Page 23 of Infatuated as They Come (Sinful Trilogy #2)

Sawyer

Deep down, I missed school. Deep, deep, deep down. At least back then I got to sleep in class.

Leaning against the front desk at work, my eyes zeroed in on whatever the hell Lex had written down in one of the authorization books. Lex was Jay’s nephew who had a habit of hiding in the break room whenever things got busy.

Soon, I’d be leaving work for my lunch break and heading down to that art studio Holly seemed much more interested in than I was. I got why she wanted me to do it. She said it herself: she wanted good things for me. I really wasn’t used to good things, though—except for her.

“Sawyer, hey!”

I felt a hand clap at my shoulder and my eyes flickered up from the desk to see Nate. “Oh, hey. You bringing your car in today?”

He nodded. “Yeah, it keeps pulling to the left. You think you could take a look at it? My mom’s gonna be pissed if there’s some major issue with it. I messed my last car up bad.”

“What’d you do?”

“Long, long story. Are you gonna be working on the car? I trust you with my baby.”

“Everyone here knows what they’re doing, but I’m gonna be heading out for my break in a second, so someone else will be taking care of it.”

“Are you meeting up with Holly? ”

“Not right now. There’s this art thing she really wants me to check out. Some place around the corner.”

“Oh, cool. Holly showed me some photos of your stuff. You’re really good. What the hell are you doing working here?” he whispered as he leaned in close. “No offense.”

“Painting’s more of a hobby for me, I guess. Just something I do when I get the chance.”

“You’re too good for it to be a hobby. If I was that good, I’d be doing it full time.”

But just like Holly, he didn’t get it either. “We just need you to fill these out,” I said before giving him a stack of forms.

“On it,” Nate said, grabbing a pen from the counter.

I suddenly felt two hands on my shoulders and I craned my neck to see Jay right behind me, a little grimace on his face. “What’s up?”

“You’re gonna hate me,” he said. “I know you made some plans, but we’ve just had a bunch of customers pull in. It’s getting real busy. You think you could hang back?”

“Hang back?” I repeated. I could already picture Holly’s face in my head if I took Jay up on that offer.

“I’m asking for a lot. I know. Could really use an extra pair of hands, though,” he said. “I promise I’ll make it up to you.”

I thought about it for a moment. For the last few weeks, I had been pretty much shoveling my lunch down my throat so I could just work the rest of my break.

It meant instead of wasting time just sitting around that I had more of a chance of getting that efficiency bonus.

That bonus meant I’d have some spare cash, so having to waste my whole lunch break today already had me worried.

I had been planning it all out: making sure I put enough aside for Holly and our dates and the stuff I wanted to buy her, and then the biggest one was paying for rent.

So, some stupid little art thing was just getting in the way of everything else I had been trying to perfectly arrange.

I’d be missing out on it, and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t curious to go see what it was all about, but staying back meant money, and money meant having money .

“You okay to stay back and help?” Jay asked.

Holly was gonna be pissed and she’d absolutely let me know it, but I needed money more than she realized, and going down to that art studio wouldn’t guarantee me anything. Art could wait.

“Yeah.” I gave Jay a firm nod. “I can do it.”

He clapped my shoulder. “You’re a lifesaver, kid.”

“Man, you’re not going to that studio?” Nate asked, looking up from the form. “I was eavesdropping.”

I shrugged. “Maybe another day.”

“If I could paint like you, I’d be doing that all day instead of being at this place.” He turned the form around, sliding it over the desk to me. “Maybe one day, right?”

I held in a sigh. “Yeah, maybe.”

* * *

Five hours and way too many cars later, I was at the stadium. I caught a glimpse of Holly on the field, her red and white pom poms in her hands. She was busy talking to Claudia and I felt guilt squeeze at my chest knowing that I was about to upset her when I told her what I had done.

Claudia spotted me first, smiling and waving at me before spinning Holly right around to face me. And I was expecting to see that usual pretty smile on my girl’s face, but I could have sworn I traveled right back in time to high school as she gave me nothing but a scowl and turned back around.

“Okay…” I muttered to myself. There was no point texting her since she didn’t have her phone on her, and I didn’t want to go down there and disturb her before she had to do all her cheer stuff. Instead, I was left to wonder what had got her so annoyed. Maybe she just had a bad day.

“Hey!” I heard Nate say next to me as he took a seat. “How’s my baby doing?”

I nodded at him. “You should have it back by tomorrow. It’s just a small alignment problem. No big deal.”

He threw an arm around me. “Oh, thank God. Dealership mechanics are sneaky. Can’t trust those guys.”

All of my focus was on Holly who was talking to the other cheer girls and still avoiding me completely. She’d usually give me a wave or blow me a kiss or something. I looked forward to those things, to seeing those pretty eyes on me. “Glad someone’s happy,” I muttered.

“What’s wrong?”

“Uh…” I wasn’t sure if I should have been confessing any of my relationship problems to Nate, just in case it got back to Holly’s dad, but he had been cool enough so far. “I don’t know, actually. Holly looks kinda pissed at me. Maybe I’m being paranoid.”

Nate hissed. “Oh, I saw her when I got back to campus. I may have told her that you weren’t going to that art studio…”

Turning to him, I let out a groan. “Why didn’t you let me tell her? I was gonna tell her.”

He threw his hands up. “It just slipped out. That was my bad. I didn’t know she’d get pissed at you. Holly usually doesn’t get pissed at people.”

“I was gonna tell her later tonight. She just really wants this for me. She wants it more than I do.”

“Well, you’re good. Why don’t you just do it?”

“I’m just too busy with work to focus on stuff like that.”

“Oh, right. You have a job.”

“Yes. I have a job.”

“Just work less days.”

“It’s not that easy. I can’t just give it up for some art thing that might not even go anywhere.”

“Sometimes you gotta take risks, man.”

“I wish I could,” I muttered. Taking a risk meant not being able to take care of Holly the way I so badly wanted to do. “And now Holly’s pissed at me. She looks like she wants to throw something at me, and she probably fucking will, so watch out.”

“I’ve never seen Holly get angry. You ever see her angry?”

“Uh… Once or twice.”

“How long do you think she’s gonna be pissed at you for?”

“I dunno. You know, this is what I get for falling in love with a rich girl. Everyone thinks I’m the problem, but rich girls are fuckin’ troublemakers,” I said. “Nobody warned me about that.”

Nate blew out a breath of air, slapping a hand to my shoulder. “Oh, my friend, you have no idea.”

The game finally started and in a millisecond, Holly plastered some fake, too bright smile on her face.

It wasn’t real in the slightest. I could see that from where I was sitting, how it didn’t reach her eyes even the tiniest bit.

I didn’t focus on the game. All I looked at was her, and that was how it normally was, except she was completely avoiding my gaze this time. Fun.

When the game finished up, Nate apologized to me one more time before taking off. I made my way through the crowd that was slowly scattering out and got settled down on the field, watching as Holly shoved her cheer stuff into her bag before she turned to some of the other girls.

I stood there awkwardly, waiting for her to turn around and snap at me or just keep avoiding me altogether. I wondered which option she was going to take.

“I think Holly might be mad at you!” Claudia said as she skipped over to me.

“Thanks,” I muttered, my eyes still stuck on Holly. “I had no idea.”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing.”

“You must have done something.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“What are—”

“When are you painting the cheer team?” she asked, poking at my arm. “Can you do that?”

Frowning, I shook my head a little and met her eyes. “You want me to what?”

“You paint, right? Can you paint us? That would be so exciting! We should do it next week. Can we do it next week?”

“I’m gonna head on home now,” Holly said softly, creeping up behind Claudia. “I’ll see you at practice.”

“See you then!” Claudia said, giving Holly a kiss on the cheek. “Bye, Sawyer! We’ll talk about our project next time!”

“Yeah,” I said before turning to Holly. “You were really great ton—”

Holly moved straight past me, forcing me to stop midsentence.

Goddamn. I let her walk ahead of me even though it would have been easy enough to keep up with her, but there was no point when she was so mad.

Even in the cab ride home she made sure to keep her eyes on the window, her body turned away from mine.

When we got back to the apartment, I watched her kick her shoes off, her bag hitting the floor next. Not even giving me a second glance, she moved across the living room and into our bedroom. Yeah, she was pissed at me. Felt like old times.

I quickly followed after her, stepping into the bedroom to see her yanking the scrunchie off her head. Her long fingers combed through her hair with her back to me, but I knew she had heard me come in.

“You’re probably hungry,” I said, leaning against the doorframe. “Want me to make you something?”

She said nothing.

“You should eat,” I said.

Still, she stayed quiet. It was only when she spun around and moved over to me that she made eye contact with me.

“Can you move?” she asked with a raised eyebrow. “You’re in my way.”