Hurt me like you need me novel Chapter 15

Cade’s POV

The diner is called Pat’s and the team takes over four booths near the window.

We do this after every meet. Pat, a sixty-year-old woman with arms thicker than Tyler’s, brings out plates without asking because she already knows the order: burgers, fries, chocolate shakes for the sprint guys, vanilla for the distance swimmers, and a black coffee for Coach Harding.

The man sits at the counter with his back to the team because he says watching us eat undoes three hours of training.

Harding is ex-Navy, built like a cinder block someone forgot to sand down, and he coaches with no praise until you’ve earned it twice, no eye contact until you’ve earned it three times.

Guys told me he checked his stopwatch twice when I touched the wall today. That’s the Harding equivalent of a standing ovation.

Linda insisted we both come. She used the voice — the one that sounds like a suggestion but is actually a court order — and now Sawyer is wedged into the adjacent booth between Davis Reiner and a sophomore named Beck, sitting with his shoulders pulled in and his hands in his lap like a cornered animal.

He’s still here. That’s interesting.

I sit with Tyler and Marsh. Tyler is still running on the meet high, talking with his hands, replaying the relay split by split. Marsh is eating fries and agreeing with everything Tyler says. I eat my burger and watch Sawyer through the gap between the booths.

He’s not talking. Beck tried to start a conversation about a class they share and Sawyer gave him four words and a silence that could strip paint.

Davis isn’t trying at all — he’s on his phone, scrolling through Instagram, which is the correct response to being seated next to someone who radiates hostility the way Sawyer does.

Everyone at this table can feel it. That low-grade current of leave me alone pulsing off him like body heat.

Everyone except Tyler.

Tyler leans across the gap between the booths, resting his forearm on the divider. “Hey, Sawyer.”

Sawyer’s eyes flick up.

“You’ve got swimmer’s shoulders, you know that?” Tyler grins. Easy, warm, the effortless charm of a person who has never once considered the possibility that he might not be welcome. “Seriously, man. You’d kill it in the 100 free.”

“I don’t swim.”

“Yeah, but you could. That frame? You’re built for it.” Tyler’s hand drops from the divider to Sawyer’s forearm, casual and friendly.

Physical affection is Tyler’s native language and he doesn’t realize some people speak it differently.

Sawyer doesn’t pull his arm away.

I watch Tyler’s fingers resting on Sawyer’s forearm and the hum in my chest shifts frequency to lower. The same sound a generator makes before it blows a fuse.

Marsh leans in from the other side. “Did you ever swim competitively? Your mom mentioned something about it.”

“High school.” Sawyer’s voice is clipped but he’s answering.

He’s actually engaging with Tyler and Marsh, which he has never done, not once, not at a single family dinner or house gathering or any of the dozens of opportunities Linda has manufactured for exactly this purpose.

But Tyler touches his arm and suddenly Sawyer is a person who participates in conversations.

“Really?” Tyler’s eyebrows go up. “What events?”

“Hundred free. Two hundred IM.”

“No shit. Were you any good?”

Sawyer’s jaw tightens. “I was fine.”

He was better than fine. He was the fastest sophomore in the district before I took his spot.

“We actually need someone.” Marsh pulls his chair closer, leaning over the booth divider now. “Our relay alternate, Jessup, broke his collarbone last week snowboarding. We’re short a body for regionals.”

“You should try out.” Tyler squeezes Sawyer’s forearm.

Move your arm, Sawyer.

But Sawyer doesn’t know that. Sawyer is sitting there with Tyler Park’s hand on his forearm and Tyler Park’s smile aimed at his face and he’s letting it happen.

That’s my window. You don’t get to climb through Tyler’s.

That’s not how this works.

You don’t get to be soft for other people.

You’re mine and you are making me want to drag you out of this booth by the back of your neck.

I finish my shake, set the glass down, wipe my mouth, stand up, and cross the gap between the booths in two steps. Davis is in the way.

“Move.” It comes out flat.

Davis moves. He grabs his plate and slides down without a word because Davis is new and hasn’t figured out yet whether I’m the kind of captain who asks twice.

I’m not, by the way.

I sit. My thigh presses against Sawyer’s under the table. A deliberate, full-contact line of heat from hip to knee, my leg against his, denim on denim, close enough that I can feel the muscle in his quad tense the second I make contact.

He goes rigid. Every muscle in his body locks and I feel it through the point where our legs touch — a full-body flinch compressed into stillness.

Good. Remember me.

Tyler raises an eyebrow. Looks at me, then at Sawyer, then back at me. The hand on Sawyer’s forearm lifts.

I give Tyler the warm smile that reaches my eyes and means absolutely nothing. “Sawyer hates swimming. Don’t recruit him.”

The table laughs. Marsh snorts into his milkshake. Tyler shakes his head and leans back in his booth.

“That true?” Tyler asks Sawyer.

Still friendly. Still trying.

Sawyer is quiet for a few seconds. His thigh hasn’t moved away from mine.

“I’ll think about it,” he says.

The fuck?