Chapter 21
SADIE
I’m holding a brass light fixture in my living room that might have more dust than it does brass. I tilt it side to side, watching the grime fall like evidence. “What do I do with this?”
“Just set it to the side and I’ll take care of it,” Grant says from the ladder. He’s twisting wire with practiced ease, installing the new black fixtures—simple, modern, nothing sentimental about them.
“So,” he begins casually, “what’d you do yesterday?”
“I—”
The pause is small, but it feels loud. Sadie Summers before the list would’ve filled it with reassurance. Sadie Summers with the list lets the silence sit.
“I went to see Joe,” I finally say.
Grant hums. “How’s he doing?”
“He’s good. Well, he wasn’t home when I got there. Milo had taken him down to the café.”
There’s a faint metallic click as Grant stops moving for half a second longer than necessary. Then he keeps going.
“That’s good,” he says. “I’m sure Joe appreciates getting out.”
“He does,” I agree. “So . . . I had coffee.”
“With Joe?”
“With Milo.”
Grant climbs down the ladder, wiping his hands on his jeans. He reaches for his water bottle and takes a long drink before looking at me again. “How is Milo?”
I shrug, too quickly. “Fine. I think. He kind of fits back in.”
“Yeah,” Grant says. Not agreeing. Just acknowledging. He sets the bottle down. “You know, Sadie, I don’t care if you spend time with him.”
Something in me tenses. I hadn’t asked.
I look up and try to figure out what his eyes are trying to say. I’ve never had to read them before. They’re different, and I can’t tell if it’s jealousy or some sort of acknowledgement within them.
“I just don’t like being surprised,” he adds, softer.
“I wasn’t hiding it,” I say. And I mean it. Mostly.
“I know.” He nods once. “It’s just . . . new.”
The word new lingers, like it belongs more to him than to me. Silence stretches between us, filled only by the hum of the old refrigerator.
“It’s not like we’re—” Grant starts, then stops. “We’re not dating.”
“No,” I say. The word comes easily. Too easily.
He studies my face for something I don’t know how to hide yet. “And Milo?”
“He’s just . . .” I trail off, then settle on, “He’s a friend.”
Grant accepts that. Or at least, he pretends to.
“Well,” he says lightly, forcing the mood upward, “then I think we can handle that. We’re all adults.”
“Adults,” I repeat.
He smiles, reaching for the ladder again. “Hand me the next fixture?”
I do, but my mind snags on the ladder Grant is on, reminding me of the ladder Milo and I climbed last night. It felt like forever climbing back down, but Milo kept his promise. He didn’t let me fall, but my body is so sore today from tensing every muscle for so long.
“Sadie?”
I blink, realizing I missed what Grant said. “Yeah?”
“Can I take you somewhere tonight?” he asks. “It’s not anywhere anyone will see us, in case you’re worried about what rumors will spread.”
I smile softly. “Pretty sure your truck in my drive has already taken care of that.”
He laughs. “Patty did come in for a new gardening shovel and asked what I was doing at your house.”
I think back to Patty at my door two weeks ago. How she’d asked me the same question. I have to admit, that woman is thorough in threading together some top-tier rumors. Starting with some truth is more convincing than having no truth at all.
“What did you tell her?” I ask.
“I told her you hired me for a few projects.”
“And?”
“I’m building her a couple raised flower beds next weekend.” He laughs.
“Of course you are,” I reply, shaking my head. “Well, tell her that those raised flower beds are not a write-off for her business of being the town gossip.”
A grin spreads on his face. “I’ll make sure to tell her that.”
Grant left hours ago, and I’m busy attempting to satisfy the girl in the mirror.
I’ve pulled half my hair into an elastic band, doing my best to twist loose tendrils around it. I’ll admit, it looks halfway decent. Intentionally messy instead of just messy. I’m wearing old cut-off jeans, a white tank top, tan cowboy boots I used to wear in high school, and red lipstick.
I grin at my reflection; then my pulse picks up when I hear the familiar rhythm—knock—pause—knock, knock—pause—knock—against the glass of my bedroom window. It’s something I haven’t heard in years.
I pull open my blinds, glancing around my small backyard, and spy the crisp corner of white paper slid between the screen and frame. I slide my window open to retrieve it.
My heartbeat sounds heavy and loud like a kick drum against my chest.
I already know what it is before I unfold it.
Bookworm,
Something you don’t know about me:
I was so nervous for my first game as a Giant that I threw up. The only thing that got me on the field, besides a contract, was remembering the girl who used to quietly smile at me from the sidelines. No screaming or theatrics. Just the steady smile of a girl who believed in me.
Your turn.
Hot Shot
I close my eyes, the note transporting me back to the first time Milo Carter was more than just a friend.
It was sophomore year, biology class. I caught him staring at me across the aisle, and when my eyes met his, he knocked over a beaker of cloudy blue liquid that immediately began creeping toward the edge of his desk.
“Uh,” he said, lunging for it too late.
The beaker shattered on the floor, sending glass and chemical splatter everywhere, earning Milo a very long look from Mrs. Hensley.
“Mr. Carter,” she said flatly. “Is there a reason hydrochloric acid is migrating?”
Milo glanced at the mess, then back at me with that wide grin of his. “Gravity?”
Later, I found a note in my locker addressed to Bookworm. He told me that I owed him for blaming gravity instead of my beautiful brown eyes.
I wrote him back, calling him Hot Shot since Dusty Hollow was buzzing with his talent on the field. I also told him my brown eyes had nothing to do with his clumsiness, and he better figure out a solution fast.
His solution was asking me out after we spent six weeks passing notes.
But even after we were officially dating, the notes continued. We wrote them whenever we wanted the other to know something about ourselves that was hard to say out loud.
Some things are scary when released into the open air, slivers of our soul exposed. In written words, they felt different. Like permission—like the list I carry in my pocket now—except permission to feel the hard things even when no one else notices.
And Milo Carter just wrote me one of those notes that somehow makes ten years feel like ten seconds, as if paper and ink can make time disappear.