The Outliers
Page 17

I hated being responsible for their pain while I was going through mine. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I really am. Couldn’t see past my own shi…” my mother gave me a glare. I chuckled. “stuff, to understand what I was putting you through.”
My chest tightened at the thought of them suffering because of me.
“Yes, you hurt us. But yes, you are very forgiven. Always,” my mother said, patting the top of my hand.
“Beat around the bush why don’t ya,” I said playfully.
My mom beamed. “Life’s too short to beat around it when you can carve your way through it in half the time and sit back with a beer and a cigar for the other half.”
“There was nothing you guy could’ve done to help me see my way clear of my own bullshit back then. But, yeah. I’m better now. I’m sorry I put you through all that.”
Dad looked down at his cigar, turning it around in his fingers like it somehow held all the answers. “Looks like Sawyer may have played a part in getting you back to us.” He gestured to the window where mom was talking enthusiastically, waving a rolling pin around in her hand while Sawyer laughed at whatever embarrassing story she was probably telling about my childhood. It meant everything to me to have her there. To be part of my family. The three people I cared about most in the world were under one roof and it was a kind of feeling of being complete that I never thought I’d ever have.
He couldn’t have been more right. “She was the first person to come along who made me miss living. I wasn’t expecting her. Or the way she made me feel. Took me by complete surprise.”
“The good ones always do.” Dad nodded like he understood exactly what I was saying although I didn’t quite understand it myself. “I see the way you look at that girl. That’s what I like to call the forever factor. I had it in my eyes when I saw your mother for the first time,” he blew out a breath like he couldn’t believe it himself. He glanced back through the window.
“You still have it when you look at her now,” I said.
“That’s what FOREVER means, son.”
I laughed took another puff of my cigar. Forever was exactly what I wanted with Sawyer. But I’d already taken so much from her. How could I ask her for forever right now when she’s experienced so little out of life?
“Does Sawyer know how you feel? How deep this runs for you?” he asked, like he was reading my mind.
I shrugged. “I think so, but her life’s…complicated. This is all new for her.” I looked up at the sky. “New for me too.”
“I can see that. You never looked at Jackie that way. She was a good kid and all. I miss her like she was my own daughter, but she wasn’t your forever factor.”
“No, she wasn’t.” I waited for the familiar sting of guilt to follow those words, but it never came.
“So, you don’t want to scare Sawyer off with the enormity of your feelings. Then tell me son, how’s your woo?”
“My what?” I asked, choking on the smoke. I reached down to the beer on the deck next to my chair and took a healthy gulp.
My father cocked an eyebrow and gave me a side glare that was so heated it could melt metal. He shifted toward me in his seat. “You’re a Hollis, son. Please tell me that you’ve been wooing the girl and not just practicing marital relations. Tell me you know how to woo.”
“You do have a way with words,” I chuckled. Also, he had a point.
Dad rolled his eyes. “You want to lock her down on forever but you’re not wooing her? Have you even taken her out on a proper date?”
“I…shit,” I said, leaning back and taking another puff on my cigar. “No. No I haven’t.”
My dad scoffed. “You best get to it. If you don’t want to dump your load of feelings on your forever girl without scaring the bees out of the hive then you, son, are gonna have to woo her first.” Dad blew out a perfect smoke ring.
I glanced back to this house. My eyes met Sawyer’s briefly met through the window. She blushed and went back to listening to whatever story my mom was telling.
I loved that blush. I loved that her entire body turned pink when she was turned on.
I didn’t love that my dad was right.
“I hate it when you’re right,” I grumbled, not imagining how I’d been so naive. Between rejoining society and all the shit going down with Sawyer’s parents, I’d skipped right over dating her.
I felt a blunt slap on the back of my head. I turned to find my father setting a rolled-up newspaper down on the deck. “What the hell was that for?”
“She’s never been on a date before, right?” he asked. “You’ve taken up with her. Practically living together and you ain’t took her on one single date.” My dad rolled his eyes and whistled through his disappointment. “Not a movie not a dinner. Nothing. You even my son or should I get one of them fancy DNA tests of the internets?”
“Shit,” I muttered, wiping my hand down my face and scratching the stubble on my chin.
“In case you were still wondering,” my dad said. “That slap was for picking the apple before it had time to fall from the tree. Raised you better than that, son.”
“Yeah, you did,” I agreed.
My father turned upward and looked to the stars, reclining in his creaky lawn chair. I did the same.
“Whose side are you on anyway?” I asked after a few moments of silence.
Dad chuckled and I knew exactly what he was going to say because it was how he always answered the question whenever I talked to him in the past about my mother or even Jackie.
“Hers, son. Always Hers.”
 
Finn
I’d been a selfish prick.
Which was fitting because when it came to Sawyer it seems that it’s also what I’d been thinking with instead of my brain. My father was right. I’d put the apple before the falling tree or whatever garbled mumbo jump he said that broke through to me.
She’s never been on a date.
I’d been inside of her and never taken her on a date. Sure, I’d slept with plenty of women I’d never actually dated before, but Sawyer was unlike anyone I’d ever met, which was why the date I had planned was far from traditional.
With everything that’s been going on I hadn’t realized we’d completely skipped a step. Actually, we’d skipped several steps. We went from the occasional kiss to keep her from freaking out to having her in my bed every night. I was over the moon happy but I hadn’t stopped for one single second to think about all the things she’s never experienced. All the things she’s missed out on.