And then I decide to do something I haven’t done in years. I open up to Levi. Because if anyone deserves to know how I’m feeling, it’s him. We used to tell each other everything. Me, Levi, and Boone.Thick as thieves. A cord of three.Only a few years separated us, but it never felt that way. We grew up together. We perfected our hockey playing skills together. We shared girls. We fought. Until we got drafted Levi first to Florida, Boone to New York, me to the west coast. All of us ending up in opposite parts of the country.
And then I had Sawyer unexpectedly andlife happened.Complications. Distance. And the fracture between us turned into a divide, one that couldn’t be repaired with words until Becca died, and I broke.
“There’s more to me and Bri than I’ve told you.”
“Yeah?”
I take a deep breath and start from the beginning. The night we met a year ago, neither of us knowing who the other was. The team dinner months later, the pull I felt the second I saw her again, the kiss I couldn't talk myself out of. The road trip. What happened in that hotel room and what happened after, back at my house. The way she keeps showing up for Sawyer without being asked, without keeping score, like it's just something she wants to do. The way I feel about her. Therealway.
I tell him I think I'm already in love with her. That we've only just found our way back to each other and it's too fast, and I know how it looks, and I suck at relationships, but I don’t want to hide this. And that the thing keeping me up at night isn't the risk to my career or what her father might do. It's the thought that she might not feel it the same way I do or might finally see how fucked my baggage is and decide it’s too much. That I'm already this far gone and she's still deciding.
“Damn,” Levi says when I finally finish.
“I’m scared she won’t feel the same if I tell her I want to go public with this. If I tell her that I’m all in.”
“I think you need to talk to her.”
I sit with that for a moment. “And what if we do, and she leaves again? I can’t bring another woman into Sawyer’s life just for her to leave. I can’t do that again to Sawyer.”
“Rebecca didn’t leave Sawyer because of you. She had cancer, Seth. You couldn’t have stopped that, and you need to stop blaming yourself for it.”
I shake my head, eyes on the lasagna bubbling in the oven. I know he's right. Rebecca's cancer wasn't my fault. I'm not irrational enough to believe I caused it. But I was her husband, and I was supposed to protect my family, and Sawyer grew up without a mother anyway. Logic doesn't have much to do with it. The guilt doesn't care what I could or couldn't have controlled. It just sits there and reminds me that my daughter deserved better than what she got.
“I know.” My throat feels tight. “But I still feel like I failed her.”
“Well, that’s some shit you’re gonna have to get over because you’re not God. You can’t control everything just like you can’t control if Bri leaves. You have to take a chance.”
My lips press together because I know he’s right.
“And then Elena…” I sigh, rubbing the back of my neck as the weight of that mistake settles over me. “I rushed into things, didn’t I? She really didn’t marry me to be a family. She married me for the money.”
Levi doesn’t say anything and then lets out a long sigh.
“You were dumb and heartbroken by Rebecca’s death, probably looking to fill a void. Yeah, you made a mistake marrying her, but mistakes are a normal part of life. You’re not the first person in the world to have been married twice. You’ve gotta get over it, man. Sawyer’s over it. We’re over it. You gotta let that shit go.”
“When did you start making so much sense?”
He laughs. “I always have you just enjoy torturing yourself for your mistakes until you’re so beat up you can’t think straight. Stop worrying about whether Bri will leave in the future and start realizing that she’s already part of Sawyer’s world no matter what happens. Sawyer isn’t going to let Bri go that easily, and I don’t think Bri will let her go either. They’ve bonded outside of you. Probably more than you realize.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Did you know Bri’s re-reading theTwilightseries because the girls in Sawyer’s class are reading it for the first time?”
What?
“Apparently,” he continues, amusement filling his voice, “the girls have a group chat where they talk about whatever fantasy books they’re reading. Like a little book club. And guess who they added to it?” He chuckles. “They made Bri an honorary member of their group along with their moms.”
“How do I not know about this?”
Levi laughs. “Because you don’t text Bri as much as I do.”
That instantly annoys me. “You what?”
“We text sometimes,” he says casually and I can tell he’s flipped back into playful, annoying, teasing Levi and no longer the serious version of him.
“Relax, brother,” he chuckles. “It’s completely innocent. She’s all yours.”
My stomach drops.
