Page 27 of The Inevitable Us

I start to make their wet food just as Sawyer walks out, the kittens trailing behind him like little ducklings. I find it curious that he doesn’t act surprised to see my new roommates. Wednesday starts rubbing against his leg as he tries to walk, stopping every half step so he doesn’t trip on her. Charlie starts to barrel towards his meal at full speed, his tail erect, and protesting loudly when he reaches me.

“I found them,” I offer. “In an alley. No mom around.” I bite my lip and wait for him to say something, anything.

Grabbing two paper plates, he places our slices on the coffee table next to one another. “Are you working?”

I moisten my lips and swallow before answering. “Not yet. I haven’t found a job. It looks like no one is hiring until classes start.”

He grabs a napkin and wipes his mouth before moving to my fridge. “And when is that exactly?”

I watch anxiously as he moves across the loft, his long legs carrying him across the room in lazy steps.I missed you. I don’t care that Dad sent you. I’m just happy to see you, even if it hurts.

I use my own napkin and swallow a bite before answering. “In two weeks.”

He grabs a water bottle for both of us before he stops to read the class schedule that I have printed out on the fridge.

Without asking where they are, he opens my junk drawer and pulls out a notepad and pen, jotting my schedule down.Please just help yourself.He rips off a piece of paper from the notepad and sticks it in his pocket. I narrow my eyes and sit back on the couch, suspicion washing over me. I didn’t unpack the notepads while he was here. When he opened the bathroom door, he’d partially opened it before walking inside like I do to make sure I don’t hit a kitten with the door. My suspicions are confirmed when he opens the drawer inside the coffee table and removes the remote control to the television.

Excited goosebumps pepper my skin, and a small, secretive grin finds my face. Sawyer’s watching me somehow, someway, for some reason. It isn’t just the pain of missing him. I really am feeling him near.

I watch him eat with butterflies in my stomach. His eyes are on his plate, but he gives me small glances upwards once or twice. When Charlie jumps on the sofa between us, he scowls at him and moves the kitten to his other side. Once his slice is quickly finished, he throws away his garbage.

Reaching over to the coffee table, he grabs my phone, unlocking it with my passcode without asking. That’s what I get for using the same passcode for years. He uses it to call his phone, the screen illuminating from the phone holder on his belt. He checks his phone to ensure my number is on the screen with a head nod.He’s giving me his personal number.“Come walk me out,” he commands.

My own food is long gone. I walk to the trash and throw my paper plate away as well before moving to the door to show him out. My breath catches when strong muscled arms reach for me, pulling me tight. One hand moves to my bottom, the other to my hair when he leans in and his lips caress mine softly at first, then again demandingly. He parts my lips, his tongue insisting on entry when his grip tightens further on my body. His erection starts to grow between us.

My own hands go to his hair, finally touching it for myself before resting my hands around his neck. My nipples pucker and the excitement grows when he breaks off the kiss and runs his nose down my neck with a low growl. I feel myself grow wet and my body starts to shake with the thrill of being this intimate with Sawyer.

His grip loosens and I look at him, confused. His eyes are dilated, his lips swollen from our kiss, his hair messy from my fingers exploring. He kisses the tip of my nose, then my lips before releasing me.

He walks the step to the door and wordlessly exits, shutting the door with a soft thud. I stand there breathless for a second before moving to the door to lock it behind him. Before I reach it, I hear the sound of metal against metal and the door locking from the outside. Keys jangle, as if being placed back inside his pocket. I cross my hands over my body and stare at the door, mouth agape. “The son of a bitch has a key,” I say to myself, slowly blinking. A laugh breaks out of my chest and I bounce on my toes with excitement. My dad wouldneverhave given Sawyer a key, especially since he is no longer his employee. Which means Sawyer took a key when he installed the lock. Which means…..Sawyer has always planned on needing a key to my apartment.

I find it all confusing. Especially since he brought me back to my room that night.

Looking up at the camera he says is non-functioning, I decide to make sure. I’m inclined to believe him, but I’m also not going to make it this easy on him. I spend the next twenty minutes completely dismantling it using a butter knife as a screwdriver. I toss the remnants down the trash shoot just to make sure he can’t watch me that way.

I start to look around the room for cameras like the bodyguards do when they check rooms for my dad. Nothing seems to be moved or disturbed. No hidden cameras. I glance over at the large picture window looking out at the street and the building across from it. It’s office buildings directly across, and the buildings next to it are condos. This has to be how he’s watching. I decide to pick up the kittens to go upstairs, hidden from his view. If he wants to see more of me tonight, he can come back over.

I’monedge,waitingfor Sawyer to pop up again in my life. What did that kiss mean? I’ve wanted this for so long that it feels like a daydream…am I making it all up in my head? Was it just a kiss, or is Sawyer trying to start something between us?

My first stop is a home goods store for curtains. Thick ones. I don’t want to cover the windows. I like the sunlight, but Mom pointed out repeatedly that the room would be freezing this winter, and it does get warm in the hottest parts of the day. After searching my apartment again, I determine that the only way Sawyer can be watching me is through the window.

There’s already a large curtain rod drilled into the brick above the high ceiling. When I ask the maintenance man to borrow his ladder, he carries it inside for me and hangs them himself. When I close the curtains for the first time, I give a jaunty wave at the window and blow a kiss in case he’s watching. If Sawyer wants to see me, he knows where to find me.

Later, when I’m hanging a memo board I’d bought, I stumble across a small stack of pictures I’d had printed to display in Knoxville.

Rifling through them, I pick out a picture of my parents at their wedding reception at a park in Austin and slide it onto the memo board’s ribbons. Mom is in a white dress, clearly pregnant again with Nate. They’re standing under a stone arch, a rose garden behind them, staring in one another’s eyes with complete adoration, the love between them visible to anyone watching. I want someone to love me like that one day.

I flip through the remaining photos before I find my favorite. I’m wearing a black velvet dress and a matching headband with white tights and ruby red shoes. Sawyer is standing beside me, leaning in.

The radio is far too loud with the sound of the reporter covering the concert. “The place to be tonight is in Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena, where Rock Star Ethan Coleman is performing his farewell concert! Excited fans sold out the concert in under a minute once the star confirmed the long-standing rumors. For those not lucky enough to get tickets, streaming service Vemgo is rumored to be filming it tonight for their platform.”

A sound bite starts to play in Dad’s voice. “I just want to focus on my family right now. Our oldest daughter is starting high school. Our oldest son is playing football. The twins are already ten. We want to give the kids a more normal childhood.”

Flicking off the radio once the sound bite of my dad ends, Mom looks back at us. “You don’t have to do this, you know. We’re ok if you don’t go on camera for the tv special tonight, and you absolutely don’t have to pose for the photographers.”

“We want to,” Josie informs our parents for the nine hundredth time. “We want to support Dad. He’s giving up so much for us tonight.”

Looking down at my red shoes, I glance at Rory. He’s biting his lip and drumming his fingers on his thigh. “Yeah, we want to,” I confirm.

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