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When his father and he moved to Charlotte, he only went home to see his mother a handful of times for holidays and never stayed with her. He stayed with his grandparents and went to see his mother or his mother came to see him. No way he was staying the night with some stranger in the house.
No one made him either and he was thankful enough for that.
Though he lived in the same town with his mother’s parents for fifteen years of his life, he wasn’t as close deep down to them as he was to his father’s parents who he saw less often.
“I know you didn’t,” his father said. “You need to move on from it. I have.”
“I’m not carrying anything around with me,” he argued. “Just because I don’t talk to my mother doesn’t mean anything. I couldn’t care less about her or what goes on in her life. Just like she didn’t care about me.”
There was no way his father could argue that with him and he knew the argument wouldn’t come.
“It’s not that,” his father said. “It’s that you’re thirty-three and have never had a serious relationship with a woman. Not all women are bad.”
He smirked. “I’ve dated and you know it. If I thought women were so bad, I wouldn’t even date. They have their place in my life.”
His father sighed. He was only joking when he said it, but the truth was, he was so sick of this conversation it was the only way to get it to end.
Yep, he had trust issues. But he didn’t think he was damaged by them as he’d heard in his life before.
He just figured he hadn’t found the right woman who understood him enough for him to let her in.
Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn’t.
If he didn’t, then he didn’t care all that much either.
3
Made An Impression
Over two weeks later, Sawyer was out running in the park again. If he’d been here at least five times around the same time as he had when he’d seen Faith last time, he wasn’t admitting that to anyone.
He was hoping that might have been her normal time to bring Fred for a walk, but he hadn’t crossed paths with her once.
Of course, a few times he came earlier or later because it was unavoidable if he was on a call.
Then he realized she probably had a job and at eight was at work, so his only hope had been the weekends and today was just the third time he was able to be here around this time.
He decided to do one more lap by the dog park to see if he could catch sight of Fred. He was jogging by the fenced-in area and heard loud barking, turned his head and there was Fred giving chase and running next to him.
“Hey, Fred. Long time no see.”
Fred put his big paws up on the edge of the fence, barked a few times and had his tongue hanging out. He reached his hand for a pet and Fred licked him.
“Guess you made an impression on my dog,” Faith said, jogging over.
“He likes me,” Sawyer said. “Didn’t you say he would now since I saved you?”
She laughed. She was bundled up in a long fleece jacket, a hat on her head, her hands in her pockets.
“He does like you. And trust me, he doesn’t like many.”
“So you said before,” he said. “How are you doing?”
She pulled her hands out and held her palms up. “Just some red marks. The scabs came off last week. Thankfully I wear gloves at work or it would have been an issue, but the gloves made it feel worse. My knees are pretty much cleared up too.”
He felt like shit. That could have been why she wasn’t here. Maybe it bothered her to be walking her dog and holding a leash.
“That’s good,” he said. She was smiling at him and there was a heat in his belly. Here he’d been hoping to see her again and now he was not sure what the hell to say. That wasn’t like him at all.
