Page 45 of Infinite as They Come (Sinful Trilogy #3)

Holly

It was early. Too early. Me and Sawyer both barely slept last night. He turned, I tossed, and when we both got up in the morning, I asked Sawyer what had been on his mind, what had kept him up, and he gave me an ever informative “nothing” as his answer, which explained everything.

The pancakes sitting in front of me looked enticing enough, but I couldn’t bring myself to even poke one with my fork.

Sawyer seemed to be in the same position.

He sat across from me in the diner, his phone face down on the table with his palm just an inch or two away from it.

His fingers kept curling and fidgeting, like it was a reflex to grab his phone as it sat there buzzing.

Again. And again. And again. Part of me was curious to see how long he could go without looking at it.

“Aren’t you gonna eat?” I raised an eyebrow at him. “You haven’t touched your pancakes.”

His eyes lowered to my plate. “Neither have you.”

Humming, I started to cut into one, digging my fork into a piece. “I’m not that hungry.”

“You should eat.”

“Why?” The word came out a little too sharp and too fast, but I was frustrated.

That lie he had told me felt like it was still hanging heavy in the air, and the worst part was that he had yet to admit it: that he lied straight to my face, about his mom, only to leave me wondering where the hell he had been while we lay there together in bed last night .

His brows rose. “Why?”

“Yeah, why?”

“It’s the most important meal of the day or whatever.”

“That’s what they say.” I held the fork to my lips as Sawyer’s phone buzzed again, and then my stomach twisted into about a thousand knots that didn’t feel like they’d ever untangle. “Get that if you want.”

“I can leave it for now.”

“For now…” I said, my voice a little too bitter.

He sighed. “Holly.”

“What?”

“Look at me.”

“I’m looking at my pancakes,” I said, piercing one with my fork.

I felt him grab my free hand, but I kept my eyes lowered.

I hadn’t realized that Sawyer lying to me could hurt so bad.

It wasn’t something that I had ever had to worry about, because he was honest and loyal and oh so faithful.

It wasn’t him seeing someone else. I knew that.

He wasn’t that type of man. But it was something , and he wouldn’t tell me, and it had been sitting there at the back of my mind for the last one and a half months.

It was at the forefront now and I couldn’t focus on anything but that.

“I can tell something’s on your mind,” he said, voice low. “Tell me. Please.”

His phone buzzed again, and I could have sworn the noise made me flinch. “I just didn’t get a lot of sleep last night,” I said.

“Yeah, me either.”

Lips firmly pressed together, I nodded stiffly. “You were out all day yesterday. I figured you’d be so tired you’d just sleep right through the night.”

His breathing hitched. “Yeah, you’d think so.”

That was when I met his eyes. I was tempted to tell him, to just blurt it out: I know you lied.

I know you lied right to my face. I know you’re still doing it .

It was everything in me to bite my tongue.

His phone vibrated one more time, and I couldn’t help but zero in on the way his hand inched towards the phone.

“Just get it if you want,” I muttered .

“Not now. I’ve got you here.” Gently, he moved his thumb across my knuckles. “Can deal with it later.”

“Later…” I repeated, eyes moving to the window to my left. “What did you and your mom get up to yesterday?”

I didn’t want it to be a test, but it felt like one, like whatever answer he was about to give me was going to let me know exactly where the rest of our conversation was going to go.

“We had lunch,” he said.

For a second, my head hung low. “You had lunch with your mom.”

“Yeah.”

“What’d you eat?”

His brows furrowed. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t remember?”

“I can’t even remember what we had for dinner last night.”

“Was it at her place? Did you go out somewhere?”

His free hand rubbed at the back of his neck. “Holly, what’s with the interrogation?”

“I’m allowed to know where my boyfriend goes,” I blurted out.

The words came out a little loud and fast, but it had all been building for a while and it felt good to let it out.

It was still Sawyer keeping me settled—mostly settled—though.

He hadn’t budged and kept his hand on top of mine, his fingers warm and rough and stupidly comforting despite the butterflies in my stomach.

Eyes widening for a second, he nodded. “Yeah, I know, baby. Of course. And…”

“And?”

“And…”

I closed my eyes. “Sawyer, I know you weren’t with your mom yesterday.”

He got quiet after that. I could hear the chatter of the customers, the clatter of someone’s fork and knife hitting their plate, the bell going off at the front door as someone walked in. Finally, my eyes opened back up to see Sawyer’s brows knitted together.

“What do you mean?” he asked .

“She was at the motel yesterday,” I mumbled. “With Kurt and Spencer. They were hanging out with Clara and Tommy.”

His throat cleared. “Oh.”

“You’re allowed to have time to yourself.

With everything that’s been going on and everything you’ve been feeling, I get it.

You need space some days. I’m not holding that against you.

It’s you being gone all day without an explanation that’s making me feel this way.

It’s the sneaky phone calls and the messages like there’s something you don’t want me to find out.

And now it’s you lying to me. That’s what hurts the most.” I exhaled, and I hated how painful it felt, how that ache burning around in my chest made breathing a hard task.

“You’ve never lied to me before, Sawyer. ”

“Holly, I’m sorry.” His hand stayed there on mine, squeezing me tight. He wasn’t masking his own frustration. I could hear it there in his voice, in his strained words. “All I can say is I’m sorry.”

“I’m allowed to be annoyed that you lied to me,” I murmured.

“You’re right. You are. You’re allowed to feel like that.”

“Just tell me where you were yesterday,” I said. “Please.”

A soft groan escaped him, his hand pulling away from mine before he ran both across his face. “Holly…”

“Where were you? I know you lied. You know that I know. I’m giving you a chance here to just be honest with me. That’s all I want. I want just the truth from you.”

Pulling his hands away from his face, he pushed them through his hair. “Holly, I just need you to trust me.”

“I do trust you.”

“Then can we just leave it at that? Please?”

“Leave it at that,” I repeated, shaking my head. “I’ve been patient enough, don’t you think? I’ve waited, Sawyer. All those long days you leave without proper answers, all the weird phone calls. I’ve waited and now you just need to tell me. Please. Just tell me. Tell me why you lied to me.”

His lips parted, and for a second, I thought I was getting it. Truth. Answers. The Sawyer who never hid from me, who never lied right to my face.

“Please just trust me, Holly,” he said. “Please. This isn’t how I planned this all going. We were meant to see more places, do more things, have more moments together.”

“It’s not even that. I don’t care about that. You found your mom and I’m so happy for you and her and Spencer. It’s you lying to me that hurts. And even when I call you out on the lying you still won’t tell me why you’re lying.”

“I’m sorry for lying. I am. So bad, Holly. I hated doing it, but yesterday…”

“Yesterday?” I prompted.

“I needed to take care of some—”

“Stuff?” I cut him off. “Stuff, right? You’ve been doing a lot of stuff lately. Copious amounts of stuff that I am not privy to, apparently.”

“I want to tell you.”

“Then tell me.”

“I wish I could.”

“You can, you just don’t want to.”

He exhaled sharply. “I don’t want this to turn into fight.”

“I think it already did, like, five minutes ago,” I said, picking up a napkin and tearing at the corner.

“Right.”

“I deserve honesty. I’m entitled to a little honesty, especially when you’ve been acting so strange. When you’re clearly keeping things from me.”

“What about you?” he said.

My head shook, shrugging at the question. “What about me?”

His tongue clicked, fingers tapping against the diner table as his eyes traveled to the window right by us. “What about that job offer you got?”

“What are…” My brows pulled together. “You went through my stuff? Through my computer?”

He held his hands up. “I didn’t go through it. You left it open and it was there and I looked for a second. It’s not like I was snooping and I shut it as soon as I could.”

“Okay, so? Some place offered me a role? So what?”

“So what?” He sat up a little straighter. “Not just some place, Holly, a place in New York.”

“Right, and? ”

“You didn’t tell me about it. Were you planning on telling me about it?”

“Do you want me to forward you every email I get?”

“It’s not about that. It’s about the place. It’s about the fact that maybe that’s where you would rather be.”

“Is that what you think? That I want to go back?”

“I mean, you and New York City make sense. Maybe you wanna go back. Maybe you’re looking for jobs back there. New York is the kinda place a girl like you belongs, so I understand if you wanna go back.”

My eyes rolled. God, I hated this. I hated it when we fought like this, because it always felt too serious and heavy.

We weren’t like this. We were usually all staring into each other’s eyes, holding hands, me on his lap, our lips pressed together.

Not this. Not this awful bitterness in our words.

The uncomfortableness. God, even when we used to go at each other’s throats it never felt awkward and stiff like what was surrounding us right now.

Sawyer cocked a brow. “Well?”

“Well, what?”

He swiped a heavy thumb across his jaw. “Are you gonna take it? Are you going back?”

“Are you seriously asking me that?”

“Does is sound like I’m not being serious?”