Chapter Twenty-Six Sadie #2
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I ask, whipping back to the girl.
She’s tall, even more so with her heels; I wish I was wearing shoes like hers so I could take one off and stab her in the eye with it.
“He’s blackout wasted and you took him in there?
For what? To hook up with the hockey star while he’s literally so drunk he can’t see straight? ”
The girl’s cheeks go red and her eyes widen a little, as if she’s just realizing what she did. She might’ve had a drink or two, but she’s not drunk.
“I didn’t know he had a girlfriend.”
Flames shoot out from the sides of my head.
I launch myself toward her before I really think it through. We tumble into the wall, my arms around her waist. Then I use my foot, now missing a clog from my jump, to take her down to the hardwood flooring.
“We didn’t do anything!” she screams. “He threw up all over the place before—”
I hit her—which unfortunately isn’t a first for me.
The very few people in the hallway around us are starting to chant or yell. I only get in two good hits—one to her face, the other to her arm—before she finally blocks me. She’s screaming at me, but I can’t hear her beyond the red haze.
She touched Rhys. She took advantage of him.
Then, I’m pulled away.
Bennett easily walks me backward, even as I squirm in his arms. He’s huge, and I’m sure it looks like a Newfoundland taking a Chihuahua by the scruff. My ears are still ringing as I try to come down from the burst of adrenaline, so I can’t hear as he barks something at her over my shoulder.
Rhys is sitting in front of the bathroom, looking up at me in Bennett’s arms with watery brown eyes.
I hate how vulnerable he looks, but it brings me back under control.
Focus on Rhys.
Easy.
I stop fighting against Bennett and he drops me after I nod. He switches me for Rhys, tucking an arm around his waist to lift him as Rhys leans heavily on him.
“I didn’t want her here, Sadie,” Rhys coos, his voice slurring even as his eyes shine. He reaches for me, but I sidestep him. “I promise.”
“It’s fine, Rhys. I know.” I sigh. “ You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I think I’m in love with her.” I hear Rhys tell Bennett, but his voice doesn’t lower even a notch. “And she won’t let me in .”
My heart clenches and I can’t help glancing over my shoulder, maneuvering quickly down the stairs.
Bennett winces, helping Rhys along as we walk out the back door. “Calm down, bud.”
“Sade doesn’t think I’m a golden boy, Ben.” Rhys smiles, but it’s all wrong. “I don’t have to pretend now that she’s here. She knows I’m broken.” He lets out a huffed laugh.
“Rhys… you’re not broken.” Bennett sounds as distraught as I feel behind the hard mental wall of steel I have raised in a last-ditch effort to protect myself.
“I am, Ben. And she’s the only one who sees it.”
Bennett gives me an unsettled look, but continues on.
“Let’s get you out of here, man,” he says, his tone softer.
Bennett leads, staying close to the side of the house and avoiding the other half of the party enjoying the cool autumn air.
As we make it to the front lawn, I step forward to navigate us to my car.
“Where are you going?” a voice shouts—Paloma, I realize as I turn around.
She’s standing by the front steps, having leapt up from the lap of a very large, very terrifying-looking man I’ve never seen before the second she saw us approach. Her eyes keep flicking between the three of us, like she isn’t sure who she addressed with her question.
Maybe it’s the already-high adrenaline echoing in my veins, or the vulnerable, heart-wrenching words spilling from Rhys’s drunken lips, but I can’t seem to stop myself from heading toward her.
I must look slightly unhinged, because a little bit of fear widens her eyes as she steps back.
“If you want him, Paloma,” I snap, “take better fucking care of him. Or leave him alone.”
She flushes, crossing her arms. “I didn’t say that—”
“Whatever. Be with him or don’t, I don’t fucking care,” I lie, my teeth aching as I push out the words.
“Just—” A humorless laugh bursts out of me before I can stop it.
“You know what? Never mind. You can’t have him, okay?
I don’t get him and neither do you. Leave him the fuck alone and we don’t have a problem. ”
Paloma nods, but she isn’t looking at me. No, she’s looking past me, toward Rhys. Bennett scoffs and calls for me to leave.
“Stay out of my way,” I whisper. I look over her shoulder at the small crowd gathered.
The black-haired guy is watching it all with a sinful smirk across his lips, leaning back on the steps as if this is his favorite reality show.
But above him, sitting on the highest step and being tended to by some football player, is the girl from earlier.
I gesture to her, making her face turn ashen as I call louder, “And tell your little friend up there to watch her fucking back. I don’t need unbruised knuckles to skate.”
It’s easy, now, to leave, something in my gut is satisfied by the red skin on her cheek, the thoroughly reprimanded look on Paloma Blake’s otherwise perfect face; all of it pushes me forward, leading Rhys and Bennett to my car down just two rows of cars from the lawn.
Bennett sets Rhys in the Jeep’s backseat, gentle as the giant can be. Rhys tucks against the seat and I turn to see a running Ro headed my way. Her sandals smack on the pavement and the silk of her pajamas ripples in the cool wind.
She grabs on to Bennett, who flinches under her touch and draws back.
“Someone’s gotta stop him.”
“Who?”
“Freddy.”
Bennett curses and takes off back toward the party with Ro, leaving me with Rhys.
It’s quiet, the wind whipping through the trees and the muted party noise gentle in the background. I can’t stand the silence, so I play boygenius’s “Revolution 0” on loop in my head.
Rhys is just breathing, but I glance at him quickly to make sure he’s still awake and alive. Despite his drunken stupor, he sees my concern.
“I’m good,” he says. He sighs deeply again, pressing a hand to his chest before letting it fall. “Just those Darth Vader impressions again.”
The words are still slurred, but it’s the droopy smile that has me looking away fast.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” Rhys whispers, his voice fitting seamlessly with the sounds around me and in me.
It’s almost painful not to look at him.
“Where’ve you been?”
“Rhys…” I beg.
He reaches out, almost falling out of the car, to grab my hand. It forces me to look at him, to see the glittering pain like drops of a deep blue in his dark brown eyes.
“I called you over and over. I just… Sadie, please.”
“Don’t do this right now. You’re drunk and I’m tired.”
He bites his lip and nods, but the movement is slow and lethargic.
I want to kiss him again, but it’s selfish because it’s my need.
It’s overwhelming, the way I feel around him. The need to touch him, to hold him—and not in the way that my own emotions usually overwhelm me. This is… it’s soothing, like it melts away all the bad thoughts in my head.
“Close your eyes,” I murmur, letting my thumb rub circles over his warm hand. Letting myself bask in the comfort of him. “You should sleep it off, hotshot.”
His lips tilt at the nickname. He keeps his eyes closed and his hand folded in mine.
“You’ll still be here when I wake up?”
“Yeah,” I murmur, stealing a moment to caress his overheated forehead and run my fingers through his hair. “I’ve got you.”
Even like this, perched in my backseat with a boyish sleepy smile across his face, Rhys looks larger than life. He’s destined to be something great .
We wait patiently, before Freddy—who’s sporting bruised knuckles and a red cheek, and Ro come back, both barely speaking to each other, other than to tell me that Bennett isn’t coming with us.
I drop them off at the Hockey House, the four of us silent as Freddy helps Rhys walk into their home.
I hate leaving him there, even with Freddy. It feels wrong, leaving him.
Because I’ve begun to think of him as mine , I realize as I pull away from their nice little house.
He deserves so much more. He’s temporarily broken—there’s no fixing me .
That thought stays with me like a mantra, far into the night and through the next day.