and relieved he had shown up because I wondered if I'd have accepted his excuse any other way.
"Oh, but I did. It was important to me. You're important to me. But in those first moments, my sister and her family had to be my priority. She was such a fucking mess, and then there was her husband, and their three little girls who needed support and attention until the rest of the family could organize their time and be there. We all have commitments that mean none of us can be instantly free… unless we stop others from doing their job as well."
"Not sure what you mean."
"Since I was the most readily available, I was first on the scene and held down the fort with the girls until my parents, Caitlin, and Lorna could fly down there. Then there was my commitment to my bandmates and the tour. Touring takes money to make money and while that's not a problem for me, the other guys in the band are financially strapped."
"I see," I admitted.
"Anyway, by the time I had a moment to think, it had been six days since I'd seen you and I was on my way to Ohio for the band's first gig. I had planned to take a quick hop back to New York after that gig to explain, grab a day with you, and meet the band in Indiana, but fog grounded all flights overnight and I missed my opportunity. After that, I had to wait for another break in the schedule to come and see you myself."
Any anger I had felt toward him immediately dissolved. "Come inside," I said finally, waving him over the threshold and into my living room. Sawyer's smile broadened as he stepped forward and pressed his lips to mine.
"Thank you," he murmured, stopping to plant a kiss at the side of my mouth. Goosebumps spread over my skin like warm butter from his intimate touch again.
"For?" I probed, feeling tired.
"Trusting me," he whispered. "I truly am sorry." The sincerity in his deep husky voice sounded genuine.
As I closed my front door, he pulled out his cell phone. "First things first. Name and contact numbers. I won't be home until the day after Thanksgiving," he advised, and I mentally noted he had meant three more weeks. "If I have your number, we can at least talk regularly," he said, glancing toward me with a sheepish smirk. "I need your … everything," he said, waving his cell phone casually with a grin and my heart fluttered with his demand.
Swapping cell phones, we did what we had previously neglected to do, logging everything from Skype, Facebook, and all the usual contact numbers—which would have saved me a good deal of supposition and Sawyer the expense of a flight—had we not overlooked this in the first place.
"I'll admit I looked for you on Facebook. I found you but it was an official page closed to friend requests, but when you didn't get in touch I figured even if I could have sent one you wouldn't have accepted it since you hadn't come back."
"I thought the same about Facebook, but I didn't know your last name or the name of the company you worked for. How did we have all that time together and me not learn these very basic things about you?"
Sawyer was right; in the two days we'd spent together we had shared so much of ourselves, knew each other intimately, yet I'd never disclosed something as basic as my last name.
Chapter Fifteen
Sawyer wasn't joking when he told me he was "flying in and out" and less than three hours later, as my neighbors were starting their days, I watched him slide into the back seat of a black passenger sedan on his way back to the airport.
During his visit, we cuddled as we talked, his affection for me was obvious by the way he held my hand, brushed my bangs out of my eyes, and tenderly cupped my chin when I felt shy.
Apart from some small kisses, he didn't make a move for more, which I was glad and mad about in equal measure because I'd missed him. I knew his restraint showed his respect for me.
After Sawyer came to see me, I had felt relieved and reassured he would stay in touch. He'd given me more than a reasonable excuse for his absence, and I was astonished he'd used his scarce free time to fly home to explain everything to me.
By the time he left, my thoughts about him had shifted from serious doubt back to hope. I knew in my heart that although the pace of our relationship had felt too fast, when he'd said I mattered, those had been his true feelings and not only empty words.
* * *
True to his word, Sawyer called me whenever he could and at least once a day. We had long conversations, usually late at night, once his concert had finished. Sometimes he'd call early in the morning before Colby woke up, if Sawyer was late to bed or too buzzed to sleep.
Those calls were great for me because it helped me to know him more without the pressure of being with him at the same time.
"Favorite band?" he asked one night as we FaceTimed.
"DisKord," I replied, grinning widely because it was his band and I had never heard them play.
"Good choice, and what about that lead singer? What's his name? Sawyer something?"
A chuckle left my lips. "Aren't you full of yourself?"
"I'd rather you were full of me," he replied, leaning forward and winking suggestively at the screen.
"Funny," I admitted, and where his sexual innuendo would have normally made me feel awkward, I laughed instead.
"Oh, baby, I'd wipe that smile off your face and reshape those pretty lips into one giant O if you were writhing around beneath me." My thighs had a mind of their own in that moment and squeezed tightly together. My smile instantly faltered.
"Gotcha," he chuckled, pointing at the screen. "I saw what you did there," he joked, intuitively knowing my mind had wandered. "Still five days until I get home. I'm missing Thanksgiving because we'll be in North Dakota. What're you doing for the holiday?"
"Home alone," I admitted, suddenly fighting a wave of emotion that squeezed my throat tight. "Colby is going on a cruise with Logan and his parents. It's their fortieth wedding anniversary and the trip was arranged before we broke up."
"When does he leave and come back?"
"He goes on the Monday before Thanksgiving and is away for ten days. I'm going to miss him," I admitted, my throat closing as my emotions stirred within me.
"Fly out and meet me. Our last tour date is the day after Thanksgiving. You can spend time with me, and we'll fly back together." Had I not been so devastated about Colby going away I would likely have said no to this, but I'd been dreading the separation and Tricia was spending the day at her parents.
"I'll do it," I snapped before I could talk myself out of it.
"You will? Fantastic!" I watched as he fist pumped the air, and again his action had made me feel old.
Sawyer then went on to make the arrangements for travel with me, and by the end of our conversation, I was excited to go watch him perform. However, I had more than a few nerves about meeting his bandmates.
* * *
Knots of anticipation formed in my stomach at the thought of spending time away from home with Sawyer. The thrill of a new relationship and taking such a leap of faith was something that felt both careless and reckless. Nervous energy I hadn't felt for years held a hint of danger when I compared it to how boring my life had been with Logan.
Then there were knots of a different kind that made my chest tighten at the thought of Colby not being with me for all of this time.
Pushing my concerns and emotions to one side, I told myself going to visit Sawyer provided me with an ideal opportunity to see how we felt without time constraints, and I took
some small consolation that my son would be having a fun time with his grandparents.
Thankfully, Colby was excited and not distressed when he left to go on the cruise, and ten minutes after he'd gone, the car Sawyer had ordered arrived and took me to the airport.
It had been a little over a month since Sawyer and I had sat in the diner, and although the face-to-face time we'd had together was sparse, we'd spent many more hours on the phone and Skype, talking and texting, learning the little things about one another we otherwise may have missed.
I reflected on what all he'd told me. A jagged scar on his knee came from a little league baseball game. He'd had his tonsils removed after several bouts of tonsillitis in one year when he was six. He'd only had two proper girlfriends in high school before Charlotte, and had only had hookups with women since, until me.
Sawyer's favorite bands growing up were Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails and Nirvana, and his celebrity crush was Natalie Portman—which unnerved me a little since he'd told me I resembled her with long hair.
I marveled at how interested Sawyer was to get to know me, and since he usually initiated our conversations, I guessed he knew me quite well.
Our conversations had also made me reflect on what I had learned about Logan during our ten years together. After I gave it some thought, I knew I could answer quite a few things about Logan, but I realized he'd always been pretty disinterested in knowing anything about me.
* * *
Stepping into the airport arrivals hall in Minnesota, I barely had time to recognize Sawyer before his arms enveloped my body and he curled me into his chest. Lifting me off the ground, he gave a toe-curling kiss full of passion and want. It left me unsteady and breathless when he finally dropped me back to my feet.
Every nerve cell I possessed was primed for action as my heated blood flowed up to my skin, staining it red in its effort to cool me down. Desire coursed through me when I saw the adoring look he gave me when he held both sides of my face.
DARE You, Dare Duet, Part One: Billie and Sawyer: Unchained Attraction Series Page 14
