Harper
There literally couldn’t be a worse time for a girl’s night. But when Sadie called and asked if I was on my way, what was I supposed to say, ‘Sorry sis, I assumed since we have this whole cocaine drug ring problem, we would be tabling girl’s night for a hot minute.’
But I do need to tell her about the plan, and the backup plan.
Or, as Wade likes to call it, Horrible Idea and Covering up the Horrible Idea.
I think they have a nice little ring to them.
He does not. However, in all his blustering and questions, he never actually said no.
I think that will be important to remember later if shit hits the fan.
Sadie, on the other hand, is going to say no immediately, and frequently throughout the entire explanation.
It’s going to be quick, like ripping off a band-aid.
I’ll just tell her the plan, listen to her tell me how horrible it is and then she can tell me all the ways to improve it.
Then when she calms down a little, I’ll let her know it’s already in motion.
I bound up to her apartment door and knock, anticipation crawling over my spine as I wait for my sister to unlock the deadbolt.
She has been in the office less and less, choosing to work from home instead of at the club and I don’t blame her, but I don’t like that I can’t keep an eye on her either.
I’ve been dealing with the unwelcome delivery the best way I know how, determination and…
distractions. Sadie hasn’t been dealing with it at all, the few times I’ve tried to bring it up with her, she’s either cut me off or abruptly changed the topic.
With every deflection and unanswered call my worry grew and grew until eventually I called the one person she wouldn’t avoid.
That she couldn’t avoid. I don’t know if she will thank me or curse me when that shoe drops, but at the end of the day as long as she is here, hating and hexing me, then I will fall asleep every night with no regrets.
Sadie’s door swings open and she greets me with a bright smile as she squeals at my arrival, a stark contrast to the expectation I had mentally prepared myself for.
When she had demanded tonight happen, I had thought that maybe, finally, she had decided she wanted to talk about all the shit that’s been happening.
Work through it together, like we had in the past. I had braced myself for gaunt and thin, an apartment strewn with empty, barely eaten takeout containers, the couch piled high with blankets and pillows, protection against the nightmares that come alive in the dark.
This Sadie, though… This is the Sadie with her heart on her sleeve and candy in her pockets. My Sadie. God, I need her. More than she knows.
I stride past the living room, walking straight for the little kitchen that sits across from the bathroom and bedroom on the other side of the apartment.
“I have a lot to fill you in on. It’s been torture not having you at work.
Obviously, I understand you wanting to work from home, you know that, but Colton is driving me insane, which is just adding to my already growing frustration at everything.
Which is fine, because I have an idea and its honestly a terrible idea,” I pause my rant, realizing how much pent-up energy I’ve been burying until I got to see her again. Everything is pouring out of me now.
I reach up into the cabinet, knowing where she keeps her stash of Cheez-its and plop them onto the counter. Bending over at the waist, I search around her fridge for a Diet Coke while toeing off my heels behind me.
“Ohh! Is this terrible idea that you and Colton are finally getting together?”
My soda search halts and my left heel dangles off my outstretched foot. I straighten my spine, pulling my head out of the fridge at the voice does not belong to my fucking sister.
I kick the offensive heel behind me and walk around the edge of the kitchen and back towards the living room I just breezed through without a second glance.
“Hi!” Stella squeaks from the far side of the room, sitting comfortably on the end of Sadie’s loveseat like she’s done this a hundred times before.
Has she?
Stella is almost unrecognizable without her signature kiss curls and glossed pink lip. Instead, she is sporting a slicked back ponytail, an oversized yellow sweatshirt, no makeup that I can see and flawless skin that I could murder her for.
I’m just staring at her, watching the bright smile droop lower and lower on her face until she abandons my stare entirely and alternates her gaze between me and Sadie, unsure of the safest place to look.
Honey, it’s not at me.
“If you want alone time I can leave, I didn’t mean to intrude…” stammers Stella, who is immediately cut off by a shockingly stern Sadie.
“Absolutely not.”
At this I whip around, I was sure that when I heard the absolutely, it would be in agreement that this was some kind of overlap in planning and Stella should be taking her leave for the evening.
Sadie is pinning me with a cold stare, pointing at the spot next to Stella on the loveseat, far too close to one another for my liking, and based on the color rising high on Stella’s cheekbones, she also isn’t keen on being that up close and personal.
“Sadie…it might be best if we talk about things alone,” I say, widening my eyes in emphasis so she can catch my drift.
“Enough of this. Harper, I love you, but I need to talk to someone who isn’t my sister, Grant, or my sponsor. Remember we talked about this whole making new friends thing? I wasn’t kidding. Now sit down, stop scowling, and make a new friend.”
And with that, my ass finds the seat.
She’s not wrong. I knew she had other people in her life besides me.
I just didn’t realize one of those people was also one of my employees, and I don’t really know how to navigate this.
How much does she know about what's been going on? Is she even trustworthy? From everything Wade told me today, at least one person at the club has already betrayed me. What if this blonde little phony is part of the bigger scheme, and she’s been using my sister all along?
I can feel my anger rising the longer I sit here simmering in the worst-case scenarios.
“Fine, then tell me Sadie, how much have you shared with your little friend,” I say, emphasizing the word friend as I lean back in the chair deciding if I'm going to be tortured with socializing, I might as well do my best to be comfortable.
My instincts have never screamed at me to be wary of Stella, but I've been wrong before. I remember the day she started at Cirque. Sadie came back from a business trip with a singer in tow and a contract already signed. I remember having a list of questions to ask her, all of which were either dismissed by Sadie as not necessary or forgotten the moment the first note of a slowed down rendition of Unholy played. Her first few months went by in a blur, she mostly kept to herself, always a little quiet, reserved even. She always took the seat furthest from the group in meetings, seeming to like that safety in distance. But recently, she's seemed lighter, happier every time she steps on stage. She’s always sang with heart, but now she sings with soul and passion she didn’t let out before.
Sadie tends to have that effect on people, turning a storm cloud into a rain dance.
If she was getting information out of my sister to fuck me over, then of course she would be happy.
I can't help the thoughts that surface, though she's given me no reason to question her, no reason to doubt her loyalty to Cirque, or to my sister.
She's done nothing to earn my vitriol and suspicion, and yet she has it all the same.
Her hand flexes and relaxes a few times against her thigh, before she pulls her purse from the floor up to her lap as she answers for Sadie. She digs through the purse as she speaks, trying to keep her hands busy, but she doesn’t look nervous now, she looks determined.
“I know everything. I know about the drugs being in the bottom of the crates. That you, Sadie and Wade are the only ones that know about it right now since you don’t know who on the staff may have been involved.
Sadie told me all the transactions and invoice orders have your name on them, so everything appears to have been signed off by you for this unscheduled and obviously unplanned order.
” She pulls out a small tube of chapstick and begins to apply it as she continues.
“Sadie told me about it after the first day you found the stash in the crates, and I have been here every day with her since. I know you don’t trust easily, and no, Sadie didn’t need to tell me that.
It’s obvious. So if you want to look through my phone, tablet, bank statements, and anything else you can think of…
you’re welcome to it. I am here for Sadie, I do not need your permission to support her and be her friend, but it would be nice to have all the same,” Stella reaches back into the bag and pulls out her phone, her key fob for work and what appears to be an apartment key and tablet.
She holds them out to me, an offering and olive branch, wrapped up in a blonde bombshell.
Fine, she doesn’t suck.
I shake my head at her offer. “If Sadie trusts you…then I can try to,” she nods her head and then puts her belongings back into the purse and lowers it back onto the floor, taking a big breath.
A few seconds too soon, blondie. “Plus, fucking me over is one thing. But if you hurt Sadie, I’ll just kill you. ”
Out of the corner of my eye I can see Sadie throw her hands up, muttering something about this being why she can’t have nice things. Stella on the other hand, hasn’t broken eye contact, just simply nods in understanding.