Playing for Keeps (Heartbreaker Bay #7)(71)

When the microwave dinged, he pulled out the container, grabbed a fork and two bottles of water, and headed back to the bedroom. He didn’t expect Sadie to be awake, but she was, lying on her back, staring up at the ceiling pensively.

Setting everything down on the nightstand, he sat at her hip. “What’s up?”

She blinked. “Do I smell mac and cheese?”

He handed the container to her, along with the fork. “Refuel.”

She smiled. “For round two?”

He smiled back and opened a bottle of water, handing that over as well. “For me, yes. For you it’ll be round . . . four, or is it five?”

She snorted and took a long drink from the bottle, but her eyes weren’t quite right. He waited until she’d eaten her fill before setting everything aside, turning off the light again, and slipping back under the covers. Then he drew her into him and held her close, brushing a kiss to her temple.

She sighed. “You’re good at the silent interrogation. I think it’s because you’re naked. You’re pretty damn distracting naked. Makes me forget myself.”

“Seems only fair since when you’re naked, I can’t even remember my own name.”

She smiled but it faded quickly.

“Talk to me, Sadie.”

She was quiet a moment, but he waited her out. It was his one superpower, given to him by too many sisters and a strong-as-hell mom.

“Do you sometimes lay in bed at night and relive every horrible thing you’ve ever said or done?” she asked.

“All the time. What are you reliving tonight?”

She sighed. “On the phone today, I let my mom think she was a bad mom.”

“Was she?” he asked.

“No. I don’t know.” Sadie paused. “I was a bad kid.”

“I don’t believe that,” he said. “And moms are resilient.”

“Really? What’s the meanest thing you’ve ever said to your mom?”

He laughed. “I told her she couldn’t go on a date because she was ugly.”

She gasped. “You did not!”

“Hey, I’m not proud of it,” he said, “but in my defense, I was five and I didn’t want her to leave. I wanted her to stay home with me.”

“Reasonable,” she said.

“Selfish,” he said.

She shook her head. “I can’t imagine you being selfish. If you want to hear selfish . . .” She hesitated and then spoke in a soft rush, as if needing to get it all out before losing her nerve. “When I was a teenager, my parents told me they were done with me being sullen and angry and dressing in black from head to toe all the time. They told me I needed to be more like my sister. I was thirteen to Clara’s fifteen and hadn’t really developed yet—much to my annoyance. So I stole one of her bras and stuffed it with those small travel-sized bags of candy I’d had stashed under my bed, and wore it under one of her favorite dresses—also stolen. It was a white sundress and looked great on her and her new curves. Being a jealous little shit, I put a coat over the whole ensemble and sneaked out of the house to go to school. Only I got called up to the front of my English class to read something and I got nervous, which meant I also got sweaty.”

“The candy fell out of your bra?” he guessed.

She gave a low rueful laugh. “Yes, but first it melted and leaked through the dress, making me look like a rainbow and smell like chocolate—which was not allowed in class. I got sent to the principal’s office. My parents had to come down and everyone got to take turns telling me what a shit show I was and a huge disappointment. For punishment, when I got home, I was marched to the kitchen sink to scrub the dress clean.”

Caleb imagined a thirteen-year-old Sadie hunched over the sink in the M&M bra that was too big for her, scrubbing at the material of the white dress, knowing she couldn’t possibly get it clean.

Or please her family.

It actually infuriated him, and the power of that took away his ability to speak for a moment.

“I didn’t try very hard to clean the dress,” she went on, staring at the ceiling again. “I really was a complete over-the-top, dramatic, way-too-sensitive little jerk who refused to understand my family, or the fact that they just wanted me to be more like them.” She shook her head. “But with the dubious passing of time, things eventually got better.”

“I’m glad,” he managed to say lightly, not wanting her to dwell on shitty memories that made her feel bad, when he didn’t think she had anything to feel bad about. “When I was thirteen, I stole something from my older sister too.”

“Right,” she said in disbelief, and made him laugh.

“I did. I stole her car.”

She gasped and turned her head to face him. He took advantage of that and kissed her slow and deep, until she moaned and wrapped him up tight in her arms, which was quickly becoming his favorite place to be.

“Did you get caught?” she asked when she’d pulled back.

“Yes, because my mom called the cops.”

She gaped at him. “She didn’t!”

“Okay, she called my uncle Des, who was a deputy, but it was close enough. And when he dragged me back home and deposited me in front of my mom and my sister to apologize, I didn’t. I told them all that I was a grown-up, I was the man of the house, and therefore I could do what I wanted when I wanted.”