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“Sawyer, hey, man!”
Donny, a large linebacker, was behind him, and so was the rest of the team come to think of it, like they’d all been waiting for him to come out from the locker room. Glances were thrown around, obviously trying to be subtle and failing entirely. They were good guys, all of them, butdeftnesswasn’t exactly their strong suit.
“This an intervention?” Sawyer asked.
Most of the team shuffled their feet and looked guilty except Donny and Lou, a six-foot-tall safety, who both grinned a little sheepishly but didn’t back down.
“Maybe a little one,” Lou said with a shrug.
“I didn’t realize I was an alcoholic.”
“Nah, man, not that serious,” said Donny, and to be fair, he was wearing a grin. But Donny was always smiling about something. “Just making sure you’re coming out with us all tonight?”
Sawyer blinked and skated his gaze over everyone, all of them looking at him eagerly.
“Where is that?”
“To the party at the Loft,” Lou chimed in. “After-party for some TV awards show or something.”
“There’ll be booze, babes and a whole bunch of good food,” said Donny with his most convincing expression. Lou and Donny were tag teaming each other, working together much like they did on the field, and Sawyer was both annoyed and impressed at how well it was working.
He sighed, again opting for the radical new notion of being honest not just with himself but everyone else, and Lou and Donny’s faces fell. The rest of the team started to drift off with a few awkward coughs and half-hearted claims that they needed to finish their reps before they could head off.
Donny took a step closer to Sawyer, clapping a hand on his shoulder.
“C’mon, man,” he said, voice quiet and sturdy. “I know being back at your brother’s must have sucked big time. You’ve been all over the place since you’ve been back.”
“It didn’t suck,” Sawyer said flatly, which again was nothing but the truth.
“Come on out with us tonight, man,” said Lou, once again assisting Donny in reaching their goal. “There aren’t any gamescoming up to get you out of your funk, not for a while yet, so come out and party. It’ll be a breath of fresh air, I promise.”
That was the thing, though; Sawyer was desperate for a breath of literal fresh air. For the smell of grass and hay and rainwater. What he didn’t want was more stuffy rooms, more noise, more chaos… But Donny and Lou were looking at him so expectantly that Sawyer already knew he was fighting a losing battle.
“What time is it, then?” he asked with a resigned sigh, and both of his teammates slapped him on opposite shoulders, so completely in sync that the sound reverberated around them.
“Supposed to start at like eight,” said Donny, his triumphant grin practically splitting his face in two. “So we’re all going to get there closer to nine thirty, maybe ten, to be safe. No point in being there when it’s all awkward and boring.”
“Yeah,” said Sawyer. “No point in that, huh.”
He already hated himself for agreeing. A week ago he’d been crawling into bed at that time, not going out and considering the night as just beginning. It was disconcerting how fast life was changing around him without his permission.
Sawyer had dressed in one of his best suits, a crisp linen shirt and some stupidly expensive cologne that he’d had lying around and showed up at ten p.m. on the dot. The Loft was one of the most upscale venues in Houston, situated in the penthouse of a new skyscraper, looking out over the lights of the city.
Most of the Falcons team had trickled in around the same time as Sawyer, but they were soon lost in the various groupshuddled around the place, sweet-talking and showing off to whoever they deemed most interesting. There was marble and gold everywhere, a chandelier hanging from the middle of the ceiling, and all the walls were floor-to-ceiling glass, giving an uninterrupted view of the world outside.
Sawyer felt like he was watching the party through a brand-new set of eyes, standing on the outer edges and looking into something where he no longer fit. The whole place, heaving with people and designer clothes, too-loud music, waiters and diamonds… it reminded him of a flock of exotic birds all trying to outdo one another and, at the end of the day, all looking exactly the same.
Sawyer didn’t really know what to do with his hands, taking them in and out of his pockets like a fidgety little kid. He made his way over to the bar.
“Can I just get a water or something, please?” he said, and the bartender jumped into action, presenting him with iced water with a lemon wedge poised gracefully on the rim of the glass. Over the weeks he’d spent back in Willow Ridge, Sawyer hadn’t woken up with a hangover once. The thought of waking up with one tomorrow morning made him want to crumple at the knees. It very might well be the final nail in his coffin if that happened, so water it was.
He carried the water around, wandering nowhere in particular, the condensation from the glass making his hand clammy until Sawyer found a curtain and wiped it off without drawing suspicion.
There was a huddle of ladies next to one of the windows, all of them looking red-carpet-ready. Literal goddesses could not have looked more perfect in the low lights, holding cocktailsand champagne glasses with perfectly manicured fingers. A red-haired woman in a backless dress noticed him glancing at the group and smiled, lifting a finger a subtle wave over.
They seemed like lovely ladies. They’d been laughing when Sawyer first spotted them, looking like they were having the time of their lives, but he felt no inclination to join them. Instead, he smiled politely and declined with a tip of his head. The red-haired woman smiled again, raised her glass and turned back to her friends, their circle closing in on itself.
Sawyer kept on getting stuck by his different reactions to things after a few short weeks in Willow Ridge. A couple of months ago he wouldn’t have even waited for an invitation. He would have just sauntered over to the group and introduced himself, passing out compliments like candy on Halloween. He probably would have taken the redhead home, spending the night together with a little more privacy than The Loft offered. Not now. He didn’t want to ruin the fun they were obviously having. This whole being honest with himself streak was a buzzkill, amongst other things.
