Page 63 of Wild Then Wed
Sawyer holds my gaze without flinching.
“I know enough,” he says simply. “And like you said—when the year’s up, we split. Nothing has to change except you moving in. Besides, I had worse roommates in college. After them, I can survive anything for a year.”
I narrow my eyes. “Oh, wow. Thanks. So glad I’m not as bad as your college roommates who probably pissed in Gatorade bottles and left them under their beds.”
He laughs again, low and rough, the sound curling straight through me.
“That’s not what I meant,” he says, still smiling. “I meant…webothneed this. We both get something out of it. It’s not one-sided.”
I let that sink in for a second. And then—before I can think about it too much—I stand up.
And I move closer to him. Closer than I usually let myself get to anyone.
Close enough that I can smell him—something clean and sharp and somehow exactly like him—and it drives me a little bit insane. In a good way.
I hold up my pinky between us.
“We have to pinky promise,” I say, serious. “That we won’t make this weird. That we’ll still be friends after. That we won’t do anything to screw that up.”
Because as far as friends go, I don’t have many. And somehow, without meaning to, Sawyer Hart has become one of the good ones.
His eyes soften, a shift you’d miss if you weren’t paying attention. He glances from my eyes to my pinky, then back to my eyes again.
And slowly, he hooks his pinky around mine.
“I promise,” he says.
The roughness in his voice does something dangerous to the air between us.
The space feels tighter. Warmer. Thicker. I swallow hard and push forward anyway, because if I stop now, I’ll never get the words out.
“We also have to promise,” I say, “that we’ll be on each other’s side. Like a team.”
I force myself to keep holding his gaze.
“If people start talking shit—and they might—you have to have my back. And I’ll have yours.”
He squeezes his pinky lightly around mine.
“I promise to always have your back, Wren,” he says again, steady and sure.
The way he’s looking at me—like he’s already decided that I’m his to stand next to—makes my chest feel too small.
I break the pinky promise first, pulling my hand back fast, my cheeks burning.
“As far as wedding vows go,” I mumble, reaching for my thermos, “that’s about as good as it’s gonna get from me.”
When I glance up, Sawyer’s smiling. That slow, crooked smile that belongs to someone who’s decided he’s in—no conditions, no second thoughts.
“I’d expect nothing less coming from you,” he says, his voice warm, the words catching somewhere between humor and something heavier.
And somehow, that’s the part that almost undoes me.
Not the proposal. Not the deal. Not the fact that my whole life is about to be tied to his with a few strokes of ink and a town full of witnesses.
It’s the way he says it—like he already knows exactly who I am.
And he’s not afraid to stay anyway.
