Page 120 of Sweet Temptation

“I meant what happens when you find him!” she called after Wes, but he waved a hand over his shoulder and continued on without a look back. “He couldn’t explain what he was thinking before he ran off?” Cress moaned as she watched him run, his red cape flying out behind him.

“I’m sure he’ll be back soon,” I replied.

That didn’t seem to ease Cress’s worrying, and she spent every moment Wes was gone fretting. Luckily, he didn’t take too long, and five minutes later, he came hurrying back with a bag slung over his shoulder. He was closely followed by a huge man I didn’t recognize. As the two of them drew near, I realized the guy in question was Sawyer. I burst out laughing, and Sawyer grinned in response.

“See? That’s the kind of reaction I was after,” he said, nudging Wes as they came to stand before us. He was wearing checked pajama bottoms, a sweatshirt, bathrobe, and Crocs. He even had a fake belly peeking out of the gap under his shirt. With the long blond wig and scraggily beard, he looked like such a mess it had taken me a moment to realize what he was dressed as. It was the hammer that gave it away. Sawyer hadn’t been able to let go of the idea of having a costume that matched his brother’s.

“Sawyer, did you dress as fat Thor?” Anna asked, laughing as she finally figured it out.

“Oh my God, Anna. Are you body-shaming me?” Sawyer sounded shocked, but he had a wide grin on his face. “But, yes, I did. And, for your information, I prefer to be referred to as out-of-shape Thor. So, what do you guys think?”

“I’m just wondering why on earth you would dress like that?” Anna asked, still laughing.

“So Wes and I match. It’s always a great way to get the ladies.”

“You think a beer belly is going to entice the ladies?” Anna asked.

Sawyer looked slightly crestfallen at this. “I just wanted us to match,” he grumbled.

“And you didn’t think of perhaps dressing up like Loki?” Anna asked. “You would have matched,andyou would have been the god of mischief.”

Sawyer looked like he wanted to throw his hammer across the field. “Damn, I should have thought of that! I was too busy trying to figure out how I could have a hammer too. That would have been brilliant though.”

“Yeah, no girl is going to buy a ticket to our kissing booth to kiss you when you’ve got a beer belly peeking out from under your shirt,” Cress agreed, shaking her head. “But, that’s the least of our worries right now. What have you got planned?” she said, turning to Wes.

Wes lowered the bag he was holding to the ground to reveal a variety of different colored spray cans. “I know you didn’t want to repaint the sign, but if you’re up for something different, I was thinking you could do a graffiti sign like the soccer team has done for their booth. Sawyer managed to make theirs look quite good, so I was thinking he could fix yours.”

Cress frowned at Sawyer. “You’re moonlighting as a graffiti artist now?”

“I did a street art course in London last year.”

“Really?” Cress asked. “How did I not know about this?”

“It was just a bit of fun.” He struggled to meet her gaze, and I got the feeling it had meant more than that to him. “And you know I take art.”

“We figured you either wanted an easy class or were trying to meet girls,” Anna said. “We didn’t realize you were actually into it.”

Cress waved her hands to silence everyone. “That doesn’t matter now. Can you fix the sign?”

Sawyer looked up at the booth and nodded. “Yeah, but I’ll have to redo the whole thing. You cool with that?”

“As long as it no longer says French kiss, I’m cool with anything.”

Sawyer nodded and grabbed the spray cans before he got to work. It was somewhat comical to watch Sawyer painting the sign while dressed in his costume. He looked like some kind of vagrant with his oily hair and baggy clothes. It was probably lucky we were all there watching, or I imagined someone would have tried to stop him and escorted him from the property.

Cress was tapping her hand against her arm, watching on nervously. I could see she was worried Sawyer was going to mess it up, but I had faith he’d do a good job. There was no way Wes would have suggested it otherwise. As he worked, she slowly started to relax, and I could see she was beginning to trust that he knew what he was doing.

In what felt like no time at all, Sawyer had completely transformed the hot pink sign with an edgy street art design.

“Uh, Sawyer, you’re like insanely good,” Anna said.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “You’re going to need to show us pictures of the work you did on your course. This is amazing.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Cress said, pulling Sawyer into a hug.

He laughed and tried to shrug her off. “It’s no big deal.”

“It’s a huge deal,” Cress replied. “You saved the day.”

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