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“Well, in that case,” Sawyer said as he began to climb to his feet. I could only sit there dumbfounded but when he quickly sat back down and gave my shoulder a light shove as he let out a light chuckle, I nearly choked on my relief. I began to laugh even as my breath seesawed in and out of me. All of the icy coldness inside of me seemed to shatter into a million pieces and just fall away, leaving me trembling in relief. I hadn’t even realized how on edge I’d been the last several days; how tightly I’d wound myself with emotions I hadn’t known how to deal with.
“Here, move over a little,” Sawyer said and then he was shifting his hips into my space. When I realized what he wanted, I moved as quickly as I could to make some room for him to put his back against the tree. I was mesmerized as Sawyer took the blanket over my lap and covered us both with it, then leaned in so our shoulders were touching.
“I still haven’t gotten used to the cold out here,” Sawyer murmured.
“Cold? Dude, it’s like sixty degrees.”
“Hey, in LA, they’re loading the snowplows with salt when it’s sixty degrees out,” Sawyer responded in mock outrage.
“Do they even have snowplows in LA?”
“Shut up,” Sawyer responded as he bumped his shoulder against mine.
A strange, calm silence fell over us that wasn’t at all uncomfortable. It reminded me of the times my parents used to hold hands while they were sitting on the swing on the back porch and seemingly stared at nothing. My childish thinking had decided that they had been together so long that they just didn’t know what to talk about. But now as I looked back on those occurrences where they said nothing, I realized they’d still been having a conversation. Just not one I could hear.
Several minutes passed as we listened to the evening critters start calling out to one another. As much as I loved just sitting there with Sawyer like that, I knew this was an anomaly, and if I wanted it to turn into anything, I needed to open my mouth. I needed to show Sawyer I wasn’t like his asshole ex.
“Did you grow up in California?” was the first question out of my mouth. So much for telling Sawyer more about myself. God, I really was a complete failure at this whole sharing shit.
When Sawyer didn’t immediately respond, I realized I’d read the whole situation wrong. “Sawyer, I’m sorry, it’s none of my business—”
“No, it’s fine. It’s… it’s just something I don’t talk about a lot.”
“Fuck, I—” I began as I started working the blanket off my lap. Sawyer’s strong fingers wrapped around my right hand, stalling my movements.
“He’s moving,” Sawyer said softly.
I stilled as we both watched Apollo sit up from behind the log. He sniffed the air around him before looking directly at us. I fully expected him to send us some kind of verbal warning to stay away from him, but all he did was walk a few steps forward and curl himself into a ball on a patch of grass.
In plain sight.
Completely vulnerable.
“Oh wow,” Sawyer said. He’d sat forward a little as Apollo had moved but as soon as the dog settled back down, Sawyer sat back again. He still had my hand in his on top of the blanket but since he seemed in no hurry to release me, I did the same and leaned back against the tree.
It was several minutes before either of us spoke again. When Sawyer did break the silence, I wasn’t sure if I was relieved or nervous.
“Bliss,” he murmured. “I grew up in Bliss.” There was no joy in his words, no hint that he was about to take a happy stroll down memory lane.
“Bliss, Arkansas. Population, 1372. Last I checked, anyway,” the man next to me said morosely.
“Do you still have family there?”
“Family?” Sawyer muttered as he stared at the enclosure. I swore I saw his eyes briefly shift in the direction of the property where Dallas and Maddox had built their individual homes. “No, no family.”
“Sawyer,” I began, because it was clear we’d treaded into territory he had no interest in revisiting.
“Lots of people who were unfortunate enough to inherit the Kessler genes, but not family.”
“Is that your real last name?” I asked. Despite Sawyer obviously not wanting to talk about any of this, I was starting to think he needed to whether he realized it or not.
“Yeah. I changed it to Brower when I started college. It was this small local college a few towns over but even they knew all about the Kesslers. Half the community revered them because they sold the best shit at the cheapest rates anywhere in the Ozarks. Other half was always trying to figure out how to shut them down.” Sawyer paused for a moment before saying, “Us. They were trying to shut us down.”
