Chapter 10 Sadie
TEN
SADIE
Sadie sat cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by a battlefield of notebooks, highlighters, and self-doubt. Her business plan, a makeup line for film and TV that didn’t cater exclusively to the shade range of a saltine cracker, was spread out in front of her.
Months of testing, tweaking, and the occasional chemical burn had led to this moment—pitching to investors who probably thought "diversity" meant offering both vanilla and beige.
She wanted to offer every shade a makeup artist could need, from rom-coms to zombie flicks.
Every color of human and creature, living or undead.
She tapped her pen against the notebook. Her investor list was laughable. Three names she’d actually met, one guy she might have flirted with at a wrap party, and ten email addresses she found in the wild west of “how to fund your dream” blog posts. If this was a network, it had dial-up energy.
She sighed and caught sight of her notes for tomorrow’s shoot: brutal injury, lots of fake blood. Perfect. Nothing like perfecting a little trauma makeup to soothe a spiraling mind.
It had been months since she’d done anything truly gruesome. No torn flesh. No exposed bone. No arterial spray. Just soft glam and touch-ups for hot people in flattering lighting, which was fine, but deeply unsatisfying. She missed the catharsis of a good, horrifying wound.
She dragged out her special effects kit, set up camp on the kitchen counter, and mixed up a batch of her signature blood goo. The scent hit her instantly, metallic and weirdly nostalgic.
Cool liquid slid down her cheek as she applied it with surgical focus.
For the first time all day, her brain went quiet.
No business stress. No doubts. No replays of that kiss that was still tattooed behind her eyes.
Just blood, latex, and the comforting lie that maybe she wasn’t a complete disaster.
After twenty minutes of work, Sadie leaned back and admired the mangled masterpiece now occupying her cheek. The wound was grotesque in the best way. The texture was right. The edges looked angry. She could almost hear the spooky movie soundtrack in the background.
Her phone buzzed on the counter. She picked it up and saw a text from her brother, Ronan, asking how the job was going. She replied: Great. Nature is very… natural.
Then, because self-care apparently meant online shopping and swiping through the abyss of online dating, she instinctively opened her go-to dating app.
It was a reflex at this point. Pure muscle memory. Like checking the fridge even though nothing new had magically appeared. Swipe. Swipe. Immediate no. Absolutely not. Why is that man shirtless in a bathroom mirror? And—oh my God—is that another fish?
Why were they always holding fish? Was this some kind of rural mating ritual? Look, woman, I have provided protein.
She sighed, pausing on a profile that almost seemed promising.
Decent smile, no obvious red flags, no dead animals in the photos.
Then she scrolled to the bio. Looking for my queen to cook and clean for me.
Be my stay-at-home girlfriend. Oh great, now it’s a life sentence in the form of caring for a man-child.
Another hard swipe left. That one felt less like a choice and more like community service.
Then, as if the universe was trying to redeem itself, Reggie appeared. Reggie from the airplane. Reggie the prop master. Reggie who had once fixed a broken rig with duct tape and optimism.
She stared at his profile, suspicious. No fish. No weird demands. Just a normal guy with a normal smile. It felt like finding an oasis in a desert made entirely of taxidermy and emotional red flags.
They’d chatted on set a few times. Nothing deep, but enough to know he was polite, hardworking, and honestly, kind of sweet.
But the idea of swiping right just felt wrong.
Where was the spark? The thrill? Reggie was cute.
And, crucially, not holding a dead fish.
A low bar, but one most men still tripped over.
She screenshotted his profile and sent it in a text with her sister-in-law, Eden.
SADIE: He’s cute?
Her phone started ringing almost immediately, Eden’s name flashing on the screen.
“Do you have a concussion?” Eden asked, skipping hello entirely.
“No?” Sadie said, frowning.
“Then why,” Eden paused, clearly pulling up the image, “are you asking me if Reggie is cute?”
“Well, he is, right?” Sadie said, instantly defensive. She twisted a strand of hair around her finger. “I just can’t tell if he’s actually cute or if he’s suffering from Coworker Hotness. You know. Long hours, shared trauma, craft services.”
Eden hummed thoughtfully. “He’s cute in a very… princely way. Like he’d walk you home, kiss your cheek, and remind you to hydrate.”
“That sounds nice,” Sadie said after a beat, but even she heard the lack of conviction in her voice. Nice wasn’t exactly thrilling. Nice didn’t make her stomach flip or keep her up at night replaying a single glance.
“Oh, totally,” Eden agreed. “He’s the human equivalent of white bread.”
Sadie frowned. “I prefer multigrain. With seeds. Maybe a little crunch.” She paused, “But that’s hilarious coming from you, considering you’re married to my boring-as-watching-paint-dry brother.”
Eden scoffed on the other end. “He is actually not boring at all. It’s the quiet ones you need to watch out for.”
Sadie could hear the grin in her voice, which immediately put her on high alert.
“Eden,” she warned.
“He’s got the filthiest mouth whe—”
“Oh my god! Yuck, Eden!” Sadie practically gagged. “That’s my brother!”
Eden cackled through the speaker, completely unbothered.
“Boundaries. Never heard of them.” Eden hummed thoughtfully over the line, her tone shifting into mock seriousness.
“So. Is this a distress call? Are you trapped in the wilderness? Should I book a flight? Is a rugged mountain man holding you hostage?”
Sadie’s mind traitorously jumped to one specific mountain man, his rugged face and teasing smirk flashing in her memory like an unwelcome pop-up ad. She immediately shook off the blasphemous thought, hoping Eden couldn’t hear the hesitation in her breath.
“Sadly, no,” she replied, sighing dramatically. “I wouldn’t be opposed to the concept.”
Eden’s delighted laugh rang through the phone. “Now that’s the Sadie I know. What’s going on out there? No decent prospects in the land of plaid shirts and flannel sheets?”
“God, Eden,” Sadie groaned, leaning her head against the counter. “There are no options in Nowheresville. I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel with a soup ladle. I’m desperate.”
“Clearly,” Eden said dryly, “if you’re texting me about Reggie, the human breadstick.”
“Yeah, well...” Sadie trailed off. Desperate didn’t even begin to cover it.
She was horny, plain and simple. And apparently, her brain had decided to take a permanent detour back to Quentin.
The one guy she definitely shouldn’t want.
The one whose smirk made her stomach tighten in ways it had no business doing.
“This doesn’t have anything to do with Quentin, does it?” Eden’s voice was laced with devilish amusement, the kind that made Sadie instantly regret picking up the phone. Had she read her mind?
Sadie’s heart did a high dive at the sound of his name. “Who?” she asked, attempting innocence so poorly it was basically a confession.
“Oh, please,” Eden scoffed. “I can hear you spiraling. And for the record, Quentin’s been acting weird since he started working with you.”
Sadie straightened. “Weird how?” she asked, trying and failing to sound casual. Her pulse had already betrayed her.
“Ohhh,” Eden crooned. “So there is something.”
“No!” Sadie yelped. “There is absolutely nothing.”
“You two are inevitable,” Eden declared matter-of-factly. “A hate fuck begging to happen.”
“Gah!” Sadie groaned, slapping a hand over her face. “You are out of your mind.”
“You are so gonna bone,” Eden continued thoughtfully.
“Stop thinking about it!” Sadie hissed, lowering her voice to a panicked whisper as if someone might overhear her. “You’re going to manifest it.”
“Oh, relax,” Eden laughed. “You should be thanking me. Quentin might be my friend, but let’s be honest. He’s hot.”
“Who’s hot?” a deep male voice cut in from the other end of the line.
Sadie groaned. Her brother. Ronan. The human embodiment of a wet blanket. He was a good brother. An overbearing, joy-siphoning, mood-killing brother who had absolutely no business entering this conversation.
“Your sister has the hots for young Quentin,” Eden announced gleefully, as if she were delivering breaking news.
Ronan made a noise that could only be described as a full-body recoil. “Ew, Sadie. I thought you hated him.”
“I do!” she snapped, scandalized.
“That’s what you’ll be saying at your wedding to Quentin,” Eden sing-songed, sounding way too pleased with herself.
Sadie groaned so loudly it could’ve registered on the Richter scale. “This conversation is over, you absolute weirdos.”
“Can I at least object at the ceremony?” Ronan asked.
“You won’t need to,” Sadie shot back. “Because there won’t be one.”
“Famous last words,” Eden chimed in. Sadie hung up on them. Rude but necessary for her own peace.
A wedding? Yeah, right. More like a funeral, because she and Quentin would undoubtedly kill each other long before they even thought about liking each other. She stared at her phone as Eden’s voice replayed in her head, pacing the kitchen while denial and irritation arm-wrestled for dominance.
Eden was meddling. It was her love language. Stir the pot, light the fire, and walk away with marshmallows while everything burned.
Quentin Ramos was not someone you casually thought about. That smirk alone could probably violate workplace policies. And his comebacks always landed like knives wrapped in velvet. They left her flustered, fuming, and, god help her, turned on.
And don’t even get her started on those arms. Jesus.
The man looked like he bench-pressed household appliances recreationally.
Like stress relief for him involved lifting a piano and whispering affirmations to it.
The kind of arms that could pin you to a wall and make you rethink everything you’d ever claimed to believe in.
She could practically feel the heat of his hands on her waist, the rough scrape of calluses—
She gave her head a brisk shake, like she could rattle the filth straight out of her brain.
Hooking up with Quentin would be a disaster.
A flaming, slow-motion, popcorn-worthy disaster.
Friendsgiving would turn into an annual humiliation ritual.
She could already picture it. Him walking in with a lingerie model turned tech founder on his arm, while she sat across the table, single, wine-drunk, and aggressively stress-eating the decorative gourds.
No. She had a plan. A loose one, but it existed. She was meant to be the fun aunt. The effortlessly single one who brought back questionable souvenirs from obscure places and taught her nieces and nephews how to swear in Italian.
She looked down at her phone, thumb hovering over Reggie’s profile. He had all the right stuff. Cute dog. Solid jawline. A bio that included both sarcasm and the Oxford comma. The kind of guy who would probably give very polite orgasms and ask if she needed a snack after.
She swiped right anyway. “Fuck it,” she muttered. She felt more boredom than hope. Dating wasn’t dating anymore. It was digital loitering. Like solitaire, but hornier and with significantly worse odds.
With a sigh, she locked her phone and tossed it onto the bed. Swiping wasn’t even fun now. Just something to do between existential spirals.
Thud.
Sadie’s head snapped up. What was that?