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“Maybe he sees what you can’t yet. What we all see when you forget to wear your mask. The mask that fucker blinded you with.”
I couldn’t deny Ford’s observation but that didn’t mean I wanted to confirm it either. Apparently, I hadn’t been fooling anyone with the Sawyer-has-a-great-life-and-nothing-can-touch-him routine.
“Everything can be forgiven, Sawyer. But that’s his choice to make, not yours. If he can’t forgive you for whatever you did to him, then that’s his right to tell you so. But shit, Sawyer, we’ve seen proof of how deep some people can reach inside of them to forgive those who’ve hurt them. Dallas? Nolan? Look what this town did to them. What my family did to them. Yet they’re one of the first ones to step up when someone needs help. Maddox, Isaac, Cam… the list is endless,” Ford said with a wonderment that made me envious.
I didn’t point out that his name belonged on that list because I knew he’d argue with me about it.
But he was right about Jett. I’d urged Jett to open up to me, I’d told him to trust me, I’d encouraged him to confront a part of himself he might not have been ready to and then I’d left him lying on the floor of his room with the unspoken promise that I would be there when he awoke even when I’d known I wouldn’t be.
I didn’t get to make the decision whether Jett would or wouldn’t forgive me. Assuming he wouldn’t was just easier because it meant I wouldn’t have to hear what I’d done and how I’d made him feel.
The sound of crunching gravel saved me from having to respond to Ford. We both looked up at the same time to see a young man walking hurriedly out of the woods and along the path that led past where we were sitting and ultimately to the house.
“Theo?” Ford called, his voice uncertain. The young man came to a sudden stop and then looked over his shoulder before searching us out. I saw the moment his expression went from troubled to content. It was so fast I wondered if Ford had even seen it.
I knew little about Ford’s childhood friend who he’d only recently reconnected with, but just looking at his thin frame, hunched shoulders, and unhealthy pallor, I did know one thing.
I wasn’t the only one who’d gotten good at wearing a mask.
“Hey,” Theo said.
“Everything okay?” Ford asked as we both stood up.
Theo easily nodded. “Yeah. Just took a little walk,” he responded. “It’s so pretty here, Ford.”
I glanced at Ford and saw he wasn’t buying his friend’s act. But he also wasn’t pressing him either because the next thing he said was, “Theo, this is Sawyer Brower.”
“The vet,” Theo said with a nod. “It’s nice to meet you,” he added as his eyes shifted briefly to me, but it was like he was looking through me.
“You too,” I said.
“Sorry if I interrupted,” he continued but the words sounded hollow. “I’ll let you get back to your talk,” he added and then, just like that, he was gone.
Ford slowly sat back down but didn’t say anything. From what I knew, Theo had arrived close to the time that Jett had. “He’s still settling in?” I offered.
“Yeah,” Ford said. He sighed and said, “It’s not exactly the reunion I was hoping for.”
Before I could say anything, Walter’s private nurse, Linc, emerged from the woods, coming from the same direction Theo had. He too was walking quickly, but while Theo had looked troubled, Linc looked pissed.
“Linc? Everything okay?” Ford called.
“Yeah, sorry, just running a little long on my break,” he responded and then he was trotting up toward the house.
I’d met Lincoln—or Linc as everyone called him except for Walter who still called the man Nurse Ratchet—several times and had always gotten the impression that the good-looking, easygoing Linc was unflappable despite Walter’s crochety behavior. But he looked anything but unflappable at the moment.
“You really do have a full house on your hands, don’t you?” I asked with a small laugh in the hopes of lightening the mood.
“You have no idea,” Ford said. The smile he sent me told me he was loving every moment of it even with the chaos.
“Let me grab that ultrasound machine so we can see how much busier this place is going to get,” I offered.
I reached my hand down and pulled Ford to his feet when he took it. I was glad when he didn’t mention my own troubles again as we walked to my truck, but I was even more glad when I managed to get myself out of the house half an hour later amid Cam and Ford’s astonishment that their household was going to grow by seven within two months and Walter’s calls for a doggy paternity test to be performed on Loki.
