Page 103 of Wild Then Wed
“The cheesecake,” he says quietly, “it’s dairy and gluten free.”
I glance up at him, brows raised. “You just…casually made a dairy-free cheesecake and then decided to show up here?”
He laughs. “No. I stopped by Rosie’s Cafe on the way. Figured they’d have something.”
“In the middle of a snowstorm?”
He just shrugs again, like it’s not a big deal. But it is.
I don’t say anything as we move deeper into the room. Mom’s already found him a plate. Sage is shifting chairs around.
People don’t just…show up for me. Not without expecting something in return, not without a reason tucked into their pocket like a receipt they plan to cash in later. And certainly not without me proving—somehow, subtly, quietly—that I’ve earned it, that I deserve it, that I won’t be too much trouble.
But he did.
He showed up in the snow. Brought a dessert I could actually eat—gluten and dairy free, which isn’t exactly easy to find this time of year—and he remembered. He remembered the thing about me most people forget before I’ve even finished saying it.
And I hate—truly hate—how much that matters. How it wedges warmth into the colder parts of me I’ve learned to live with. I don’t know what to do with that kind of softness. With someone thinking of me when I didn’t ask them to.
This was supposed to be simple. Clean. A tidy little performance with a mutual understanding. A contract with timelines and boundaries and an expiration date that would come and go without either of us looking back.
But now it feels different. Like something is shifting under the surface, like the air between us has thickened into something that wasn’t part of the agreement.
I don’twantit to mean anything. I don’t want to care. But I already do. And I know—I can feel it curling around the edges of this thing we built to keep safe—that this is where it starts to fall apart.
I sit across from him, trying to drown out the noise in my head, to keep this all from cracking open too soon. Sawyer just smiles, easy and unbothered, reaching for a fork like this is nothing at all.
But I can feel it already.
This is the part where pretending starts to end.
Chapter 19
SAWYER
I usually hate the holidays.
Well—hatedoesn’t really cover it. It’s more that they feel like a joke now. Like some weird annual reminder that time keeps moving, even when it shouldn’t. The decorations go up, the traditions roll out, and everyone acts like the world’s still intact. As if mine didn’t fall apart four years ago and forget to put itself back together.
The last four years, Thanksgiving’s been the worst of them. Not because of the food or the noise or the way my mom still insists we all go around the table and say what we’re grateful for, but because the math gets harder.
Four years since.
Four years without.
Every year, it’s one more marker between the life I had and the life I’ve been pretending to live since it all went to hell.
Holidays remind people of what they have. Family. Warmth. Joy. But for me, it’s just a louder reminder of what’s missing. What’s gone.
Julia should be here. Violet should be four.
She’d be helping my mom in the kitchen. Or standing on a chair next to Emily with her hands deep in pie crust. She’d bein braids and socks that don’t match and probably sticky with something sweet, asking a million questions no one’s ready to answer. And Julia—God, Julia—she’d be sitting next to me at that too-long table, legs tucked up, hand on my knee, whispering something sarcastic about Riley’s latest girlfriend.
But they’re not here. And no matter how many plates my mom sets or how many names get added to the family group text, that doesn’t change. The two people who mattered most to me are never coming back.
And somehow, I keep showing up anyway.
I bring the pie. I clear the dishes. I smile when I’m supposed to. I play along like I’m still the version of myself who made plans for a future that doesn’t exist anymore.
