Chapter 8 Heart of Glass
Heart of Glass
WALKER
Sadie’s looking at me like I just grew a second head, and honestly, I probably deserve it.
But it feels so fucking good to laugh, I don’t even care.
“Are you gonna fire me now?” she asks, still looking askance at me.
“Hell no. I’m giving you a raise,” I say.
She looks at me like I’m crazier with every passing moment.
“Thank you,” I tell her, when I finally catch my breath. “I’ve been waiting for someone, fucking anyone, in my inner circle to tell me the truth about that record.”
Leave it to my spitfire of a nanny to be the one to do so.
When I got home this afternoon, anxious to check on Jonah, I was already in a bad mood. Everything that could have gone wrong on the ranch did today, and I should have stayed longer instead of leaving it to Dad and Rafe, our foreman. But I needed to make sure my son is doing okay.
And I needed to see how Sadie was doing too. First day on a new job, new place, a kid she just met. It’s only natural to want to make sure things were running smooth.
Purely professional concern.
Still, heading home early felt weird. And knowing that, as always, my guitar is sitting in a corner of my studio, practically mocking me, doesn’t feel great either.
Looking at her Explorer out front, with its balding tires, blackened my mood further. I can’t let the two of them drive around in a vehicle with tires like that.
What’s her stupid boyfriend good for, if he can’t take care of the simplest things for her?
But even before I opened the front door, the smell of cookies baking greeted me. And then I heard Jonah's laughter. And Sadie's musical laugh alongside it.
I stood at the door for a second before I went in. I don't know what I was doing. Taking it in, maybe. The sound of my house being a home.
I walked in to the sight of them grinning and flour-dusted, and my battered heart felt lighter than it has in years.
She had flour on her cheek and didn't know it. I almost reached over and brushed it off. Stopped myself just in time.
That's not the kind of thing an employer does for an employee.
But now, somewhere in the back of my mind, the gears start turning.
To know my record well enough to have that kind of opinion on it, Sadie must have listened to it pretty carefully. And she might not have liked my sixth album any more than I did, but the first five…
I stare at her. “Holy shit. You really do know my music. You are a fan.”
“Maybe I used to be,” she says, studiously not looking at me.
“And that sixth album turned you off?”
“No. Meeting you did.”
I start laughing again. I can’t help it. She’s as blunt as I am. “You’re a brat, you know that?”
She scoops out the cookie dough onto a baking sheet. “Nope. Because you’re the only one who seems to think so.”
I huff disbelievingly. “Then you’ve got everyone else fooled. Come on. Bet if I talk to your daddy, he’ll tell me all about the grey hairs you’ve given him.”
She tenses. “I really couldn’t say.”
Before I can inquire further, she brushes past me to grab a glass of water. But her fingers are slippery from the cookie dough, and it slides right out and shatters on the floor.
“Shit!” she exclaims. “I’m so sorry. Where’s your dustpan?”
“I got it. Stay back. You’re barefoot, I don’t want you stepping on broken glass.”
I clean up the shards of glass in no time and dump them in the trashcan. Without thinking, I take her hands in mine and check for cuts. “Glass didn’t get you, did it?”
She shakes her head. “All good.”
My thumb strokes along the smooth skin at her wrist. Traces the blue veins there. She doesn't pull away or stiffen, just lets me examine her closely.
My brain can’t quite reconcile it yet. The way she feels so soft and delicate, almost breakable, but her personality is anything but.
Which reminds me.
“You need to change the tires on your car,” I tell her. “It’s not safe.”
“I went to the tire place already. Guy there said they’ve got a few hundred more miles on them. It’ll last me through summer. By then I’ll have saved up enough for a new set.”
I bite back my automatic command of you need to do it now.
But if there’s one thing I’ve learned about Sadie already, she gets feisty when I boss her around. It’s a feistiness which I enjoy more than I should, but that's beside the point.
So even though I’m her literal boss, and should damn well order her around as I please, I decide to be a little bit smarter going forward. A little bit gentler.
Happy wife, happy life. Or whatever the fuck the boss/nanny equivalent might be.
I realize I’m still holding her hands in mine. So I drop them like it’s nothing, and I start getting ingredients out from the fridge.
“Jonah and I usually eat dinner around six,” I tell her. “That work for you?”
“Sure. No problem.”
As I take the steaks out to rest and start chopping the potatoes to go alongside them, Sadie cleans up the dishes they used for baking.
There’s golden evening light streaming through the windows. My son is playing outside. And I’m in the kitchen with Sadie, doing the ordinary, domestic stuff I’ve been craving for so long. Not alone, but together with her.
Fuck the stage lights. Fuck the spotlight.
This is real life. The sunset, the evening summer breeze, a well-used kitchen. This is how I grew up. This is what I wanted for myself, for my son, before everything got all fucked up.
At least I’ve got things on the right track again.
Sadie's humming something under her breath at the sink. I don't think she knows she's doing it.
I’d fucking kill for her to be humming one of my songs.
After drizzling olive oil, salt and pepper on the potatoes, I put the baking sheet in the oven. And that’s when I notice Sadie taking a box out of the freezer and reading the instructions on that back.
“What’s that for?” I ask.
“My dinner,” she says absently. “What wattage is your microwave?”
“What, you don’t like steak? Are you a vegetarian or something?”
She blinks up at me. “What are you talking about?”
I gesture at the meal I’m in the middle of cooking. “I told you, I’ve got dinner covered.”
“I see that. Don’t worry, I’ll eat in my room so you and Jonah can have your time together.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Sadie. Jesus. You’re eating with us.”
A long pause. “I am?”
“What is this, Cinderella? You think I’m gonna have you sweeping ashes and eating gruel alone in your room while my son and I dine on steak at the family table?”
She clutches the box. “This is turkey chili. Not gruel.”
“Looks like fucking gruel to me. You’re eating a real meal at a real table.”
She rolls her eyes, but puts the meal back in the freezer. “So bossy.”
“I am literally your boss now.”
It’s a stark reminder, said aloud that way.
And it clicks in my head, just like that.
Because it’s all too easy to treat Sadie the way she treats me, like just one person to another. Like no matter the difference in age or money or status, we’re both simply human.
And maybe that’s what it was, when we first met.
Maybe that’s even what it looks like right now. What it feels like in this very moment. Like we’re just a man and a woman sharing a home. Sharing a life.
I wish it were that simple. But she is my employee. I am her boss. She’s my son’s nanny. She’s a lot younger than me and dependent on me for shelter and money. And I might be an asshole in all kinds of ways, but abusing my power over someone more vulnerable has never been one of those ways.
Watching her puttering around barefoot in her little sundress, already at ease under my roof… it activates some deep protective instinct in me.
She’s my responsibility now. She’s under my protection.
I think about those shards of glass I swept up. I think about beautiful, glimmering things that seem so strong, right up until the moment they shatter.
And I’m the kind of person that breaks everything they touch.
Which is exactly why I need to keep my hands off Sadie Sullivan.