“Two points for the very convincing “I’m sorry I’m a piece of shit” face,” she whispers and I smack her in the back.
“Stop it.”
Sawyer meets my gaze and my heart leaps into my throat, pounding like a bass drum as butterflies flutter through my belly.
Aw, hell.
“Juliette,” he murmurs, the rich texture of his voice coating me like a blanket and I nod, studying him as he tries to subtly wipe his hand on his jeans. God, he looks nervous and it’s breaking my heart. Wait… why is it breaking my heart? One, I barely know him - a fact that was made all too clear to me last night - and two, I have every damn right to be angry after the way he acted. Then again, I understand the pain he was in yesterday all too well.
“Sawyer.”
He sucks in a breath. “Can we talk?”
“Sure,” I answer and his gaze flicks to Mercedes.
“Alone?”
“Nope,” Mercedes answers, shaking her head as she lifts her coffee cup to her lips and takes a sip. “You want my girl back, you can grovel… in front of an audience.”
“Mercedes,” I whisper as I give her a little nudge. Usually, I appreciate her attitude but the look on his face is killing me right now and I don’t know how much longer I can sit here before I give in. Every cell in my body is screaming to get up and give him a hug but I force myself to remain in my seat.
“No, it’s okay,” Sawyer answers. “I’ll do it here.”
He drops down on one knee and Mercedes and I both suck in a breath as our eyes widen.
“Eight points for the grand sweeping gesture,” she whispers, her voice full of shock but I’m too stunned to say anything in response or tell her to knock it off. What is he doing? I meet Sawyer’s eyes and shake my head in confusion.
“What are you doing?”
“Juliette,” he says, his voice a perfect mixture of confident and nervous as he holds the bouquet of flowers out in front of him. “I know I really screwed things up last night. The dinner you planned and cooked for us was so beautiful and I really wish we could have eaten it together. You’ll never know how much I’ll regret ruining it.”
I shake my head but he doesn’t let me say anything.
“And I know this isn’t an excuse for my behavior but the club lost one of our girls yesterday, she was murdered, and I didn’t handle it well. Partly because I take the work we do so seriously and partly because of my past which I really hope I get a chance to tell you about.”
I scoot to the end of the bench and set my coffee down on the pavement before reaching out for him but he shakes his head as he leans back. I can’t decide if I admire his commitment to his apology or if I just wish he’d let me forgive him already.
“I meant what I said last night… you are my angel and all that other shit… it is stuff I’m really trying hard to work through. I just hope you’ll give me time and another chance to do this right.”
“Um…” Mercedes says. “Not to break up a super romantic moment but what exactly are you asking her?”
His eyes never leave mine as he smiles and I melt into a puddle of goo. “I love having you at the house, love knowing that I get to come home to you, so I really hope you don’t want to go stay somewhere else but I understand if you feel like that is what you need to do. And if you do decide to leave, I just hope you’ll still let me take you out on a real date and show you that everything I said the night we first kissed was the truth. So, what do you say? Will you get all dressed up and let me show you off to the world?”
How the hell is a girl supposed to say no to a request like that?
My heart thunders in my chest and a smile creeps across my face as I nod. “Okay.”
A wide smile stretches across his face as he jumps up and grabs my hand, yanking me up off of the bench and into his arms. Warmth radiates through my body as I tilt my head back to meet his gaze and he leans down, sealing his lips over mine. I gasp at the electricity that races through my body as I circle my arms around his neck and pull him closer, unable to get close enough. He holds me tight to his body and kisses me like he’s never going to let me go and a small part of me, the irrational, whimsical part that believes all this could be real, hopes that he never does.
Chapter Sixteen
Sawyer
Grabbing my beer off the bar, I turn and scan the room. Fuzz is hunched over a table, files scattered all across the surface as he scowls and I shake my head before crossing the room and sinking into the chair next to him.
“What are you up to, brother?”
He glances up at me. “Going over old cases and looking for a pattern.”
“You realize you aren’t a cop anymore, right?” I ask and he glares at me as he pulls out another sheet of paper and shoves it in my face.
“Just look at this. It’s a pattern.”
I study the paper in my hand as I take a sip of my beer. There are five names written down, three of them grouped together at the bottom and the two other off on their own with numbers in parenthesis next to them. “What am I looking at?”
“In the eight years that we’ve been doing this work,” he says, pointing to the paper. “We’ve lost five girls. One, the year after we started. The second one during year three and then three in the past two years.”
“Three? I thought it was just Dina and Sammy.”
“And Laney.”
My eyes narrow. “That was Rodriguez’s case.”
“That he called us in on,” Fuzz exclaims. “Plus, one could argue that Rodriguez is so connected with the work that we do that anyone who had a grudge or vendetta against either of us would likely come after either one of us… or both.”
“Look, I…”
“Three in two years, Moose,” he cuts in, shaking his head. I nod.
“Yeah, it’s been a bad couple of years but…”
“No, it’s more than that.”
“Fuzz,” I sigh, tossing his paper back on the table. “I know you’ve been struggling with Sammy’s death. We all have but it’s just a coincidence.”
He shakes his head, turning back to the files. “No, there’s a connection here. I just know it.”
Sighing, I watch him as he scans the paper in front of him, his brows knitted together in concentration. We’re all struggling with the people we’ve lost lately and I know each of us deals in our own way but Fuzz’s obsession with finding a hidden plot against the club is dangerous, a cancer that will spread and drive all of us to hysteria if we buy into it.
The door to the clubhouse opens and I glance over my shoulder as sunlight streams into the room and Tawny walks in.
“Fuck,” I hiss, turning away and shaking my head. What are the chances that I pretend like I didn’t see her? Not that it will matter for long.
“Sawyer,” she purrs, walking up behind me. “Just the man I was looking for.”
“What do you need, Tawny?”
She places her hands on my shoulders as she stops behind me. “Can we talk somewhere more private?”
“Nope,” I answer, rolling my shoulders to try and get her hands off me. “We can talk here.”