Colliding Love - Tucker Billi...

I don't realize how finely tuned I am to Sawyer until I'm trying to listen to my manager and agent on a conference call and the front door of her house opens. It's not so much that I hear the door—because it's pretty far from the living room—but that I sense her presence. Something in the air shifts, which is a real mind fuck to be conscious of when it feels like this phone call is already tipping my world on its axis.

"Are we sure?" I ask for what seems like the fiftieth time. My forehead is cradled in my palm, and I've got my elbow on my knee. I'm staring at the wood on the floor, trying to make sense of what I've been hearing for the last few minutes.

"Look, we can ask for a DNA test. As I said, our investigators went to them, saw all their paperwork, photos, and so on before we called you. They're convinced this claim is legit based on what they saw and what they were given."

"Okay," I say, and I release a deep sigh. "Hold tight. I don't know what I want to do."

"It's a great human interest 온라인카지노게임," my manager says. "Someone will pick this up if we don't deal with it."

"Do you think they want money?" I ask, and I glance up as Sawyer comes into the room. Even as my mind is spinning, I clock that she also doesn't look like herself. Stiff. And she doesn't immediately come to sit beside me on the couch. When we're alone, she never keeps her distance. It's one of my favorite things.

"Who knows," my agent says. "The fact that you're rich and famous definitely complicates the dynamic."

"I'll be in touch," I say.

"Soon," my manager says. "Like, real soon, Logan. If money is what they want, they'll find someone to talk to."

"Yeah, okay," I say, and I scan Sawyer, trying to figure out what's going on with her.

After I hang up, Sawyer and I stare at each other in silence for a minute. Rather than asking her what's wrong or waiting for her to ask me, I decide I'll just tell her.

"After all these years, it seems I've finally got family coming out of the woodwork," I say.

"Your dad?" Her eyes widen.

"No, that one remains a mystery. My grandparents—my mom's parents and her younger brother. Apparently, the brother has a son—my cousin, I guess—and he's into hockey. With the attention you and I got on this last run of away games and with the way I've been playing even better than normal, I guess the kid mentioned to his dad that I had the same last name as them."

"And it's them?" She comes to the couch, but she doesn't sit right beside me.

"Seems like, according to my manager. They always send a team to check this shit out before going into damage control. There's smoke, but is there fire."

"Wow," Sawyer breathes out, and it's the right response, but it doesn't feel like her. "How are you feeling?"

"Skeptical," I admit. "Before I met Chayton and his dad, I would have done anything to have a real family. My family. Instead of feeling like a burden, I'd have been wanted. Now? My mom was alone, so alone that when she died, there was no one down as a contact for me. If they were good people, wouldn't she have put them down?"

"No one expects to die," Sawyer murmurs. "Especially so young."

Which is a fair point because my mom didn't have a will or life insurance or anything. Just a random assortment of small things that followed me to a couple foster homes before being lost in transition. Just like right now, I got those things back because I became famous enough for someone to notice, to care, to profit.

"They want to meet me."

"What do you want to do?"

"I don't know," I say, and I'm tired of her being so far away. When we're in a room, we're together. I like that. I want that. But when I reach for her, she flinches. I drop my hand and then I try to search her expression. The last time she had that reaction to me was months ago, in the Wino Wine Bar, and I thought then that I startled her. That's not it this time. She won't look at me. "Doc, what's going on? You've been off since you got home."

"Nothing. Just absorbing everything."

"Honestly, that's bullshit." I shift sideways on the couch, so I'm fully facing her, even if she won't do the same for me. "Spit it out."

"It was just a lot—being gone for a week and a half."

"Something happen with work?"

"I just feel really behind. I think we should... I think we should... It was a lot of togetherness time. Space. I just need space."

I rock back a little into the couch, surprised. But I've gotten really fucking good at shutting down my feelings. "You want me to go?"

"I need some time to myself."

But she won't look at me when she says that, so it rings hollow, false. The problem is that I don't know whether this is code for her actually wanting to break up. Having never been in close to a woman like I am with her, I don't know how to read this. Shut down. Shut her out.

"I'll get out of your way," I say, and I rub my face before I stand. There's a protest at the base of my throat, but I don't know if it's the right move to let it out. For a moment, I stare at her, willing her to look at me. Maybe it's pathetic to chase her for something she doesn't want to give. Most of the time when she wants something, I give it to her unquestionably, without protest. Whatever is happening here doesn't feel the same as those other requests.

"Did I do something wrong?" I ask, finally. At least then I can fix it, make amends, not do it again.

"No," she says, and when she finally makes eye contact, she looks hollowed out. And I realize that I haven't seen this version of Sawyer for months either, like going on the road with me cracked something in her that had been sealing shut. "I just want to be alone."

"I don't know what happened," I say. "But if I've done something—if I fucked up—you need to tell me. You know where to find me when you want to talk."

Then I go into her bedroom, and I stuff all my shit into my bag, and I leave the house without begging her to tell me what's wrong—which takes far more willpower than I ever thought I'd need to possess.

***

Back at my apartment, I try to sit in the hot tub to relax, but my mind won't stop spinning. Between Sawyer's need for distance, when I'm almost desperate to talk through this family shit with her, to me even having family shit to contemplate, I can't get the tension to leave no matter how long I soak.

When I give up, I get out and change into some gray sweats before padding into the spare room. I tug open the drawer of the nightstand, and I stare at the diary my mother left behind. I've flipped through it before, trying not to read anything specific as the pages went by. Diaries are private, and it still seems wrong to even contemplate reading it.

With my grandparents and my uncle now trying to horn into my life, I wonder whether the answers I need are in those pages. Were they good people? Were they bad people and my mother fled from them? Is the truth somewhere in the middle?

Plucking the diary out of the drawer, I sit on the edge of the bed. The first page is dated a little over a year before I was born.

"Sorry, Mom," I mutter as I start to read.

When will Sawyer tell Logan the truth? What do you think Logan's birth family wants?

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