Page 57 of Love Me Reckless

He nods, but his eyes brighten like I’ve surprised him.

“Is there someone who means a lot to you?”

I lower the rest of the way into the water and settle onto the bench seat. “My grandma Theodora. She lives in New York, but we’re close. I visit her every summer, and when I was at Brown, I would stay with her on long weekends.”

He lowers into the tub and gives a contented sigh. “What would Grandma Theodora think about you getting a tattoo?”

I laugh. “I think she’d be all for it. Especially if it made my parents mad.”

“I like this woman already,” he says with a smirk.

I eye his forearm, the hilt of the dagger just visible above the water’s surface. “Does yours represent someone special?”

“My mom,” he says, his expression guarded. “Her courage.”

I lock eyes with him as my curiosity unspools. “What about the thorns?”

“She was only nineteen when she had me, and that choice made life harder for her. But she made sure I knew she never regretted it.”

Despite the heat from the water, a chill dances over my skin. Those thorns, then… they’re for how they struggled. How they endured. “You must miss her.”

“She died when I was fourteen, but she taught me a lot,” he says with a faint smile.

It wrecks me that he lost his mom, especially when he was so young. “Will you tell me about her?”

His expression turns thoughtful. “She loved taking these long walks. She loved wildflowers. She used to press them into notebooks and stack library books on top to flatten them. She was kind of a neat freak, but I think it was to cover up that we didn’t have much. That definitely rubbed off on me. Never takeanything for granted.”

“That’s a good lesson.” And a good reminder that gratitude is a great antidote for wishing for what’s out of reach.

He gazes up at the stars. “She wasn’t much of a cook, but she liked baking. She used to make these amazing cakes for us, sometimes for no reason. And we’d try to make it last, but it never worked.”

“Sounds like she did her best to make you feel loved.”

His look turns pained. “She did.”

I want to ask how she died. If Sawyer was only fourteen when it happened… I do the math. She would have been thirty-three? It’s so young. It must have been awful for him and his half-brother. How did he survive?

But I sense that if he wanted to tell me more, he would have already.

“Last time we shared a hot tub, we spent the whole time talking about what I want.” I raise my eyebrow. “Your turn.”

He gives me a curious look. “Are we playing another round of hot tub wish list?”

I laugh. “It’s only fair.”

He shrugs. “I meant what I said last time. Being in Finn River with Zach and William, working at the ranch with a crew of guys I respect… Compared to what my life was like before, right now is pretty amazing.”

“Think beyond today, though. Into the future. What would you want? Or how would you like to see yourself in ten years? Will you still be a ski lift mechanic?”

He cups water in his palms and dumps it slowly like he’s lost in thought. “There is something,” he says, glancing up at me. “But I’m not even sure it’s an idea. Or how I’d even go about doing it.”

I cross my arms and grin. “Well, it certainly isn’t going to happen if you keep it to yourself.”

He laughs, his face lighting up. “Touché. Okay, I had this teacher in high school. He taught auto shop and robotics and 3D design, which I ended up in after failing Math and History my freshman year. He was quirky as hell, told awful jokes, and if you snuck up onhim, he was kind of unpredictable… but I don’t know, he never gave up on us. Almost like he knew his classes were our last chance at staying in school. He was always super patient. He never judged us, or talked to us like we were slow.”

“Sounds like he made a difference.”

“For sure I wouldn’t be here right now if not for him.”

---