SAWYER

1.

“Pecker, when can we change your name?”

He brought me another beer and laughed. “As long as you keep leaving me money, you call me whatever you want, Saint.”

“I haven’t heard someone actually call me that in a long time, Pecker. Well, not since I came back to town.”

“Well, I haven’t heard someone call me my real name in a long time. I don’t even know what the hell my name is. Now pay me for that beer.”

“Easy, man,” I said. I reached into my pocket. “Damn. You’re vicious in your old age.”

“Years of dealing with your friends will do that to a man.”

“I wish I could apologize for that.”

“Just don’t get into a fight.”

“Now, why would I get into a fight?” I asked with a grin.

“Last time I remember you punched Tate. Right over there.” Pecker pointed to the opposite end of the bar. “And on top of that, Dirt and his buddies are here. They always love a good fight with the St. Skin guys.”

“I'm going to park my ass right here for a few drinks and then disappear.”

“The Saint special.”

“Thanks for that.”

Pecker laughed again. He grabbed a towel off his shoulder and started to wipe the bar. “What are you doing here? Not just in the bar, but back in town.”

“It was time.”

“Right. And you’re here drinking instead of spending time with Kate.”

“Jesus,” I said. “I almost forgot how this entire town knows everyone’s shit.”

“Hey, this bar is basically a giant confessional booth. No need for penance though. You just keep drinking until the pain goes away and the words flow smooth.”

“Should I call you Father?” I asked with a wink.

“Just keep drinking, My Son,” Pecker said.

I laughed. “I’m here because I’m here, Pecker. Okay?”

“You went to see her and met Jason, didn’t you?”

I gritted my teeth for a second. “Something like that.”

“She talk to you about it?”

“Not really.”

“That’s where I have to keep my mouth shut,” Pecker said.

“Yeah, sure,” I said. “I would hate to put you in a tough position.” I took out a twenty and put it on the counter. “Unless…”

Pecker slapped his hand to the twenty and took it. “Bribing a bartender? That’s pretty low. It won’t work. But, hey, I can put this toward the tab you never paid when you left.”

“I had a tab?” I asked.

“Fuck off, Saint. You know you had a tab. You’re lucky I let you come in and drink without paying it.”

“Why did you?”

“I wanted to hear why you were back. Nothing interesting though.”

“Well, maybe that can change,” I said.

“How so?”

I grinned. I pointed. “Tate just walked in.”

“Okay,” Pecker said. He looked at Tate. Then at me. His face dropped. “Ah, shit. You two…”

I stood up from the barstool and cracked my knuckles. “Maybe you should call the police in advance, Pecker.”

* * *

2.

I was just messing with Pecker. But what I did find interesting was the way Tate looked at Dirt. Now, I remembered Dirt from way back in the day. He was a complete loser and I didn’t understand the deal with him and St. Skin.

When Tate came over to me, he offered a hand to shake but I declined. Instead, I had Pecker use that twenty he took from me to get Tate a drink.

Tate slid onto a barstool with a cocky attitude while I just stood there. There wasn’t a minute that didn’t go by that I didn’t have the urge to punch him in the face again.

“I have a lot to ask you,” I said.

“I’m sure you do,” Tate said.

“She’s got a fucking kid.”

Tate nodded. He grabbed his beer and took a big gulp. He slowly put it down and looked over at me.

“What do you want me to say right now?” he asked.

“I don’t exactly know.”

“You should talk to her.”

“I did,” I said. “She was hesitant so I left.”

“You left?”

“I’m trying this thing where I respect people’s feelings.”

“Holy shit,” Tate said. “Where did your balls go?”

“Fuck yourself, Tate,” I said. “You know everything, don’t you?”

“To be fair here, Sawyer, I didn’t leave.”

I gritted my teeth again and turned my head. I saw Pecker behind the bar. He stood with the towel over his shoulder and I noticed he was holding a baseball bat in his other hand.

He raised an eyebrow as a warning.

That’s when I took a seat next to Tate.

I looked around the bar. My eyes stopped at the spots where we had been sitting the night I left. Maddox, River, me, Tate. And a few seats away sat Kate. Purposely there just to piss me off. Just to fuck with my heart. Looking so beautiful and casually looking around as though she was waiting for someone to meet her. Just to step on my heart a little more.

“What’s the deal with Dirt?” I asked.

“He’s an asshole.”

“I know that, Tate. But what’s the deal with him and St. Skin?”

“Old standing demons,” Tate said. “He’s got a problem with us. Jealous because he has no talent. And I’m pretty sure Prick fucked his girlfriend.”

“Prick likes to fuck anything with two legs and a-”

“Yeah,” Tate said. “He traded one addiction for another.”

“Women can still kill you though.”

“Cheers to that,” Tate said. He slid his beer glass toward mine.

I lifted my glass and ignored Tate for a second.

I licked my lips after the drink and sighed. “Look, brother, I don’t care how much time this all takes to work things out. Between us. With the shop. Whatever happens, it happens. But this shit with Kate…”

“You think I fucked her,” Tate said boldly. “Just admit it, Sawyer. You think I fucked her back then. You think I fucked her while you were gone. You let that shit into your brain like a disease and it’ll never let go.”

“What do you want me to think, Tate?”

He looked at me. “You know, Sawyer, she cried in my arms. A lot. And there were times when she would look up at me. Her eyes big, glossy from the tears. I could smell her breath. I could feel her so vulnerable. So desperate. I felt my body… shit, brother, the things that ran through my head. The look in her eyes. What she wanted from me. Fuck, what she needed from me. And then I’d lean down… just enough… the tips of our noses…”

I jumped up and grabbed my beer glass. I turned and threw it against the wall. It exploded.

Pecker charged to the end of the bar in a second and slammed the baseball bat down. That got my attention and he lifted it up and pointed it right at me.

“It’s okay,” Tate said. “Pecker, it’s good. It’s all good here.” Tate reached into his pocket and took out some money. “Get him another drink. On me.”

The anger boiled inside me.

Tate turned to look at me. “That’s what you want me to say, right?”

I didn’t respond.

“That’s what I thought,” he said.

Pecker put a fresh beer on the bar. “You need to sit down, Saint. Don’t make me toss you out.”

“Did it happen?” I asked Tate, ignoring Pecker.

“I don’t owe you or anyone an explanation,” Tate said.

“You’re fucking pushing it,” I said.

“I think you’re right on a few things,” Tate said.

“What?”

“The expansion stuff. For the shop.”

“Changing the subject, huh?”

Tate grinned. “Look, Sawyer, you need to figure your shit out with Kate on your own. I’m not getting involved. I was there when you weren’t. That’s all I can say.”

“And now she has a kid,” I said. “A kid that’s not mine.”

Tate slowly nodded. “She told you that?”

“Yeah. I needed to at least know that.”

“Well, I’m glad she told you that. Now, about the shop…”

“Fuck the shop,” I said.

Tate laughed. “Knew you’d say that.” Tate stood up. “Tell you what, Sawyer. I’ll tell you what you’re dying to know. But first, you need to blow off some steam.”

“Are we going out to fight each other again?” I asked.

“No,” Tate said. “You’re going to fight Dirt… and here’s why…”

* * *

3.

There were few things in life I could not turn down. Kate. Whiskey. And a good fight. Then again, it wasn’t exactly a good fight. Not with Dirt. Tate told me that Dirt had been harassing Kate. Truthfully, I felt like punching Tate. If he cared about her the way he said he did, why hadn’t he broken Dirt’s jaw in four places to shut his goddamn mouth? Then again, it was Kate. She was stubborn. She had no patience. She wouldn’t ask for help either. Just like she already told me.

I grabbed Dirt by the arm and threw him back.

He quickly brought his pool stick back like a baseball bat.

“Come on,” I said. “Swing it.”

“Saint… what the hell… what’s up?”

“You said shit to Kate?” I asked. “Huh? You think it’s okay to talk to a woman like that?”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Dirt said. “It’s just diner talk, man,”

“Diner talk?”

“Yeah. You know what I mean, man. You flirt with the waitresses. Have a little fun. They flirt back. Everyone has a good time.”

“Kate flirting with you?” I said. “Never.”

“You haven’t been around for a while, man. Things change.”

“Things change,” I said. “You’ve got a mouth on you, Dirt. Good to see you standing there with some nerve. You’re all grown up now, huh?”

“Hey, it’s all good, Saint. I just mess around, that’s all. That’s my thing. Plus, if I knew you were back, I would never… I mean… hey, let’s be honest with ourselves here. Kate’s pretty as anything, right? I would never do anything to hurt her. But how can a guy shy away from asking her out a few times?”

He laughed.

I laughed.

He laughed harder.

The tension had the appearance that it was being cut.

Dirt turned his head for a moment and I made my move. I jumped forward and grabbed the pool stick. I twisted it, freeing it from Dirt’s grasp. I jammed it against his chest and drove him back until he smashed against the wall. I slid the stick up until it was against his throat.

I applied pressure and watched as he flailed his arms, trying to get a few punches in on me.

“I ever hear anything like that again and I’ll fucking kill you,” I said. “You stay away from the diner. Away from Kate. I don’t know who you think you are or who you think she is. She’s got a fucking kid, man. She’s got enough to worry about. Last thing she needs is some asshole like you sniffing around, making her feel uncomfortable.”

I pressed hard. Dirt tapped my shoulders with both hands. Quitting. Tapping out. Wanting me to stop. But the words that flowed through my head… I wasn’t sure if I was warning Dirt or warning myself.

“He’s turning purple,” someone said.

That’s when I felt a hand pull at my shoulder.

Tate pulled me away from Dirt just in time.

The pool stick fell to the floor and Dirt fell to the left, grabbing for the pool table.

He was bent over, coughing, holding his neck, groaning, drooling on the table.

I balled up a fist and punched him, just once, just to say I did.

Dirt toppled to the floor and I put my hands up to show that I was done with him.

I looked around at all his friends. Some of them I knew, some of them I didn’t.

“Anyone goes near her and I’ll do the same,” I said.

“We get it,” Tate said. “We all get it. Come on, let me get you a beer.”

I shook Tate away. “I don’t want a fucking beer.”

I faced him and watched him swallow hard.

“Go ahead, Sawyer,” he said. “Just ask it.”

It was a question I never wanted to really ask. But it was burning inside me. Fucking killing me from the inside out.

“Is the kid yours?” I asked Tate.

Tate stepped back. “No, Sawyer, the kid isn’t mine.”

* * *

4.

It was too late. I shouldn’t have been there. But there was no turning back as I gently knocked on the door. My backup plan was to sit outside the door and wait for morning. Never thought in my life I would be reduced to that. But I couldn’t help it. I needed to know what was going on. What had happened to Kate after I left. She had a kid now. And I wasn’t the father of the kid. Tate wasn’t the father of the kid. So who the hell was?

I waited for what felt like years before the door opened a little.

“Sawyer?” Kate whispered with sleep in her eyes.

“I’m sorry, darling. I need to talk to you.”

“What the hell are you doing?”

“What happened to you?”

“What?”

“When I left. What happened? I can’t stop thinking about this shit. Okay? Everything that went wrong. You sat there at the bar that night knowing you wanted me to explode with anger. You were going to meet someone. Have a few drinks. Wave it in front of my face. And you know what else happened that night? I found paperwork that Tate was planning on buying me out. Full documents. He was going to make me an offer to get out. And there was paperwork to sue me. To get me out. No matter what.”

“Sawyer…”

“No,” I said. “I’m not going to let this go. I lost myself back then, sure. We all did. Things got busy. Things got tense. You and I fell apart. Tate was sort of stuck in the middle. And it just kept getting worse and worse. I was losing everything anyway, so I left. Okay? And now I come back and you have a kid. But I don’t see anyone in your life. So what happened? No, better yet, what can I do to help?”

Kate opened the door a little more.

She was wearing a long t-shirt. I could tell she wasn’t wearing a bra. Seeing her body pressing against the shirt… damn. Her legs showing from where the shirt ended. Her bare feet, chipped nail polish on her toenails.

“Please don’t wake Jason up,” she whispered.

“I’m not here to cause trouble,” I said. “I promise. I just want to make sure you’re okay and being taken care of. And if you’re a single mom struggling to do this, let me help you, Kate. Let me show you why I’m back here. Okay? I’m not asking to just barge into your life…”

“But you did,” she said. “You just showed up. In town. At the diner. At my apartment.”

“I know. It’s my style. But there’s a kid involved. I’m not an idiot, okay? I would never do anything to hurt or confuse him.”

“What about me?”

“I can’t help what I want, darling.”

I inched closer to her. Call me crazy but something about her was even more attractive. The fact that she was raising Jason on her own. The fact that she refused a job at St. Skin. She was so goddamn strong and beautiful and capable. I never thought something like that could turn me on so much. All it made me want to do was take care of her more.

I slowly touched her arms. “I’m lost without you in my life, Kate.”

“And I’m living the fucking dream here,” she said.

I slipped closer to her and she quickly backed away. She put a hand to my chest and shook her head.

“I’m here, darling. I’m not going anywhere. No matter what the story is.”

“It’s not that simple, Sawyer. Okay?”

“Nothing about us was ever simple. Nothing ever will be. You can’t hide yourself because you have a son. I can understand it, Kate. I’m not asking you to change who you are right now. There’s no way we can change the past.”

“Then what are you really doing here?”

“For the first time in a long time, I’m thinking about the future. And here’s the thing… no matter what I come up with, I’m never happy. Unless I add you to it. I could spend the rest of my life running tattoo shops and inking people and making a goddamn fortune, but if I don’t get to come home to you, I’m not happy.”

She shook her head again. “See, that right there… I can’t hear that right now.”

“Why? Because it’s the truth and scares you?”

“Yes,” she said. She made fists and slammed them against my chest. “That’s exactly what it is, you asshole.”

Her voice got a little loud as she started to hit me over and over.

“It doesn’t scare me anymore,” I said. “I don’t care what it takes or what I have to do. You’re worth it.”

She grabbed my shirt and pushed at me. “I hate you, Sawyer. I fucking hate you.”

“Hey, hey, shhh…”

“Shut up,” she growled. She pushed at me again. She took one hand away from my shirt and slapped me. “You don’t get to do this to me. You don’t get to show up and fuck everything up for me.”

“Kate, you’re getting loud,” I said. “You can be mad…”

“I’m more than mad,” she said. “I hate you with all my heart.”

She opened her mouth to yell at me some more. I didn’t want the kid to wake up and find me standing there in the kitchen.

I grabbed her by the waist and turned so I could pin her against the wall next to the front door of the apartment. Her hands touched my face and I bent my knees so I could move down and kiss her.

Our lips touched and it was an explosion through my body. We kissed harder the second time, both of us exhaling breaths through our noses as we turned our heads to kiss more. Her hips thrust at me as I slid my hand around to the small of her back to hold her there. Fuck, if this was hate, then she could hate me every day for the rest of my life.

The kiss was intense as we kept going and going. It got louder and hotter. But it kept her from yelling at me.

I scooped her up, keeping her body super tight to mine. I turned and walked her to the counter. I threw her up on it and kissed down to her neck. She tasted sweet like honey and smelled like desire.

Kate put her head back and sighed with a gentle moan. Her hands clutched to my shoulders and I felt her start to push me away.

I pulled my mouth away from her neck with a pop noise.

I looked at her.

She was breathing heavy.

I slowly slid my hands from her body down to the counter.

We waited a few seconds and both came at each other, kissing again. This time slower and softer. Gently kissing each other’s lips, tasting each other’s tongues.

“Sawyer,” she whispered as we kissed.

“Kate,” I whispered back.

Saying her name made my heart skip a beat. Being that close to her proved how much I loved her. Even if she had a kid, oh well. I’d do whatever she would need to win her trust, to win her kid’s trust, to prove to them I wasn’t going anywhere.

Her hands touched my face and she clawed at me.

She blinked fast, her eyes filling with tears.

“Kate, what is it, darling? Please… whatever it is…”

“Just hold me tonight,” she whispered. “Please. Like you used to do.”

“Hold you?”

“Yeah.”

“In bed.”

“Yeah.”

I gritted my teeth. “Okay. Whatever you need.”

“That’s what I need.”

“What about Jason? In the morning…”

“Just stay in the room,” Kate whispered. “I’ll get him ready and he won’t know you’re here.”

“Are you sure?”

“No,” she said. She let out a weak laugh. “But I can’t imagine you leaving right now.”

“Okay,” I whispered.

I pulled her from the counter.

I walked to the door and locked it. I followed her to the bedroom. It wasn’t the first time I followed Kate to the bedroom. But passing by a kid’s room with the door slightly open, seeing toys, that was different. And going into the bedroom with Kate knowing the intentions weren’t what I wanted so badly.

I watched as she climbed onto the bed. I made fists and growled under my breath. My body couldn't fight how it felt. It took me a few deep breaths to calm myself enough to approach the bed.

Kate was already under the covers, looking at me. Her eyes were so green and she was so beautiful. I paused for a second and realized just how much damage I had done. Leaving felt like the only option at the time but if I could go back…

No. You can’t go back, Sawyer. Nobody can go back.

I got into the bed and sat there, looking down at her. I smiled.

“What?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Why?”

“You’ll get mad at me.”

“Tell me.”

“You look fucking amazing, Kate,” I said. “I’m not just saying that. You’ve always been beautiful. From the day I met you. But right now… this moment… I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.”

“You realize I’m not sleeping with you, right?”

“Yeah, I understand. That’s what makes it crazier,” I said.

She smiled, her cheeks blushing a little. “I don’t know what to say to that.”

I eased down on the bed and touched her shoulder. “Hey, I know you hate me. You have every right to hate me. But I’m not going anywhere. I want to be here with you and for you.”

Kate inched closer to me. “I don’t exactly hate you.”

“I guess that’s a step in the right direction.”

She looked up at me and smiled. She kissed my jaw and put her head to my chest. “Just hold me, Sawyer. And I promise, tomorrow, I’ll tell you everything.”