Sawyer
“Holy shit, I almost kissed her.”
My discipline had nearly gotten away from me, but Darlene was so beautiful and full of light and life, who the hell could blame me? Her tornado-like ability to sweep people up was so potent, it drew me in so that I wanted to kiss her and touch her and tell her everything.
I told her about my mother.
It had been years. And while I hated to see the story cloud Darlene’s light, I felt better for sharing it with her. My mother was gone, but instead of turning that horrible memory over and over in my mind, like a bad song stuck on repeat, she’d become a real person again with Darlene.
I wanted to kiss Darlene for that, too. When she was at my doorway with her chin tilted up, it was almost impossible not to. Until I saw the bruise on her forehead. Anger that some careless asshole hurt her—accident or not—surged through me with a different kind of heat. I was glad that my anger had pulled me out of the moment because it reminded me that I couldn’t start something with her. Not now.
I was so close to the end. A few more weeks and I would be done with law school and the bar exam.
Maybe then?
I had a purely selfish moment where I felt as if maybe, if I kept my head down and worked my ass off, I’d have this beautiful, vibrant woman waiting for me on the other side.
I went to my bathroom and took a very long, cold shower.
I spent the rest of the day without my studies, focusing only on Olivia as I did every Saturday. We read books and ate lunch and I let her watch Sesame Street. As usual, when it was over, she asked for more.
“Elmo?”
“You want more Elmo?” I asked, and tickled her until she was squealing. I was paranoid about too much TV, but it was hard to resist her baby voice and wide blue eyes. She was smart and I loved watching her blow past the milestones like a champ.
A month and a half left to go to the biggest milestone.
I’d had Jackson, acting as my attorney, draw up the petition for a Voluntary Declaration of Paternity. As soon as it had been a year since Molly left us, I could petition to have my name put on Olivia’s birth certificate.
“She should have done that before she gave her to me,” I muttered, watching my daughter watch her show. But instead of the thought irritating me, the tension I perpetually carried around with me on my shoulders relaxed a little bit and I was almost surprised to find I was in a really good mood. It was easy to do around Olivia but now that I had Darlene my life too…
“Settle down, Haas. Go take another cold shower.”
Around six, I was putting Olivia’s and my dinner dishes in the sink when there came a knock at the door. My heart stuttered to think it might be Darlene, maybe this time with a chicken pot pie, or some other concoction she wanted to share.
I opened the door to Jackson and his mother, Henrietta.
“Sawyer, my man,” Jackson said. He was dressed to go out in a dark blazer, white button down, and black pants. We clasped hands and he pulled me in for a half-hug. “Are you ready?”
“For what?” I moved to hug his mom. “Hi, Henrietta. Are you dropping him off? Because I don’t want him either.”
Henrietta Smith looked like a younger version of Toni Morrison; heavyset with graying dreads down to her shoulders. She always dressed in billowy, silky clothes and large jewelry that Olivia loved to play with whenever she babysat.
She chuckled and took my face in her hands to kiss my cheek. “Hey, baby boy. How’ve you been? You look tired.”
“I’m well,” I said, pulling away from her embrace with a small ache in my chest. With my own mother gone, my brother trekking around God-knew-where, and my dad in Idaho with his wife’s family, Henrietta and Jackson were the closest I had to family.
“What are you guys doing here?” I asked, shutting the door behind them.
Olivia bounced and squawked from her highchair, her arms reaching. Henrietta freed her from the highchair and gave her a squeeze. Olivia hugged her back and immediately reached for the bulky necklace around Henrietta’s neck.
“This,” Jackson said, “is an intervention. Get dressed, you’re going out.” He held his arms out and did a Michael Jackson-esque turn in my living room. “Dancing.”
“Say again?”
Jackson pointed one finger to the ceiling. “Is the lovely Darlene home?”
“I have no idea. I think she had rehearsal until five so yeah, she should be…hey, where are you going?”
Jackson had made an about-face, and strode out the door.
I looked to Henrietta who laughed heartily, Olivia secure in her arms, and I chased Jackson upstairs.
I caught up to him just as he knocked on Darlene’s door. He jerked his jacket down to straighten it and smoothed his short hair that didn’t need smoothing.
“What are you doing?” I hissed.
“I told you,” Jackson said. “It’s an intervention. You’re off your game and what kind of wingman would I be if I—why, hellooo,” he said smoothly as the door opened.
A cloud of clean scents, daisies, soap and warmth, billowed out with Darlene. She was fresh from the shower and wrapped in a silky robe. Her hair fell around her shoulders in damp, dark waves. Her brilliant blue eyes took in Jackson and me and lit up from within. She crossed her arms, a laughing smile on her lips, and leaned against the doorframe.
“If you’re here to sell me a set of encyclopedias, you’re too late.”
Jackson threw his head back and bellowed a laugh.
I rolled my eyes. “Sorry, about him, but—”
“You must be the lovely Darlene,” my friend cut me off, holding his hand out. “Jackson Smith, Esquire.”
Darlene’s grin widened and she gave me a raised-eyebrow-look as she shook Jackson’s hand. “Nice to meet you, Jackson. Sawyer has told me so much about you.”
“Has he? What a coincidence. Sawyer has told me quite a lot about you, as well.”
I shot my friend a death glare, which he completely ignored.
“One of the many things Mr. Haas has told me about you, Darlene, is that you are dancer. Therefore, I am here to extend an invitation for you to come dancing.”
Darlene’s arms dropped. “Really? Oh my God, yes, please. I just moved here a few weeks ago and I don’t know anyone. I’m dying to go out.”
Jackson shot me a dirty look and whacked me in the chest. “Are you hearing this? This beautiful woman—who lives right above you—is new to the city and you haven’t even taken her out to show her the town?”
The blood rushed to my face on a heated current of embarrassment that left me tongue-tied. “I don’t…I...”
“There’s a bunch of us going to Café du Nord on Market Street. Have you been?”
“Never heard of it,” Darlene said.
“It’s a throwback, speakeasy kind of scene,” Jackson said. “Is swing dancing part of your repertoire?”
Darlene’s grin widened. “It’s been a while, but yes.”
Jackson clapped his hands together once. “Great. We’re meeting some friends at Flore for dinner and then walking up to the club. You’re officially invited to come with us.”
Her glance darted to me. “I’m trying to imagine Sawyer the Lawyer dancing.”
Jackson laughed again. “Sawyer the Lawyer? Holy hell, I love this woman already.” He clapped me on the shoulder and gave me a fond look while I glared daggers. “He can’t dance for shit but I’m convinced it’s only because he doesn’t have the right instructor.”
I rolled my eyes as if his comments were no big deal, but the blood was leaving my face, heading due south at the idea of dancing with Darlene.
“It sounds awesome,” she said. “Thank you so much for inviting me. Give me half an hour?”
“Of course,” Jackson said. “Head down to Sawyer’s place when you’re ready.”
“Thank you,” Darlene said. She glanced at me almost shyly, her cheeks pink, before shutting the door.
Jackson turned to me with a triumphant look on his face that morphed into confusion at my hard stare.
“What?”
“What the hell, man?” I dragged him away from Darlene’s door.
“I’m just being a good friend,” Jackson said as we took the stairs down. He stopped at the bottom and turned, put his hand on my shoulder. “I appreciate your dedication to your work, but I cannot let you turn down the chance to see that woman—” he pointed a finger at Darlene’s door— “dressed up to go out and dance. You going to say no to that? And Ma’s been dying to see Olivia again.” His eyes widened with mock alarm. “You going to say no to Henrietta?”
I laughed despite myself. “I can’t dance for shit, remember? Not exactly the best way to impress a woman.”
“Details, details.” He waved a hand. “You’ll thank me when a slow song comes on.”
In my place, Henrietta was sitting on the floor with Olivia, playing with blocks. She looked up when we came in, the same conspiratorial smile on her face as her son’s. “Well?”
“It’s on,” Jackson said.
Henrietta laughed and clapped her hands together. “Oh baby, you should see your face,” she said to me. “Go on now, get ready. This little angel and I have some catching up to do.”
It was useless to argue, and part of me realized I had no intention of arguing at all. I took a quick shower and then dressed in black slacks, a dark gray dress shirt I hadn’t worn in a year, and a jacket.
Twenty minutes later, Darlene knocked on the door. Jackson opened it and a low whistle issued from between his teeth. “Darlene, you’re a vision,” he said “Don’t you agree, Haas?”
He stepped aside to let Darlene in, and closed the door behind her. My heart nearly fucking stopped beating in my chest; I don’t think I’d ever been so glad for my photographic memory in my entire life.
I took her all in, every detail. Her sleeveless dress hugged her slender body in black silk, then flared out at the waist. Instead of her usual combat boots, her shoes were the black, low-heeled, strappy kind dancers wore, and she carried a black coat in her arms. Her dark hair was pulled back from her face on the sides and curled softly down over her shoulders. She’d done her eyes in smoky shadow; and the dark of her clothing and makeup left me transfixed by her translucent skin and fire-engine red lips that stood out, like white and red slashes of paint in a dark masterpiece.
I blinked from staring at her to realize she was staring at me.
“Hi,” she said, a nervous little smile. “You clean up good, Sawyer the Lawyer.”
“Ha!” Henrietta cackled and slapped her thigh. “Haven’t heard that one in a while.” She got up and came over to Darlene and took both her hands in hers.
“Why, aren’t you an angel?” she said. “I’m Henrietta, Jackson’s mother.”
“So nice to meet you. Your son is quite a charmer,” Darlene said warmly.
“That’s one word for him,” I muttered.
“Dareen!” Olivia said, reaching a hand up.
Darlene knelt beside her. “Hi, sweet pea. Are you playing with your blocks?”
“Bocks.”
I wrenched my gaze from her and my daughter to see Jackson watching me with a shit-eating grin on his face. He held his hands up like a circus ringmaster for whom everything was going precisely as planned.
“Shall we?”
We met some friends of ours I hadn’t seen in a long time at Flore restaurant. Twelve of us crowded around the long table by the window that afforded a perfect view of bustling Market Street.
Jackson sat next to Darlene and directed me to sit across from her. For a split second, I wondered at my friend’s actual motives, but Jackson wasn’t a dick. As soon as I sat down, I understood his plan; I had a full view of Darlene sitting across from me, looking stunningly gorgeous in the amber light of the restaurant.
Our friends took to her immediately. Even the most outgoing women among them seemed reserved compared to Darlene. She wasn’t loud or obnoxious, but laughed and talked easily with no self-consciousness about being amongst a group of new people. Now and again, her eyes stole glances at me, and as the dinner plates were being served, she leaned over the table.
“How am I doing?” she asked. “It’s been a while.”
“You’re fucking perfect,” I said, but the noise and clatter of silverware on dishes was so loud, she didn’t hear me.
“What? Say again?”
I shook my head with a smile, and we both were pulled toward other conversations.
After dinner, the group of us walked down Market Street. I’d forgotten what it was like to hang out with friends, to be part of the city’s energy. Darlene linked her arm in mine as we set out.
“Is that okay?” she asked, when I stiffened.
“Yeah, sure,” I said. Her sudden touch on my arm had sent a current shooting through me and I cursed myself. Jackson was right; I was completely off my game. I’d forgotten what it was like to flirt with a girl.
Because you always flirted with an agenda, a voice whispered. With Darlene, just being with her, having her hand on my arm, was enough.
Café Du Nord was a small, former speakeasy underneath an actual restaurant. We walked down the short stairs into the windowless, oval-shaped room. At the far end was a place for a band, but tonight the red curtains were closed and swing music came in from the sound system. We passed pool tables on the left, and Jackson led us immediately to the bar on the right.
“The first one’s on me,” he told Darlene, and clapped his hand on my shoulder. “The rest are on him.”
She laughed. “I’ll take a Coke with three cherries.”
The music was loud. Jackson craned in. “A what? Rum and Coke?”
“No, a Coke with three cherries in it.” Her smile tightened. “I don’t drink…when I dance.”
“Fair enough.” Jackson turned to me. “What will it be, slugger? The usual?”
“Just one,” I said. “I don’t want you taking advantage of me later.”
Jackson ordered Darlene’s soda, and two Moscow mules for him and me. Big Bad Voodoo Daddy blared overhead, and dozens of dancers were swinging on the dance floor, ringed by onlookers. Old-fashioned lamps on the walls cast a golden light.
The bartender set down Darlene’s soda and two copper mugs, brimming with vodka, ginger beer, and ice—each with a lime perched on the rim.
Jackson tossed down a twenty, and then lifted his drink in a toast. “To interventions.”
“To interventions,” Darlene echoed, her voice low.
We clinked classes and I watched, mesmerized as Darlene plucked a cherry from her drink and put it to her lips that were painted just as red. She held the cherry with her teeth to pull it free from the stem, and then it vanished into her mouth.
“My God,” Jackson murmured to me under his breath. “Did you see that?”
“Hell yes, I did.”
“She’s the hottest woman in this joint.”
“I know,” I said, watching as Darlene struck up a conversation with Penny, one of our friends from Hastings. “And she has no idea.”
That’s part of what makes her so damn beautiful.
Jackson nudged my arm. “What the hell are you waiting for? Ask her to dance.”
“I can’t fucking dance,” I said. “You know that.”
Jackson heaved a sigh. “You leave me no choice. Hold this for me?”
I gritted my teeth as Jackson handed me his cocktail like I was a freshman at a hazing, compelled to do his bidding. Jackson took Darlene’s hand and gave an exaggerated bow.
“Care to dance?”
She shot me a glance and a smile, then nodded her head. “I’d love to.”
He led her to the dance floor with a parting glance at me. Jackson, that smooth bastard, had taken a ballroom dance class as an undergrad. I watched him spin Darlene expertly across the floor, and goddamn, watching her dance...
Her dress whirled over legs that seemed to go on forever, and her body moved through complex steps effortlessly. She was better than Jackson, but they looked good together. Watching them, I suddenly felt ravenously hungry. I took a long pull of my cocktail.
It had been ages since I’d drunk anything—the vodka went straight to my head. I started to order another and drank Jackson’s instead. By the time the second copper mug was drained, the room’s muted light had taken on a pleasantly fuzzy glow, and I watched my best friend dance with Darlene with a small smile over my lips.
He met my eye several times, eyebrows raised to his hairline, and inclined his head at his dance partner as if to say, What are you waiting for?
I only grinned back. I was content now to wait. I’d been off my game, true, but I realized with Darlene I didn’t need one.
The song ended and Jackson bent Darlene over his knee in a deep dip. Her back arched as if she had no bones, and when he hauled her up, her face was radiant.
A slow song began, “Cheek to Cheek” sung by Ella Fitzgerald, and I pushed myself off the bar, through the crowds.
“May I?” I asked, cutting in before Jackson could answer.
“It’s about damn time,” he muttered under his breath.
“You’re going to need a new drink,” I told him as he slipped away, and then I was holding Darlene.
I slipped an arm around her slender waist, and held her other against my chest. Her body radiated soft warmth through the silky material of her dress, and I imagined her lean muscles moving under my hands. Her face was flushed from the dancing, and her eyes were crystalline blue over her red lips.
“I wondered if you were ever going to come over here,” she said.
“I don’t dance,” I said. The vodka had stripped my words down to the bare bones. “I liked watching you.”
“Jackson is very good.”
“You’re better.”
“Mmm, now I know what you were doing instead of dancing,” she said with a small smile. “Are you having a good time?”
“I am now.” I couldn’t take my eyes off of her.
She held my gaze for a moment, then laid her head against my chest.
“I’m having a good time too,” she said. “Maybe a better time than I should.”
“I know.”
“I’m supposed to be working on me.”
“I know,” I said again. “I can see my finish line from here. I should keep going but…”
“But what?” she asked against my heart.
“I don’t want to kiss you drunk, but I want to kiss you.”
Her breath caught and she raised her head to look at me, her lips parted. It took everything I had not to kiss her anyway, but it felt wrong; with vodka on my breath and my thoughts clouded and dizzy. I’d kissed a hundred women drunk or tipsy, but something stopped me with this woman.
She deserves more.
“You want to kiss me?” she asked.
I tilted her chin up with a loose fist, and my thumb brushed the skin just beneath her lower lip. My mouth was clumsy with the alcohol, but the booze had freed my emotions that I’d kept on lockdown, always, and I was helpless against her beauty to keep them in.
“I think about you,” I said. “A lot.”
“I think about you, too,” she whispered, and I smelled the sweetness of Maraschino cherries on her breath. “And Olivia.”
Instantly, my arms held her tighter at those words. “You do?”
She nodded. “And I know it’s fast, but I feel like,” she swallowed. “I don’t know what I feel. Like I’m supposed to be getting myself together and not getting swept up in all the things I usually get swept up in. I keep saying I need to work on me, but I’m doing everything right and I still feel like something’s missing.” Her eyes were impossibly blue as they gazed up at mine. “Is it you?”
“I don’t know,” I said. But maybe it could be.
I held her and turned a slow circle, possibilities whispering in my ear.
“What do you want, Darlene?”
“I think I want you to kiss me, too. No, I know I do. More than anything, actually.”
Hearing her say the words conjured something deep in me. Not sex or lust. What I wanted with her went beyond that. And deeper, somehow.
“But Sawyer, there’s something I have to tell you.”
“Anything.”
“I wish it were that simple.”
Her beautiful face morphed into anguish, and then the song ended. “In the Mood”—the quintessential swing song—came on and the crowd filled the floor in a mad rush.
The heat and depth between us vanished and it felt like I’d been thrust up from somewhere hot and dark, into bright, cold light.
Darlene was asked to dance by some other guy but she declined and walked with me back to the bar where Jackson was watching us, a new Moscow mule in his hand.
He opened his mouth to make a joke, but snapped it shut again.
“Are you having a good time?” he asked.
“I’m having a great time,” Darlene said, not looking at me. “I’m so happy to have gotten out into the city.”
“Glad to hear it,” Jackson said, his gaze landing on mine. “I thought it was about overdue.”
The three of us said goodbye to our friends and Darlene exchanged phone numbers with Penny. I hoped a friendship would come out of it.
Anything, if it makes Darlene happy.
Jackson, Darlene and I, took an Uber back to the Victorian. There, Darlene gave Jackson a peck on the cheek.
“Thank you so much. I had such a good time.” Her glance landed on me then darted away. “It was a lovely night.”
Then she hurried upstairs in a cloud of soft perfume and cherries.
Maybe it was the vodka, but a sense of certainty and peace settled over me.
Jackson was staring at me. “Well? What the hell happened?”
I smiled like an idiot but I wasn’t trying to be smooth; I didn’t have game, or moves, or an agenda anymore. I pulled my bewildered friend in for a sloppy hug.
“Thanks, man,” I said.
“For what?”
“For tonight.”
For her.