I quickly dried off and then went back to the bedroom to hunt for my clothing. I fully expected to find the khaki pants and hated dress shirt where I’d left them but to my surprise, my favorite T-shirt and buttery soft jeans were sitting on the chair in the corner of the room. I pulled the clothes on and then left the room. The amazing smell of bacon assailed my senses as I headed for the kitchen.
“He awakes!” I heard Isaac call out dramatically as soon as he looked up from where he was sitting at the kitchen island. He appeared to be thumbing through a magazine. I could feel the heat seeping into my cheeks as I realized what it had to look like—me emerging from Jett’s bedroom at such a late hour with a goofy grin on my face that for the life of me I couldn’t get rid of.
“Morning,” I said.
Isaac climbed off the stool and went to the microwave. He hit a button and then he was filling up a mug with coffee. He slid it across the island to where there was a spot already decked out with silverware, sugar, and cream. There was even a bowl of freshly cut fruit.
“Well, go on, sit,” Isaac said in his I-know-I’m-not-your-dad-but-you-have-to-listen-to-me-anyway voice.
“Where is everyone?” I asked as I obligingly sat down and reached for the coffee.
“Let’s see, Nolan took Newt and Loki for a play date with Justin and Emily Knapp, Dallas is working with Gentry, and your man stole mine early this morning for some secret mission,” Isaac responded.
“Secret mission?” I studied my friend for a moment. “The day you let that man keep a secret from you is the day I put enough cash in that damn jar to pay for the first year of tuition at Harvard.”
Isaac smiled. “It’s true,” he said in agreement as he wiggled his hips a little. “I do have certain powers of persuasion in my toolbox.” The younger man grabbed the plate from the microwave and set it down in front of me.
“So where did they go?” I asked even as I stuffed a huge chunk of pancake into my mouth.
Isaac returned to his stool which was opposite mine. “Well, I sort of can’t tell you,” he said as he kept his eyes on his magazine.
“Sort of?”
“Okay, not sort of. Can’t. On punishment of…” Isaac paused and lifted his eyes. The man was actually blushing. “Let’s, um, just say Maddox has some pretty good powers of persuasion himself and he can hold out a lot longer than I can. That man’s stamina…” Isaac said with a big sigh and a smile to match it.
“Okaaaay,” I said with a chuckle.
“Jett was nervous about today and I think he wants to surprise you if he can.”
Isaac’s words didn’t really make sense, but they told me enough. Jett was coming back and if he was nervous or wanted to surprise me, that meant only good things for me.
I ate in silence for a few moments before I sensed Isaac’s eyes on me. All the warmth that had been there when he’d been thinking about Maddox was gone. He looked… hurt.
“Were you really going to do it?” he asked quietly. “Leave without saying goodbye?”
Despite my earlier appetite, I lost all interest in the food in front of me. I lowered my fork to the plate. “Yeah, I was,” I admitted.
Isaac was silent for several long seconds before he closed the magazine. “I’m sorry, Sawyer. We all bought into it, except Ford. I mean, yeah, we’d see glimpses now and then of something that took away your smile or made you look over your shoulder a certain way, but we figured we all had a little of that in us. But I should have known—”
“You should have known what, Isaac? That behind the smile and beneath the curses and good ole country boy charm was a guy who’d lost himself years ago? I wore that mask for a reason. It kept me safe. It kept me from getting too attached to any one place or thing. Sure, there might have been one or two people here and there who felt a little disappointed that good ole Sawyer was moving on, but none of them ever tried to stop me. And I can sure as shit guarantee you that not one of those people ever considered stealing my spark plugs and hiding them in a butter dish.”
Isaac laughed at that. I reached across the table to cover his hand with mine.
“You think that you in particular should have known because you know what it’s like to constantly be looking over your shoulder. You did know, Isaac. I could tell. I think that’s why we hit it off so well together when we first met. But instead of you trying to knock down my walls or me trying to knock down yours, what we had just felt… safe. We got to have some safe moments here and there where we were allowed to be who we were. I liked every time that little bit of old Sawyer surfaced.”