Chapter Twenty-Six Sadie
“You swear you haven’t had sex with him yet?”
We’re sitting on a pallet of pillows and blankets, almost all of them Ro’s; half are homemade gifts from her grandmother, in a whole assortment of colors that looks like a muted rainbow threw up.
Both of us lie flat on our backs, nearly cheek to cheek with legs outstretched to either side of our small living area.
Ro’s lengthy curls fan around me, tangling with the straight silk of my own hair.
My cheeks heat under the slight embarrassment at Ro’s question. If anyone else asked, I might rip their head off, but I know Ro means well.
“I swear,” I say.
And it’s the truth. Rhys and I have done nearly everything else, but every time we start to go in that direction—with me leading the charge—he redirects me with his mouth on me so quickly I can’t complain before he’s wrenching endless orgasms from me.
The boy has a magic tongue.
“Why not?”
There’s a lot of ways I could answer, but I don’t want to say what I really think—that he doesn’t want me in that way. Maybe he heard about last year after all.
“I think he was taking things slow,” I say, the sting of past tense hot on my tongue as it falls from my lips.
Was . “But it doesn’t matter. And besides,” I say, sitting up on my elbows and leaning over Ro so my hair forms a little curtain around us, “I thought you said no talking about boys. If that’s back on the table, you need to tell me about the Student. ”
The Student .
Ro is a tutor for mathematics, English, and multiple sciences. She’s an overachiever in all aspects and has been since freshman year. She has always stayed professional.
Until recently, where she started talking about one of the people she tutors. He’s labeled in her phone as Student , which is odd already because she uses email to contact her tutees, not her personal number.
I haven’t seen the messages, but I know she likes him—just from her perpetual smile while she schedules their sessions.
If that’s even what she’s doing.
“Oh, suddenly someone is silent,” I say with a laugh.
We both push up and rest our backs against the small sage sofa we found on the side of the road and spent weeks cleaning, only to spill an entire glass of red wine on it while celebrating the following weekend.
Ro shrugs, but still refuses to say a word about the Student.
“Right.” I sigh. “Well, how is tutoring Matt Fredderic going then?”
She takes a big gulp of her Big Gulp. “It’s fine. Easy.”
“I’m surprised he needs a tutor. Isn’t he sleeping with all his professors for good grades? Or does he just not have any female teachers to seduce this year?”
Ro rolls her eyes. “Very funny.”
I start to say more when my phone starts ringing.
It’s an unknown number, but the area code is local. Normally I wouldn’t answer, but I’ve had too many scares when it comes to Oliver and Liam, so I hold up a finger for Ro and quickly apologize before answering.
“Hello?”
There’s loud music for a moment before a door slams and it’s slightly quieter.
“Is this Sadie Gray?”
“Sadie Brown,” I correct, my stomach sinking; there’s only one person who calls me that.
“The figure skater?” the guy asks, sounding puzzled by my correction.
“Yeah,” I say breathlessly. “Who is this?”
“Bennett Reiner. I’m Rhys’s friend. We met once at the coffee shop.”
I nod, even though he can’t see it. “I remember. Bennett… what’s, I mean… Why are you calling me?”
He takes a deep breath, seeming to struggle to get his words out. “I didn’t want to call you unless I had to, but I think something’s wrong with Rhys.”
My stomach drops, heat flaring over the back of my neck. What’s wrong? Is he okay? Is he hurt? Did he have another panic attack?
“Why are you calling me?” I ask again, anxiety mixing with anger—not at Bennett, but at everything .
Rhys is not mine. We aren’t dating .
“I thought… look, I don’t know what’s going on between you two—”
“Nothing is—”
“—but I know that Rhys isn’t okay. I don’t think he’s been okay for a while, and for some reason, I think you know that. So, if he’s told you or confided in you, it’s not nothing .” He spits the last bit out, like he’s angry with me for calling it that.
“Bennett, I can’t—”
“You don’t have to date him or whatever you’re doing, but please, can you just come help him?
I can’t get him to leave, and he’s locked himself in a bathroom and said only Sadie can come in.
If he doesn’t want people to see him like this, he needs to get the hell out of here, and none of us can drive. ”
Oh my God.
Ro cocks her head at me, and I know the call is loud enough that she can hear at least some of it. She shrugs, letting me know it’s my choice.
“Send me the address. I’ll come take him home.”
After I park the Jeep, we both hop out and walk the short distance from the street to the bumping, loud, aptly named “hockey dorms.” Ro crosses her arms, hands gripping her shoulders self-consciously.
It doesn’t help to cover her, especially with her hair piled into a pretty ribbon-bound ponytail; she’s all bare, tawny skin.
We look terribly out of place: Ro in her blue-and-white-striped silk pajama set—because the girl doesn’t own a simple T-shirt—and me swimming in an old ratty band tee that comes down to mid-thigh, covering my shorts entirely.
Still, we brave the murmurs when we climb the stone steps to the porch and front door, where a few stragglers are talking and laughing. Walking through the open door, I look around for the mountain that is Bennett Reiner.
I see far too many familiar faces. A few ignore my angry, bare-faced stare to tell me they’re happy to see me or glad I’m back on my “usual shit.” Shoving past them all, I’m a second away from calling Bennett when a shoulder slams me hard enough to toss my body into the wall.
“Nice outfit, Ro,” a snarky voice taunts.
I’m spinning around, ready to knock him on his ass before he can blink, but Ro stops me, stepping in front of me to block my path to Tyler. He’s flushed, clearly more than a little drunk, and something about it makes me nervous.
“I can deal with this,” Ro tells me calmly, but her eyes are dilated and there’s gooseflesh across her bare skin. “Go find Rhys.”
“I won’t leave you here—”
“It’s fine.” She smiles. “Tyler and I are done, but I can handle him. Besides, we’re in the crowded front room at a party. What could happen?”
A lot . I want to argue, but I catch a familiar set of bodies approaching from the back of the room near the kitchen: one hulking and decked in a long-sleeve shirt and jeans, backward baseball cap, and a scowl; the other, slightly shorter, but still outmeasuring most of the guys in the room, dressed in his usual Matt Fredderic fashion of a semi-unbuttoned shirt and a chain around his neck.
I start for them, pushing through the throng of people.
Bennett spots me first, both of us now heading toward each other, cutting the distance in half. Freddy comes too, but his eyes are focused beyond me.
“Your friend okay?” he asks when I’m close enough to hear.
“You mean your tutor?” I joke, but my mouth can barely form the hint of a smile. “No, she’s not. I-I need to… Can you just, like, go hover around her and make sure she’s okay?”
He nods and taps me on the shoulder, scooting by.
Bennett looks unflinchingly calm, but there’s a flush to his cheeks like he might have had a few drinks. He messes with his baseball cap and looks at my shoes, a hand-me-down pair of slip-on clogs, then nods over his shoulder.
I follow him through the kitchen to a narrow back stairwell that is, thankfully, empty.
Bennett takes the steps two at a time, and I follow close behind until we reach a closed bathroom door. He takes off his baseball cap, rakes a hand through a mass of messy amber brown curls, and readjusts the hat back on his head, gesturing toward the door with his other hand.
“Right,” I whisper, hating my clammy hands and seasick stomach. I knock on the door.
“Busy!” a female voice yells. Her tone is angry, but that doesn’t stop me from grasping the wall like I might pass out, or vomit—or both.
Bennett huffs a little derisive sound and slams his fist so hard on the door it rattles.
“Open the fuck up.” He doesn’t yell, but it has the same effect.
“Go away,” Rhys slurs through the door, and I’m sure my face is ashen now. “I’m fine, Ben.”
“Rhys?” I ask, pressing my entire face nearly into the wood. “It’s Sadie. Can you open the door for me?”
It’s barely a second before he does.
Or she, because the girl is the first to slip out of the room, adjusting her high ponytail and jeans as she does. She gives a sneer of disgust toward the bathroom and her eyes flick to me before snapping to a fuming Bennett.
“Freddy told you not to mess with him,” Bennett practically growls.
She rolls her eyes. “Whatever—he’s a mess. Threw up for the last ten minutes while I just stood there. I’m assuming you’re—”
“Gray,” a voice croaks.
We all whip our heads toward Rhys.
His body is slumped into the doorframe, his gray shirt slightly darker around the collar in a way that tells me he was either sweating or tossing water from the faucet onto his face.
His skin is flushed, his hair a tangled mess that he tries to curl behind his ear as some of it plasters to his damp face.
He looks… terrible. Yet… he’s smiling at me, dimples deep and eyes foggy.
“You’re so beautiful.” He slurs so much that his words all come out as one.
I feel another wave of heat as a light pulsing starts up in my head.
“Was he this drunk when you went in there with him?” I ask, vision hazing as I glare at the girl trying to leave our little alcove.
Rhys stumbles, catching his weight on the doorframe again as he looks between us. “She pulled me in there,” he hurries to say, as if it’s him I’m accusing. “But I didn’t want to—”
He hiccups and I see Bennett step toward him, like he’s planning to be a shield in case he throws up again or passes out.