Chapter 16 Hell of a Hangover
Hell of a Hangover
WALKER
The next morning, I’m up before Sadie and Jonah, as always. I make coffee. Stand at the kitchen window with my mug and watch the light move across the fields, the way it turns the sweetgrass silver before it turns it gold.
I had about four hours of sleep. Maybe less. The rest of the night I spent exactly how I knew I would. Pacing, mostly. Sitting on the edge of my bed with my head in my hands.
I heard her door close around two. Heard her moving around softly in there.
I lay in the dark and listened to her settle.
Talked myself out of going to her door.
Just barely.
Good thing, too, because Dad dropped Jonah off early this morning. He had to meet the vet about one of the mares having an urgent medical situation. Jonah was still sleepy enough to climb into his bed here, flop onto his tummy, and fall promptly back asleep.
By the time Sadie comes downstairs I've been awake for hours and I've got nothing to show for it except a full pot of coffee.
She appears in the kitchen doorway in a flimsy floral cotton robe, hair loose and still slightly damp from a shower, feet bare on the hardwood.
Her face is clean and soft and she's got a little crease on her cheek from her pillow.
She hasn't seen me yet. She's squinting slightly in the morning light, making her way toward the coffee on autopilot, and she looks so easy in this kitchen. So at home.
Like she's always been here.
Like she's supposed to be here, always.
She reaches for a mug, pours herself a coffee, turns around, and finds me at the island.
She stills as we look at each other.
“Morning,” she says finally.
“Morning.”
In a perfect world, one where she’s not leaving, she’d be coming downstairs like this after spending all night in my bed. In a perfect world, I’d be wrapping my arms around her and kissing her and pressing a mug of fresh coffee into her hands while we talk about what we’re going to do today.
In a perfect world, we’d do that every morning for the rest of our lives.
But it’s not a perfect world.
So I stay frozen in place.
“Dad dropped Jonah off already,” I say. “He had to meet with the vet.”
“Everything okay?”
“It’s being handled. Jonah fell back asleep here, by some miracle.”
She opens the fridge, surveys it for a moment, and then she starts pulling things out. Buttermilk. Eggs. The blueberries Jonah likes. She ties her robe tighter, pushes her sleeves up, finds the mixing bowl without having to look.
It’s her home too now, after all.
“It’s Sunday,” she says, “so I assume Jonah will want pancakes.”
“You don’t have to do all that,” I tell her. “I can take care of it.”
Giving me an impish look, she starts sifting the flour into the bowl. “You just work on that coffee. You look like you need it. Rough night?”
There’s a glimmer in her eyes I don’t know how to read.
“You could say that,” I grunt.
“Hell of a hangover, huh?”
Not from the liquor.
From her, in my veins.
I watch her and drink my coffee and don't say anything I shouldn't.
“You look fresh as a fucking daisy,” I tell her.
She tosses me a grin. “I slept great. Even if I had to spend the night playing all by my lonesome.”
My cock jumps, suddenly extremely interested in hearing more about all that.
This woman is going to take a decade off my life.
The thunder of small feet on the stairs announces Jonah about thirty seconds before he materializes in the doorway. He's in his dinosaur pajamas, hair going in seven directions, glasses crooked on his face.
He yawns. “Dad, I’m hungry.”
I get up to give him a hug and kiss the top of his head, like I do every morning. “Sadie’s got you covered, bud.”
He takes one look at Sadie at the stove and starts running again, like she's been gone a year and he's just been reunited with his favorite person. He runs at her full tilt and she catches him, laughing, setting him on the counter with an exaggerated noise of effort.
“Holy cow, you’re huge,” she says breathlessly. “You grew overnight.”
“Yup,” he says proudly.
She straightens his glasses. “How about some blueberry buttermilk pancakes?”
“Dinosaur ones,” he says immediately. “Can you do a T-rex?”
She eyes the batter dubiously. “I can attempt a T-rex. Might come out looking like the asteroid hit him already.”
Jonah bursts into giggles. He watches her mix the batter, offering running commentary. Too much vanilla. Actually maybe more vanilla. Is that enough blueberries? That's definitely not enough blueberries.
Sadie takes all of it with natural patience.
She adds more blueberries. She lets him stir, even though half of it sloshes over the side of the bowl.
She shows him how to tell when the pan is hot enough, holding his small hand carefully near but not too near the surface to feel the warmth coming off it.
She's going to be an incredible teacher.
Some kid in New York is going to walk into her classroom in September and have no idea how lucky they are.
I pour myself a second cup of coffee I desperately need. Hell, it’s more like my fifth.
We eat at the kitchen table with the back door open, the summer morning coming in with the smell of wildflowers and warm earth. Jonah eats his T-rex head first, with glee. Sadie eats with her knees pulled up in her chair, the way she always does when she's comfortable.
This is it. This is the whole thing, right here. The life I didn't know I was missing until she showed up.
When Jonah slides off his chair and disappears into the yard on a mysterious mission of his own, the kitchen goes quiet again. I stand up and start tidying up.
As I put the dishes in the sink, I say, casually as I can, “By the way, Dad wants us all at Rosemont for family dinner next Saturday night. You don’t have to come.
I mean, I know it’s your day off. I just thought I’d pass along the invitation.
” I’m running my mouth, weirdly nervous.
“And it’d mean a lot to have you there. To Jonah. And to me.”
Suddenly there’s a soft, sweet-smelling, redhead in my arms. Hugging me. My arms wrap around her automatically. I can feel every curve of her through the thin cotton robe. She feels perfect.
I don’t know what I did to deserve this hug, but I’m taking it.
“I’d love to come,” she mumbles against my chest. “I’ve never… I’ve never been part of a big family dinner like that.”
Oh, fuck. Of course she hasn’t, not with her family. All those big family dinners I always took for granted, that’s something special for her.
“Fair warning, you're in for a lot of noise and not enough elbow room,” I murmur, my hand stroking gently up and down her spine. “My brothers will talk over each other the whole time. Dad will try to feed you enough food for a week. Jonah will want you to sit next to him all night.”
“Sounds wonderful.”
She pulls away a little bit, hands still on my chest as she peers up at me with those big blue eyes. Taking a deep breath, she says, “Last night, what you said about waiting. Finding the right person. It was good advice. You were right.”
“Yeah.” I scowl. “Don't remind me.”
The look on my face must really be something, because she giggles.
It turns into a laugh, bright and helpless, like I've said the funniest thing she's heard all week. Like we do this every Sunday. Like this is just us.
Maybe it is.
I try to hold the scowl. Can't quite manage it.
She laughs harder.
I give up. The grin comes anyway, and I let it, because here's the thing about Sadie Sullivan: she's the only person I've met who can take the worst morning I've had in months and make it feel like the best one.
Without doing anything except standing in my kitchen on a Sunday morning. Laughing at my misery.
I would be annoyed about that if I weren't so weirdly fucking happy about it instead.
“Sorry,” she says, still smiling, not sorry at all. “You just look like you’re suffering.”
“I am,” I mutter. “Fucking mightily.”
In so many ways.
I’ve had her in my arms this whole time, and now, to my great displeasure, she slips away.
“Give me one second,” she says.
She disappears down the hall. I hear the bathroom cabinet open and close.
She comes back with two aspirin and a glass of water. Sets them down on the counter in front of me without a word. Then her hand comes to cup my jaw. Light. Easy.
“Poor baby,” she murmurs, smiling. “This'll take the edge off all that whiskey.”
I keep my eyes on the aspirin. If I look up at her right now, from this distance, with her hand on me and her body this close, I'm going to kiss her. It's that simple and that catastrophic.
She straightens. Takes her hand away. Turns back to the coffee pot, robe slipping off one shoulder, like nothing happened.
I take the aspirin.
It'll take the edge off the whiskey, sure enough.
Two aspirin won't do a damn thing for the ache of wanting her.