“I totally believe you both,” Shayla drawled. “And I just won the Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes. That blue van should pull up any minute now.”
“Shayla, please just leave it alone,” Paxton told her. “I’ll talk to you later.”
“Fine,” Shayla said, giving Paxton a look that implied that they would certainly talk later. Maybe once Shayla got the full story about whatever was going on, she could clue Sawyer in. Just like old times.
He’d never admitted to Shayla how he felt about her best friend back when they were in high school, but Sawyer had always seen her as an ally. She was smart, and unlike Paxton, who had never been able to see past that giant chip on her shoulder, he knew that Shayla could tell that his interest had been real.
She probably thought he was pathetic as hell to still seek out Paxton’s attention after all these years, especially if she knew about that night he and Paxton had spent together, and how she had subsequently left him without a word. She had to know about their one-night stand. Girls talked. Especially girlfriends who were as tight as Shayla and Paxton.
Maybe if he could get Shayla to petition her on his behalf, then he could convince Paxton to look beyond that image of him that she’d created in her own mind—a spoiled rich guy. Something he’d never been in his life. Sure, his family had money, but Sawyer had never flaunted it. His parents had raised him to be humbler than that.
Paxton’s image of him was of her own making. Maybe if she took the time to reallyseehim—therealhim—she would like what she saw.
Or maybe he was just kidding himself.
After all, they weren’t in high school anymore. He couldn’t rely on Shayla to help him win the girl.
But he had to dosomething. Sawyer refused to believe all was lost. He knew Paxton felt something for him—something other than scorn, or even worse, indifference. He’d felt it that night; he saw it even now when she looked at him. Those times when she forgot to raise her guard, when she allowed that shield to fall and gave him a glimpse of her softer, sweeter side. That was when he knew that she was worth the fight.
“Paxton—” he started, but she cut him off.
“Can we just not talk about work right now?” she said. “I don’t want to argue.”
“And you think I do?”
“No, I know you don’t. It’s just…easier.”
“It’s easier to argue with me?”
She studied him. “Yes,” she said. “I know it isn’t fair, but…” She shrugged and reached for her tea, then took the lemon wedge and shook off the excess tea before sticking it between her lips and sucking.
Sawyer was hit with a tidal wave of longing so strong he nearly drowned. He was broadsided with memories of the last time he’d witnessed her do that very thing.
It was the night he’d walked into Harlon’s bar, hoping to find refuge from one of the shittiest days of his life at the bottom of a shot glass. It had been the second time in his life that Sawyer had entered the bar. Hell, he could probably count the number of times he’d driven out to Landreaux on one hand.
But that night he had needed solace and solitude, so he made the drive across the creek, because he figured no one would bother him. He hadn’t counted on seeing Paxton there, because by that time he’d come to terms with the idea of there never being anything between him and the girl he’d pined for throughout his adolescence. In fact, Sawyer had forgotten that she occasionally still worked at the bar.
She must have sensed his pain that night, because instead of ignoring him, she’d made a point to check in on him several times. And when he begged her to not let him drink alone, she’d broken her own rule of drinking while on the job, poured herself a shot of tequila, and sucked hard on a lemon after downing it.
Sawyer’s eyes zeroed in on her mouth as she sat across from him right now, and his body ached as he remembered the magic those lips had worked on him later that night. The way she’d trailed her delicious tongue along his body, and how he had reciprocated in kind, licking his way up and down her smooth skin, tasting every inch of her.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she said. “Stop…remembering.”
He knew he wasn’t the only one affected. Heknewit.
“How many times this past week have you thought about that night?” Sawyer asked her.
“I haven’t.”
“Liar.”
She tossed the lemon wedge onto her plate. “It’s this damn lemon,” she said. “You weren’t thinking about that night until I sucked on it.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Pax. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought about it—not just this past week, but for the past three years.”
Disbelief was evident in the look she tossed his way.
“Are you saying that youhaven’tthought about it the last three years?” he asked. She remained silent, but he caught the stiffening of her jaw.
