Chapter 19
Sawyer
“If you’re fightin’ your heart’s desire, even if you win, you lose.”
~ Grant Turner
“Oh come on,” I mumbled as I grabbed the pillow beside me and put it over my head to try and muffle the snoring noises that were coming from Chewy who was fast asleep at the foot of my bed.
Sleep was hard enough to come by without the sound effects. I’d never had an issue sleeping before. For most of my life, my days began before dawn, were filled with manual labor, and by the time my head hit the pillow I was out for the count. But these past few weeks it hadn’t worked that way. I was beginning to think that I might be suffering from insomnia. Delilah-Turner-induced insomnia.
That girl was always on my mind. During the day I’d gotten pretty good at keeping her in the back of it, at least. I still thought about her, but I was able to distract myself with work, with running, with mindless internet surfing. But as I lay down each night and closed my eyes it was like a switch got flipped in my head and all I could do was obsess about her smile, her eyes, her kiss, her moans, her everything. There was no way to drift off when those thoughts were filling my brain.
It probably didn’t help that I was trying to sleep in the scene of the crime. I was in the same bed that I’d carried her to after our shower and made love to her in again before she fell asleep in my arms.
I’d washed the sheets, but I could still smell her.
It’d been a week since my mouth had been on hers and I could still feel her lips.
I’d left and gone to the office before she woke up, so there wasn’t an awkward morning after. She was gone when I got home that evening, and I hadn’t spoken to her since, yet I could still hear her voice in my head.
It was driving me bat-shit crazy.
Every waking moment was a battle not to pick up the phone and call or text her. Every time I was behind the wheel, I fought the urge to drive to The Flower Pot or her house. Every trip into town, I did the opposite of what I used to do, which was to avoid her. Now I looked for her, hoping to catch a glimpse of her sweet smile, her golden hair, her big brown eyes, but never did.
No matter how much I tried to forget about the night we’d spent together, I couldn’t. Even the times I’d been able to block it out of my mind, my body would remember. I could still feel the silky softness of her hair running through my fingers. I could still smell her unique floral scent. I could still taste the sugary sweetness of her skin. She was branded into my senses.
My phone rang, and I grabbed it before the first ring ended. It was close to midnight, so that meant it was an emergency, a butt dial, a misplaced booty call, or one of my brothers giving me shit about not being out on a Saturday night. When I saw who it was, I knew it was door number four.
“What?” I answered when I saw that it was Coop.
“Get your old ass out of bed and down to the Cow.” His voice was loud so that he could be heard over the talking and music in the background.
“No.”
“I’m not asking you to be my wingman. I just want to hang out. We’ll play pool. Drink. It’ll be fun.”
“No.” I wasn’t trying to be a dick, but I had no desire to be in a room full of people trying to hook up. I didn’t mind hanging out on weeknights, grabbing a beer, playing some darts, but I avoided that place at all costs on the weekends.
“Is this because you screwed things up with Delilah?”
“What?” I snapped.
As far as I knew, no one had any idea that anything had gone on with Delilah. I’d expected some follow-up interrogation after the obvious setup, but neither of my parents had said a word to me.
“Come on, bro.” Coop said as if it was as obvious as Pinocchio’s nose after he’d lied his wooden ass off. The background noise lessened and I figured he must’ve moved to a quieter place to talk, which didn’t bode well for this call wrapping up anytime soon.
“Let’s look at the facts,” he continued. “Mom uses her cupid-Spidey-senses to intercept and nix my beer date with Delilah. She pulls her ‘mom card’ and has me send Delilah over to your house instead of meeting me at The Cow and then has dad bring you her famous fried chicken.”
“And?” I knew exactly what he was getting at, but I wasn’t about to give him anything.
“And,” he repeated, overemphasizing the word. “Since that night, you’ve been in an even pissier mood than usual, and poor Delilah looks like she’s been Old Yellered.”
“She what?”
“She looks like someone shot her dog.”
Did she?
I figured that she wasn’t thrilled over me leaving before she woke up, but I didn’t think that it would upset her that bad. I’d done it because I knew that if I’d been there when she woke up in my bed, I would’ve spent the rest of the day keeping her in it. And I’d thought that making a clean break was like ripping off a Band-Aid. It was as quick and as painless as it could possibly get.
“She’s miserable.” Coop seemed eager to tell me, “I saw her at the Spoon yesterday, and her eyes were all puffy, it was obvious she’d been crying. When I said hi, she smiled and acted like nothing was wrong. I’m not sure if she was trying to convince herself or me.”
I wanted to ask if she mentioned me but I knew that was a bad idea. Just like listening to any more of this crap. “I gotta go.”
Coop was still talking, but I hung up before I did something completely out of character and said something that I didn’t want to. My relationship, whatever it was or wasn’t, wasn’t a can of worms I wanted to open with my brother. Or anyone for that matter.
The second I set my phone down it rang. I picked it up. “What?”
“I think we got disconnected. I was still talkin—”
I hung up again and again, he called right back.
As I picked it up, I inhaled deeply trying not to take out my bad mood due to lack of sleep and frustration on Coop. He was just being his annoying self, and I knew that his behavior—although infuriatingly irritating—came from a good place. “Say what you have to say.”
“I don’t know what happened between you two, but I think you’re making a big mistake. I saw how you looked at her at the fundraiser. You wanted to kill Brady. Hell, you were ready to kick my ass for asking her to dance.
“And I saw how she was looking at you. Come to think about it, how she’s always looked at you. Like you could walk on water. Like you’re Superman, Batman, and Romeo all rolled into one. Like the sun rises and sets on you—”
“Coop.” Once he started down this road, it could be awhile before he got back on track if he was left unchecked.
“Look, I don’t know if you’re scared, or confused, or just being an asshole. But whatever is stopping you from going for it—you need to get over it. Delilah is one of a kind. She’s the whole package. The real deal. The Hope Diamond in a world of counterfeits. A once in a lifeti—”
“Coop. Your point. Get to it.”
“My point is you two are perfect for each other. She’s the peanut butter to your jelly. The Bonnie to your Clyde. The flip to your flop. The Simon to your Garfunkel. The day to your night. The Buzz to your Lightyear. The salt to your pepper. The Bert to your Ernie. The biscuit to your gravy. The Sam to your Frodo. The cream to your coffee. The Wilma to your Fred. The peaches to your cream. The Thelma to your Louise. The sugar to your tea. The Will to your Grace. The icing to your cake. The Scooby to your Shaggy. The milk to your cookies. The Sandy to your Danny. The sun to your moon. The Beyoncé to your Jay Z. The yin to your yang,” he said with a chuckle, most likely because of the word yang.
He had the maturity of a twelve-year-old.
This was the last time I was going to let him comment on my love life, and I wanted to make sure that he got it all out of his system. “You done?”
“The Chip to your Dale. Okay, I’m done.”
“Goodbye, Coop.” I hung up.
I silenced it. It rang again. Closing my eyes, I scrubbed my hands over my face in frustration as I answered the call. “The June to my Johnny, I get it.”
“Your dad collapsed.”
“Mom?!”
“We’re on the way to the hospital now.” Her voice was shaky.
“I’m on my way.” I was up and pulling on my jeans before I even finished the sentence.
“Call your brothers and sister.” I could hear muffled sounds of people speaking and machines beeping before she said, “I have to go. I love you.”
“I love you too, mom.”
I rushed to put my shoes on and made the calls I needed to, and I fought the urge to call the one person that I actually wanted to tell. There was only one person’s voice that I wanted to hear on the other line, the one person that would make the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach bearable. Delilah. She was the light to my darkness…but that meant I was the darkness to her light, and she deserved better than that.