Playing for Keeps (Heartbreaker Bay #7)(37)

She took a deep breath of relief. “Wish,” she clarified. “I was about to tell you my secret wish. Not fantasy.”

“Damn.” He sighed. “Okay, I’m listening.”

“It’s not what you think.”

“Try me.”

She grimaced. “I’ve always kind of wanted to dance in the rain.”

He smiled. “Nice,” he said and looked like he meant it. “One Direction, huh?”

God. He’d been listening to her messages.

Lollipop nudged the screen, wanting to talk to her dad.

Caleb smiled at her but had eyes only for Sadie. “Are you in your pj’s?”

“Yes.”

His eyes heated, prompting her to look down at herself. She wore an oversize Giants T-shirt and had a blanket wrapped around most of her. “Are you kidding?” she asked. “This is practically rated G. Not even a little sexy.”

“We have two very different ideas of what’s sexy,” he said.

Her mouth went dry. Her heart was pounding. She wanted him. Now. “Caleb?”

“Yeah?”

“Come over.”

He let out a breath and held her eyes with his. “You’re not ready yet.”

“I think I know if I’m ready or not.”

He gave a slow shake of his head. “I’m not rushing this. Not with you.”

She had no idea what that meant, but hell if she’d beg. She lifted her chin. “And to think, I was just about ready to tell you my secret guilty TV pleasure.”

“Tell me.”

“No.”

“I’ll bring you muffins in the morning if you tell me.”

Damn. “I watch Married at First Sight ,” she admitted.

“What’s that?”

“Just what it sounds like,” she said. “It’s a reality show. You’ve never seen it?”

He laughed. “Hell no.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Tell anyone, and you’ll need to sleep with your eyes open.”

“So you’re a closet romantic.”

She sputtered and he tipped his head back and laughed some more, and the sight was so sexy, she forgot to be mad for a second. But just for a second. “Seriously, eyes open, Caleb.”

He rubbed a hand over his scruffy jaw and grinned. “Come at me, babe. Give it your best shot. Fair warning, you might like what you find.”

Deathly afraid that was true, she closed her eyes. “I’m sorry about tonight.”

“For what, standing up to me and telling me you weren’t ready for me to push? Don’t be sorry, Sadie. Never be sorry for telling me the truth.”

Something warm went through her at that and it took her a moment to realize what it was. Affection, and also a yearning. “You’re different,” she said.

He smiled. “’Night, Sadie.”

“’Night, Caleb.”

When he was gone, she looked at Lollipop. “Okay, maybe I see a tiny bit of why you heart him so much. But just a little bit, mind you.”

She tucked Lollipop into her bed and then hit her own. And apparently spilling one’s guts made one tired, because she fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.





Chapter 13





#TacosSolveEverything



The next morning, Sadie woke in her cold apartment shocked that she’d slept all night. She hurriedly hopped into a hot shower under Lollipop’s watchful, worried eye. The dog couldn’t understand Sadie’s love of hot water. Or any water at all.

As she dried off, she glanced at herself in the mirror. The woman staring back at her straightened and returned the careful once-over. At some point over the years, she’d grown to accept and even love her curves, and maybe actually truly liked the way she looked in her clothes.

Quite the change from her early years.

She hadn’t told Caleb about those years, or even hinted at them. She didn’t know if she ever could. But there’d been a time when she couldn’t have looked at herself in the mirror at all because she hated what she’d seen as so different from the rest of her family. She’d carried around a lot of hurt about that for a long time.

Then she’d learned how to release that pain in a way that had most definitely been outside society’s idea of normal. Just the occasional small slices on her upper thigh where no one but her ever saw. Until she’d been caught of course, by her mom who’d never stopped snooping into Sadie’s life, needing to know all her secrets.

It’d been born out of fear for her daughter’s health and safety, Sadie got that now. She did. But back when she’d been a hurting, lonely, angry teenager, she hadn’t understood why her mom had freaked out and called in the cavalry to save Sadie, who hadn’t seen herself as needing saving.

That’s when she’d been forced into psychiatric care including the involuntary stay in a hospital, followed by counseling, a change of schools, and constant supervision. She’d tried to explain she wasn’t suicidal and never had been. She hadn’t ever felt the need to die, but no one believed her.

Eventually, she’d come to terms with herself and had let that inner anger and pain go. The need to cut had faded away, with the exception of a relapse a few years ago when she’d let a guy inside her head and mess her up.