Page 98 of Sparks Fly

Packing felt too final. I folded everything carefully and avoided looking directly at the bed. When I zipped my bag, the sound felt too loud in the quiet room.

Sawyer carried our bags outside and secured them in the saddlebags while I took one last look around the house.

“You ready?” she asked.

“No.”

She smiled gently. “Me neither.”

The ride back was quiet. Just the engine, the wind, and my arms wrapped tightly around her. Every now and then, when we stopped at a light, Sawyer reached down and squeezed my thigh.

By the time we pulled up in front of my condo, that familiar Sunday heaviness had settled in my stomach.

I climbed off the bike but didn’t take off my helmet right away. Standing there meant the weekend was over, and I wasn’t ready for it to be.

Sawyer removed hers and stepped closer.

“Wednesday,” she reminded me. “My place.”

“I know.”

“And I’m staying over.”

“I know.” I rested my hands against her waist. “It still feels too far away.”

She kissed me slowly, like she understood exactly what I meant.

“I’ll text you when I get home,” she said, brushing her thumb across my cheek.

“Please do.”

I watched until her motorcycle disappeared down the street.

Inside, my condo felt wrong. Too clean. Too quiet. Too much like the life I had built to make sense to everyone else.

I dropped my bag beside the door without unpacking it.

Two nights with Sawyer, and somehow, this no longer felt like home.

* * *

30

Sawyer

Monday didn’t come in gently.

It arrived all at once, the way it always did after a weekend that had felt like something else entirely. The shop was already alive when I rolled up, the big door half open to let the morning air through while music hummed low in the background and tools clanked as people settled into their stations.

Normally, that sound snapped me back into place, but my body lagged behind my routine like it hadn’t accepted the weekend was over.

Benji noticed immediately. “You and Addie have a good weekend?”

“We did.” I flipped through the schedule.

“You better have.” He pointed his coffee cup at me. “I had to sit through dinner with my parents Sunday without her and dodge Mom asking, ‘Where’s your sister, Benji?’ every ten minutes.”

I looked up. “What did you tell her?”