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As our conversation continued Sawyer shared more about his family. His mom grew up with three sisters, but his dad only one brother, his late uncle, Alexander. He then said it had been his parents' wishes to have a large brood of kids.
"And you? Do you want children?" I had tried to sound casual about this but I held my breath, while he debated his answer. With every vacant second that passed, I felt my advancing reproductive age bear down on me. My heart sank, because no matter how hard I tried to forget our differences, I couldn't.
"Sure. I'd like to be a father. I think I have a lot of love to give. I love kids, and they love me. One of my sisters has a son, and another has three daughters. I'm not sure I'm cut out to have girls though," he snickered. "They're way too smart and cunning. There's this thing my sister's eldest, Milly, does with her lip when she doesn't get her way that melts my heart. I'm a sucker for her pouty mouth and she knows it." He chuckled as he scarfed the end of his hot dog down, looked up at my face, and frowned.
"Hey. What's the matter? Did I say something wrong?"
"Not at all," I said, pushing my thought out of the way, not wishing to spoil the day. "I can hear by the way you talk, and the caring way you are toward me, you'd be a great father."
A warm smile curved his lips. "Thanks, that means a lot."
Steering the conversation in another direction, Sawyer began to talk about his band and although I tried to appear attentive, I couldn't concentrate and missed most of what he said. My happy mood had imploded as my mind caved in. At forty-one, my body clock was ticking fast and Sawyer's young life was in cruise mode. As a man, I knew it didn't matter and he could afford to spend every day ahead at his own unhurried pace.
Rationalizing again, I told myself to stay in the moment, to not get ahead of myself and shut down. After all, we were new and this thing we had going could peter out after a month or two. Even battling my fears in this way still left me with an uneasy knot in my gut about becoming too close to Sawyer.
"You've hardly touched your food." His voice broke into my thoughts. Glancing up, I caught the concern in his eyes. As he held our gaze, a frown formed in his brow. "Everything okay?"
"Sure. I just wasn't all that hungry since we had that huge breakfast." As he stared pointedly, I knew he was checking my mood. His gorgeous eyes narrowed speculatively in on mine for a moment, and I tried my best to look worry-free. "What?" I asked, chuckling.
"Nothing." He pulled out his cell and checked the time. "Should we head back?" he asked with concern.
"Yeah, we should." I nodded, picked up the leftovers, deposited them in a nearby trash can, and followed him back across the grass.
The ride back on the bike felt shorter than the journey out to the festival. I guessed it was because after spending another day with him, I knew that despite the ridiculously short time we'd spent together, his age, and forgetting what he did for a living, I was falling for Sawyer.
As we swung into the cul-de-sac where I lived, my heart sank when I saw Logan sitting in my driveway with our son in the back of his car, over half an hour early.
At first, I thought Sawyer hadn't noticed. But when he stopped, got off, helped me off his bike. When he took off my helmet off, I could see from his expression he knew exactly what was wrong. Taking his helmet off, he leaned toward me.
"Relax. You got this. Breathe, Billie," he murmured. In a gesture of reassurance, he brushed his thumb down my cheek as he wandered to the back of his bike and stowed the spare helmet.
Sawyer's cool exterior was in stark contrast to Logan's. He had quickly gotten out of his BMW car, slammed the door so hard it had rocked the suspension, and strode over toward us with a scowling look on his face. Anger radiated off him as he approached us.
Shit! Shit! Shit. The last thing I had ever wanted to happen was for Logan and me to argue in front of our son. He'd been doing very well since the breakup, and I didn't want him to have to face any further emotional trauma from our divorce. It was hard enough that he only spent time with one parent at a time. The last thing he needed was his parents constantly at each other's throats in the short windows of time when he saw us together.
As Logan drew nearer, Sawyer stepped close by my side and slid a steadying protective arm around my waist. I hadn't known how badly I'd needed it until he did it, but I realized the knot that had formed in my stomach at seeing Logan's furious face instantly began to ease with his thoughtful action. Taking a cleansing breath, I did my best to remain calm, at least on the outside, in the face of Logan's pending interrogation.
