Forever Right Now

Sawyer covered his eyes again and I rushed to him, behind his chair and wrapped my arms around him. He didn’t move but let me hold him and I fought not to burst into tears.

“It’s going to be okay,” I whispered. “It has to be. You’re so good for her.”

I straightened and without thinking—my body charged with panic I needed to channel—I rubbed his back, talking and kneading his muscles that felt like rocks under my hands. “There has to be a law, right? They can’t just barge in here and take her away from you.”

“It’s not that simple,” Sawyer said, his voice gruff.

“But it doesn’t make any sense—”

“There are circumstances, Darlene.”

“What kind of circumstances let the grandparents take a baby away from her father?”

“I’m not her father.”

I reeled, his words pushing me back a step from his chair. It felt as if the air had been sucked out of the room.

“What…what are you saying? Of course you are.”

Sawyer looked around at me, shaking his head miserably.

“I’m not. I took a paternity test when Molly first left her with me. I’m not a match, but it doesn’t matter. Even after only a few days of having her in my life, she was mine. I tried to take her to CPS with Jackson. He tried to convince me it was the best thing, that I was crazy to try to raise her on my own. But I couldn’t do it. Molly told me she was mine and that’s how I thought of her. I still do. In my heart and fucking soul, she’s mine and I love her.”

He bit off the words, fighting for control.

“It doesn’t matter to me what some stupid fucking test says. It only matters what I feel.” He shook his head, a harsh, bitter laugh breaking free. “But turns out, that doesn’t matter either. The court is going to order another paternity test. The Abbotts will demand one, and when the results come out, I’m going to lose her.”

I put my hands back on his shoulders, shaking my head. “No. They can’t do that. Not after so long. She calls you Daddy,” I bit back my own tears. “Because you are her daddy and they have to see that. They have to.”

He shook his head and a small silence fell. I pulled myself together and Sawyer’s shoulders rose and fell under my hands as he took deep breaths to compose himself.

“Do you have help? A lawyer?”

“Jackson.”

I bit my lip. “He does taxes…”

“I can’t afford anyone else. And I trust him.”

“Okay. Okay good.”

I kept massaging Sawyer, working at his shoulders; the coiled knots of worry that his deepest fear was coming true. His entire body hummed with tension and I felt so helpless to do anything for him but this. I dug my thumbs into the hard muscles of his back, working circles over his shoulder blades, then back up, over his collar bone.

For long moments, there was silence. I didn’t know what else to do or what to say. I could only try to ease his pain somehow, because I had nothing else.

Sawyer didn’t move and I wondered if he’d fallen asleep, chin to his chest. Then his hand rose to take one of mine. He pressed my palm to his lips and I sucked in a breath as the kiss slipped up my arm, raising goosebumps, then spread over my shoulder and chest like a flame.

Sawyer turned my hand over and kissed the back, then held it to his cheek, still saying nothing. My heart thumped hard as he pulled me around in front of him, and then sideways onto his lap.

Face to face, and so close, he was breathtaking, but his eyes were so heavy. I lifted my hands and continued the massage, pressing circles on either side of his face, at the hinge of his jaw, below his eyes, his forehead. Then I grazed my fingernails along the sides of his head, just above his ears, over and over.

Our gazes never broke, we shared a breath, and then his hand was on my thigh. The other slipped up to hold my cheek, and even that small touch I felt everywhere. It scared me how much I wanted him.

“Did it help?” I asked. “I want to help.”

He nodded. “You’re the best thing in my life right now, Darlene,” he said hoarsely. “The only good thing.”

And then he kissed me. Like a drowning man needing a breath, he kissed me hard and desperately, his brows furrowed as if he were in pain. His hand found the back of my head, and he made a fist in my hair, gently but urgently, pressing me closer, deeper; holding me to him when I felt weightless. My mouth opened for him; Sawyer holding me to his kiss was the only reason I didn’t float away.