Chapter 46
Elle
The door swings slowly open.
Sawyer stands in the doorway, nearly filling it. I always forget how big he is. Every time, it’s the best kind of surprise, one I feel first in my body.
Please tell me it’s not too late. Please tell me I can explain, ask for clarification, lay everything on the table, unravel the mess I’ve made.
I’m not sure who, exactly, I’m pleading to, but I hope They’re listening.
Sawyer eyes me cautiously, but he doesn’t look like he’s about to slam the door in my face.
“If it isn’t the devil,” a voice says dryly from behind him.
I wince. I’m sure I’m not Sawyer’s brother’s favorite person.
“Shut up, Brooks,” Sawyer says. “You were just leaving, weren’t you?”
Brooks raises an eyebrow. “I was. But now I might stick around and spectate…”
I can’t say I don’t deserve it, but I desperately want Brooks to get the hell out of here and give me a shot at explaining myself.
“I could come back another time,” I offer, but Sawyer and Brooks, at exactly the same time, say, “No.”
Brooks claps his brother on the back. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
I wonder if that’s code for, Stick to your guns, bro.
Sawyer and I watch him walk down the path to his truck, then we turn back toward each other. He won’t quite meet my eye, which—well, I can’t exactly blame him.
“I—got you something.” I don’t have a brilliant plan, just an apology gift and a lot of hope.
“What’s that?”
“Maybe you should come see?”
He looks suspicious, but I lead him out the door and around the side of my house, and he follows.
I stop in front of a pile of wood, carefully stacked on pallets next to my foundation, then turn to face him. I want to see his expression when he realizes what it is.
“Holy crap,” he says. “What is that?”
“It’s the bar—what’s left of the old bar—at Maeve’s. Do you remember they were renovating Maeve’s the night we were there?”
His eyes meet mine, and I see a flash of memory in them. I feel it as heat. He remembers, all right.
Hope rises.
“It’s all they had left. There were wall joists and floorboards originally, and a bunch of other stuff, but I didn’t get there in time. But they still had the lumber from the bar because someone said they wanted it and then never came to pick it up. So they let me take it.”
His expression is alert.
“It’s a gift for you. An apology gift. Because I was such an idiot the night I saw your Lucy journal. I just talked and talked and I never bothered to listen.” My voice cracks, betraying all the emotion I’m holding back. “I hope you can forgive me, and at the very least we can still be friends.”
His eyes search my face. “Friends,” he says evenly. “Is that what you want?” He doesn’t wait for my answer. He kneels and examines the reclaimed wood. “Shit, Elle, some of this is bird’s-eye maple.”
“Is it?”
“And the oak’s beautiful, too. Jesus, this is—”
He looks up at me, his eyes full of something I can’t quite read. A big emotion. “This is too much. You don’t have to buy my friendship.”
“It’s not that.” I can hardly look at him for fear he’ll see the size of my hopes.
I didn’t make a plan for what I was going to say. I figured I would open my mouth and a whole lot of stuff would fall out, and some of it would be the right stuff. Now that seems crazy, but here I am, so, well, I open my mouth.
“I got an agent. I sent my book to a bunch of agents, and one of them wants to represent me.”
“That’s so great, Elle.” Still crouched beside the reclaimed wood, he raises a hand to high-five me.
“Jacinda Walters, at Book Smith. She’s amazing. And you were right, Sawyer. About how you—I—can talk myself out of anything. I was talking myself out of Splitsville—that’s what I’m calling my book—telling myself I wasn’t good enough, the book wasn’t good enough, without giving it, or me, a chance.”
He doesn’t say “I told you so.” He just nods.
Sawyer listens better than anyone I know.
“I told Jacinda the story, of what you said about it, and she knew exactly what I meant, because I guess writers do it all the time. She said, ‘You were shooting yourself down before you could get rejected.’ And I realized—” I stop. It’s hard to speak because my chest and throat are so tight. “I realized that’s what I was doing with you. Telling myself you were going to reject me. Maybe you are still in love with Lucy, and there’s no room in your life for me, and no matter what I do that won’t change, and years from now I’ll realize it was like with Trevor, where I was waiting and waiting to know that I was the one—”
“Elle,” he says quietly. “Shut up.”
I do, clamping my lips together.
He stands, reluctantly letting his hands slide away from where they’re caressing the bird’s-eye maple. His gaze catches and holds mine, earnest and intense and so, so Sawyer. “I will probably always love Lucy. I mean, I don’t exactly know how this stuff works, but I lost my grandmother when I was fifteen and I still love her.” He takes a deep breath. “But there is room in my life for you.”
He lets me take that in—on a giant wave of relief and joy—before he says, “And not just room, but the master-bedroom kind of room, if you know what I mean.” One side of his mouth tips up, and then, like the rest can’t resist following, he grins at me.
I do. I do. I know what he means with a big bubble of hope and excitement that’s expanding in my chest as he talks.
He takes a step toward me, opens his arms, and I fly into them. He hugs me—just hugs me—and oh, my God, it feels so good. He is so big and so strong and so warm, and he just holds on and holds on, and, “Even if you never want to have any more sex with me, will you at least hug me from time to time?” I blurt.
He shakes with laughter against me. “You are shit out of luck if you think I’m going to never want to have sex with you.”
Then he kisses me, soft and sweet and brief, before coming back for seconds with gusto—and tongue.
If we weren’t in the backyard, if Jonah and Madden weren’t playing in my basement and liable to appear at any goddamn moment, I’d tackle him to the ground, but we both step back like the sensible parents we are.
“I have something I want to show you, too,” he says.