Next to Me (Triplets book 3)

Chapter 23

His first thought upon waking up was that she was gone. Elyse was gone. She was on her way to Africa, and he could do nothing about it because he was contracted to start a new film in two weeks.

Nothing had been decided between them. Elyse and his relationship was as much in the grey as it ever was. She had said her career didn't mean as much as it once had to her, but was that true, or had she said it to save face because she had been backed into a corner? And what in the hell was the one crucial thing that she wouldn't tell him about?

It was all very frustrating.

He sat up and rested his pounding head between his hands. He and Shay had had way too much to drink the night before, and he could barely remember the end of the evening. He smiled to himself. He did remember sending a suggestive text to Shay's Nate on behalf of Shay.

He and Sullivan had both agreed that it was time to sit down with Shay and make sure she knew what they knew about Nate. There had been some rumors. Granted, he and Sullivan understood that rumors rarely turned out to be totally accurate but forewarned was forearmed, and they were worried about their sister.

Sawyer forced himself to stand up and slowly make his way to the kitchen, knowing hydration was what he needed most. He hadn't been there long and had just found a bag of frozen peas to hold to his head to soothe its pounding when Shay walked in, looking as rough as he felt.

"This is your fault!" she groaned as he pushed past him, grabbed a glass, and filled it with water.

"How? Sullivan was the one who started pouring the drinks if I recall," he slammed the fridge, and they both groaned.

"Yeah, and you were the one who finished pouring them, if I recall," Shay drank a few huge gulps of water and reached for some Aspirin in the cupboard next to the fridge.

"Why are you talking so loudly?" Sawyer sat at the bar and rested his head on the cool countertop as Shay's phone rang.

"Make it stop!" Sawyer whimpered.

"Hello?" Shay asked in a voice rough from sleep and whisky. "Nate?"

Sawyer cradled his head, wishing for her to shut up. Had she always talked so loud?

"Yes, Sawyer got me drunk last night, so I'm a little rough around the edges this morning." Shay shot Sawyer a glare that would kill a lesser man.

"Understatement! You look like you got hit by a bus!" He said loudly and immediately wished he hadn't.

"Shut up!" she hissed. "No, Sawyer." Shay stepped away from him and toward the other side of the kitchen, where she couldn't be heard as Sawyer snickered because Nate thought she had been talking to him.

Sawyer wished that Elyse would call him, but she was probably still traveling and without service, and who knew if she would even have service where she was going.

"What did you do, Sawyer!" she demanded.

"Me? Nothing!" he said innocently, perking up. It could only mean that Nate had told her about the texts he had sent on her behalf.

"Hold on!" Shay said as she pulled up her messages and scrolled through them. "I'm gonna kill you! I only hope that I sent similar texts to your lady love!" she hissed at Sawyer before she stormed out of the kitchen.

Her words made Sawyer scramble for his phone. Had she sent Elyse something? Their relationship was so tenuous that anything could send it off the rails. 

He wished for the millionth time that he could figure out what they needed.

Sawyer opened his phone with a shaky hand and went to the texts. Sure enough, a chain of texts had been sent to Elyse the night before.

"I love you!" He did, damn it, but he didn't want to say it in a text, and he especially didn't want his sister to say it for him!

"COME HOME!" Good Lord, how desperate did she make him sound?

"I need you like the I need the air I breathe." Sawyer groaned. He did. All of it was true. How could he not have realized it when his sister did? And now all these wonderful words had been sent to her, and they hadn't come from him!

"Damn you, Shay!" Sawyer called, no longer concerned about his headache.

"You're welcome! Feels real good, doesn't it!" she hollered back.

Sawyer forced himself to keep reading.

"I want you in my life forever. Marry me!"  He groaned in despair.

He noticed that she hadn't responded. Perhaps he could delete them. He tried, but there was no way to do it. His hands were shaking. What should he do? Did he want to marry her? At the thought, his automatic response was yes, but he shouldn't have asked her in a text even if he had been the one to send it. She deserved hearts, flowers, and romance.

What if she saw it, felt scared or pressured into something she didn't want, and sent him away again? He didn't think he could bear that. What should he do?

Honesty was always the best policy, right?

"Sorry," he texted back, "My sister stole my phone and sent all these texts. I don't want you to feel pressured or anything." he fired it off before he could think too much about it.

"Damnit, Shay! You've ruined everything!" Sawyer said as he burst into her bedroom.

"Here!" Shay said as she pulled his phone from him, and he pulled her phone from her. They both took a few minutes to scan what they wrote.

Sawyer snickered as he read what he wrote before remembering what she had done to him and his trouble.

"I don't see a problem with this. Is it not how you feel?" Shay asked, handing him back his phone.

"It is, but it's my place to say it, not yours!" he shoved her phone at her.

"Well, I guess you'll have to call and explain, but it shouldn't matter since she doesn't want you anyway, right?" Shay watched her brother closely.

Sawyer had said that Elyse didn't want him the night before in a fit of depression, feeling like Elyse had left him without a backward glance, without a promise that she would be back or telling him that she loved him and wanted him.

But then he hadn't told Elyse that loved and wanted her either, so why should she tell him? Was that what she was supposed to figure out?  He knew that it was, and it was so simple. Oh, God! He had screwed up royally. She needed to hear him say it, but now he couldn't because it was in a text his sister had sent!

"By the way, I didn't know you had stolen my phone last night and sent those messages to Nate, but I do know that I didn't send those to your lady love because I don't even know her name." Shay patted him on the shoulder.

That was true, and even if she had figured out that it was Elyse, Elyse was listed as Mary on his phone, and she wouldn't have known about that. He had sent them. Surprise, followed by awe, followed by despair chased across his face as he realized that he was the biggest fool, an immature fool. He remembered the text he had just sent to correct what he thought Shay had sent.

There was nothing he could do to fix it from an ocean away. It had to wait until he could get there in person. 

Well, there was one thing he could do as his fingers started flying. He couldn't type it fast enough.

"I'm sorry if I messed it up for you," Sawyer said to Shay as he typed, sincerely hoping he hadn't.

"You didn't. Nate and I talk like adults, and we tend to work things out before they get out of hand. Maybe you and your lady love should do the same!" Shay called back.

"I do love you. I didn't want to say it in a text, but I do. I'll be there as soon as I can." He sent it.

Which wouldn't be soon enough!