Chapter Fourteen Sadie #2
“Hey, killer.” I nod to Oliver and let go of Liam’s mouth but keep a firm grip on his shoulder. “Was he good today?”
Liam is still nearly shouting, ecstatic to see Rhys again. It’s a little unnerving.
Oliver runs a hand through his hair. “Everything was fine. My practice ran over, but Ro kept him occupied.”
I nod to what Oliver is saying, though he seems hesitant for a reason I plan to flush out later. Right now, I’m more focused on the worry that if I let go of Liam, he will jump into Rhys’s lap.
“Sorry,” I offer quickly. “Liam, remember what we’ve talked about.”
“Rhys isn’t a stranger, right?”
Rhys laughs. “Right.”
“You’re not?” Bennett asks with a little tick of his mouth. “Since when?”
Though the question is posed to his friend, my little brother decides to intervene again with a screeching, “Since he’s teaching me hockey. Rhys is the best hockey player, probably in the world.”
Bennett smiles lightly. “Humble, too.”
Rhys shakes his head, eyes flickering to Bennett, then to me, before settling back on Liam.
There’s a new tenseness to him though, I notice.
His shoulders are pinched, his smile tight, fake; he’s wearing his mask once more.
It makes me bristle as I realize that Liam’s infatuation with Rhys might make him uncomfortable.
Grabbing Liam’s hand, I nod toward a large open table next to the counter. “Wanna chill for a minute while I close out?”
“Sure.” Oliver shrugs. He takes Liam’s arm and pulls him along behind him. “Come on, Anakin, leave them alone.”
Liam’s lip furls, his head whipping back and forth between his brother and the table of hockey gods like he can’t decide exactly what to fight for. What ends up spilling from his lips is, “I’m not in my Jedi robes, Oliver. I’m Darth Vader.”
I turn to Ro and give her arm a thankful squeeze. “It’ll only take a minute for me to close out and change over everything. Do you mind? I’ll be fast.”
“They can sit with us if you need,” Rhys says, standing before I can disagree and dragging Liam’s chair—with him still in it—back toward their too-small table. Liam squeals a laugh, eyes shining as he looks at Rhys’s upside-down profile.
Rhys smiles up at me. “We’re friends, yeah?”
I want to stop them, to argue with Rhys, but Ro stops me when she smiles and gives him a quick thanks, pulling us both away to change over.
“I don’t—”
“Relax.” She sighs, dragging the word out into four extra syllables. Her hands squeeze my shoulders as she forces me around the counter corner, smacking my ass to send me to the break room.
“I’ll close your stuff out,” she says, pulling an apron off the little hook beneath the POS station and tying it before tying up her curls into a springy ponytail on top of her head.
“You stop trying to control everything and let the nice hockey boys play with your brothers while you take a moment to not be their mom.”
She pats her fist down in a gentle rhythm on the top of the counter—not that she needed to, since Luis is already gazing at her.
“Luis, can you cover the front for a few?”
“Sure,” he replies a little too quickly as he shrugs off his gloves and hair net. It’s wild that he accepts it, considering his family owns the entire café and the restaurants on both sides of us, but his dreamy-eyed look is all the explanation I need.
We push into the small break room that doubles as a manager’s office and connects to the back rooms of the restaurant to the right of us. Sitting down on one of the chairs, I blow out a breath and look up at where Ro perches on the desktop.
“So,” she starts. “How did your meeting go?”
“Okay.” I breathe, nodding as if that will make me more confident. “I think. I mean, it was short? So I don’t know. I’ll meet him next week to speak more and bring the documents I have. He said that’ll be all we need for Liam.”
“That’s good, Sade. Honestly.”
“Right? I think it’s a good sign—it has to be.”
It has to be. I’m running out of other options, and dragging myself between campus dorms and my home, shelling out money from the already tight budget for babysitters when our neighbor Ms. B is busy—it’s piling up, and school hasn’t even started.
Ro helped untangle me last year, but I refuse to put myself in that position again. And this is the only way left.
“Yes.” She smiles, all reassuring and supportive. “And if he won’t take you on, we have tons still left on the list, okay?”
Ro is my best friend, no matter my best efforts at keeping her at arm’s length.
She shoved her way in freshman year, not deterred by my attitude or attempts to rid myself of her.
Instead, she stuck like glue, until she was so attached I couldn’t exist without her.
Then she watched me suffer from a paralyzing panic attack and held me through the entire thing, rocking us both on the little twin bed in our freshman dorm.
After that, I showed her everything. It was like I couldn’t stop.
She took it all in stride with a pursed mouth and determined brow, babysitting and helping me get the little ones to and from school while I balanced figure skating, and everything else.
She tutored me when I was put on probation for my classes, scooped me off the bathroom floor when my hookups didn’t succeed in chasing away the pressure in my chest.
I’ll do anything for her, protect her endlessly, forever.
Oliver, Liam, Ro. My family.
“Okay.”
Ro stands, hugging me tightly and letting me breathe for a few moments. Her hands run gently through my hair, combing out little knots and snags, then braiding it loosely down my back.
“Good?” she asks. I nod into her stomach before pulling away and tucking the loose tendrils behind my ears.
“Good.”
“Okay, then go get the boys and just enjoy some time with them. Why don’t you bring them to the dorm for a sleepover? We can make a pillow-fort and check them into school late tomorrow.”
“Sounds perfect.”