Forever Right Now

Darlene

We picked Olivia up from Elena’s, and then she and her children, Jackson and Henrietta, the Abbotts, Sawyer and I went to brunch at Nopa. We gathered in the front, Olivia squealing with laughter as she was passed around from hand to hand, to keep her occupied while we waited for our giant group to be seated.

“I hope we get the same waiter as our first non-date,” I told Sawyer. “He’d go crazy trying to figure out how we went from that to the Partridge Family.”

Sawyer smiled but his eyes were dark as they gazed down at me. He bent to kiss my cheek and whispered in my ear. “I need to be alone with you. Badly.”

A flush of heat swept through me, and I tightened my hold on his arm. “Me too,” I whispered back. “Do you think they’d notice if we ducked out?”

“Not me,” Sawyer said, “but you, mostly definitely.”

“That’s sweet but—”

Sawyer silenced me with a kiss that I felt down in the deepest part of me. I kissed him back as much as was appropriate in a restaurant, and then swatted his arm. “You can’t kiss me like that in public,” I teased. “I have to stay away from mind-altering substances, remember?”

He chuckled but over the course of the meal—as we sat beside each other at one long table—our eyes kept finding one another, and our hands were clasped under the table. Mostly to keep the other from exploring, as I longed to touch him and be touched.

I looked around at the table full of faces we loved and thought of what was to come after, and it was almost too much.

Oh my God, this is happening. All of this…

Jackson noticed me surreptitiously dabbing my eyes with a napkin, and leaned in. “The universe listened,” he said, “and then it answered.”

“Big time,” I said with a laugh. “Huge.”

“It listened to you, Dar,” he said. “What you did? With the Abbotts? You saved him.”

I shook my head. “Noooo…They were right there. They just needed a little push.”

“And you gave it to them,” he said. He inclined his head at Sawyer who was talking animatedly with Gerald about Gerald’s former profession as a broker for a large accounting firm. “We might be in a world of hurt had it not been for you.”

“That’s giving me too much credit,” I said. “But this, right now? This is a good feeling. The best.”

And I want it to last forever.

We ate and talked, and then said goodbye to everyone. Sawyer made plans with the Abbotts for them to come over tomorrow, Saturday, and play with Olivia at the park.

“It’s our Saturday ritual,” Sawyer said.

“We’ll be there,” Alice said, her smile beautiful. She pulled me in for a hug. “And will you be there, my dear?”

“Wouldn’t miss it.”

We said our goodbyes and headed back to the Victorian with Elena, her kids, and the Smiths. Everyone stayed and chatted and played with Olivia. Sawyer’s hungry expression when his eyes met mine never left, and he pulled me into the short hallway between the living area and bedrooms.

His kiss sent currents of electricity shooting through me, and I had to cling to his shirt to keep upright. My need to be with him was a physical ache in my body, but I caught my breath and pushed gently back.

“If Henrietta catches us now, we’ll be in big trouble,” I said.

“The second everyone leaves…” Sawyer said, pulling me close again. “You’re mine.”

“I want that,” I said. “So badly, but…I have to go out for awhile.”

Sawyer frowned. “Go? Where?”

I dropped my gaze to his shirt, smoothed out a wrinkle I’d made, clutching him during our kiss. “I have an NA meeting. I have one every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.”

It still felt a little bit strange to say it out loud, but then I mustered my courage and raised my eyes to meet his head-on. My breath caught to see Sawyer looking down at with me with such a potent mix of love and pride, it brought tears to my eyes.