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Chapter Fourteen
"Really? It's been over a week and not a word?" Immediately I rubbed my breastbone as I tried to ease the ache that had formed in my chest. "What the hell? I can't believe it. I saw the way he looked at you, the way he behaved toward you." Tricia huffed down the line in disbelief when she had no other words of support to offer me about Sawyer's disappearance. A heavy silence made the air thick between us.
Shrugging helplessly, I held my cell phone away from my face and swallowed roughly, fighting back tears that threatened, determined not to cry.
When Sawyer had left he had warned me he was giving me space. At the time I thought if he did this, it would have been for a day or two, but it had been twelve days since he'd walked out my door, and I felt ready to admit he'd done what he'd sworn he'd never do and I felt I'd been played.
"It's my fault for getting sucked in. You saw him, right? Six foot something, lean, ripped, voice like a young George Clooney, and a face that would melt the panties of the most devout of nuns. I'm angry at myself more than him. I should have known better."
"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.
