22. Sarah
Sarah
“Alright,” I say to Luca. “I’ll be at Katie’s until tomorrow. I don’t know what time I’ll be home.”
He smiles.
“I’ll see you when I see you. You two are going to spend the whole night getting drunk and doing God knows what.”
I slip my arms around his neck.
“You know me so well.”
“I do.”
He leans down and kisses me.
“Have fun, Baby Girl.”
“I will.”
He picks up my bag and follows me to the garage. He opens the back of the MINI Cooper he surprised me with two days ago.
“The second I saw it, I thought of you,” he had said.
When I asked where my old car went, he looked at me like the answer should’ve been obvious.
“It crossed the great interstate in the sky.”
I stared at him for a second before bursting into laughter. Then I grabbed his hand and dragged him back outside to take the new one for a test drive.
He shuts the door once I’m inside, and I roll down the window. He leans in for one more kiss before hitting the button to open the garage door.
“Be careful,” he says.
“Always, baby.”
He winks and stands in the garage, watching until I pull out onto the street and disappear from view.
When I reach the gates of Michael and Katie’s estate, one of Michael’s security guards steps out of the guardhouse.
“Ms. Travis,” he says. “Ms. Miller is expecting you.”
I smile and nod.
“Thank you.”
He disappears back inside, and a second later, the gates begin to slide open. I drive through, making my way up the long driveway toward the house. By the time I pull beneath the covered entrance, another guard is already waiting.
He opens my door before I can reach for the handle.
“Good evening, Ms. Travis.”
“Hi.”
He retrieves my overnight bag from the trunk while I step onto the driveway. A moment later, he slides behind the wheel of my car and heads toward the detached garage. I still haven’t gotten used to that.
The front doors open before I reach them, and Beatrice steps outside with her familiar warm smile.
“Miss Sarah,” she says. “It’s so good to see you.”
“It’s good to see you too, Beatrice.”
“Ms. Katie is waiting for you.”
I smile.
“Thank you.”
I step inside, and before I can even set my purse down, a familiar scream echoes from upstairs.
“Sarah!”
I look up as Katie comes hurrying down the wide staircase.
The second she reaches the bottom, she throws her arms around me.
“I missed you.”
I laugh and hug her back.
“I missed you too.”
I hear another set of footsteps on the staircase and glance up.
Michael makes his way down at an unhurried pace, dressed in cream linen pants and a matching button-down with the sleeves rolled to his forearms. His hands rest in his pockets as he reaches the bottom step.
“Sarah,” he says.
“Michael.”
Katie looks from him to me before letting out a laugh.
“Oh my God.”
She shakes her head.
“You two are so fucking weird.”
If she only knew what I knew.
Michael steps in behind her and slides his arms around her waist, drawing her back against his chest. He lowers his head until his mouth is beside her ear.
“You’re the fucking weird one.”
Katie laughs, reaching up to pat his cheek.
“I know.”
“You wear it like a badge of honor.”
“I do.”
He presses a kiss against her temple before letting her go.
Katie turns and gives him a shove toward the front door.
“Go,” she says. “It’s officially girls’ night.”
He barely moves.
“So I’ve been informed.”
“I mean it.”
“I know you do.”
She points toward the door.
“Out.”
He gives her a lazy two-finger salute.
“Yes, ma’am.”
I watch him smile at her, and I still haven’t figured out how both versions of Michael can exist at the same time. The man who wraps his arms around Katie like she’s the most precious thing in the world is the same man who decides whether someone else gets to keep breathing.
Yesterday, I scrubbed someone else’s blood from Luca’s shirt.
Today, I’m watching the man who ordered it kiss his girlfriend goodbye before a girls’ night.
This world gives me emotional whiplash. One minute, he’s teasing Katie with a smile on his face.
The next, I remember he’s built an empire on violence and isn’t afraid to use it.
He disappears down the hall, and Katie looks at me with a grin.
“You ready to get wasted, bitch?”
I shake my head, smiling.
I don’t know what I’d do without this woman.
“Fuck yeah.”
Katie grabs my wrist and pulls me toward the stairs. I don’t even bother asking where we’re going. By the time we reach one of the guest rooms on the west side of the house, she’s already pushing the door open.
I stop in the doorway. The bed is covered in snacks. Bags of chips, candy, cookies, brownies, popcorn, and chocolate are scattered across the comforter, with even more piled onto the nightstands. There’s enough junk food in the room to feed a small army.
I look at her.
“What the fuck?”
“We’re staying in.”
I glance back at the bed.
“For a week?”
She grins.
I laugh, dropping my overnight bag onto the bench at the end of the bed before unzipping it.
Katie heads straight for the minibar. By the time I’ve dug my swimsuit out of my bag, she’s already uncorked a bottle of wine and poured us each a glass.
She hands me one. I take it before disappearing into the bathroom to change.
When I come back a few minutes later, Katie’s sitting on the edge of the bed scrolling through her phone with a wine glass in one hand and a bowl of popcorn in the other. She glances up, tosses her phone onto the comforter, and disappears into the bathroom without a word.
I wander around the room while I wait, sipping my wine. The house is unusually quiet. With Michael shut away in his office and most of the staff gone for the evening, it almost doesn’t feel like the same place.
The bathroom door opens. Katie walks out in a black bikini. She drains the rest of her wine, refills both of our glasses, then grabs two towels from the end of the bed.
She tosses one at me. I catch it against my chest.
“Move your ass.”
I snort and follow her into the hallway. We head downstairs toward the indoor pool, our footsteps echoing through the otherwise silent house. Katie hooks her arm through mine.
“For one night...”
A smile spreads across her face.
“...this place is ours.”
The second we step into the pool room, the humidity hits me.
Floor-to-ceiling windows line one side of the room, though it’s too dark to see much beyond our reflections. Soft lights glow beneath the water, casting ripples across the ceiling.
Katie sets her wine on the edge of the pool.
“No running,” I say.
She looks over her shoulder.
“Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?”
Before I can answer, she takes three quick steps and cannonballs into the deep end. Water crashes over the side, splashing across the tile and soaking my legs.
I stare at her.
“You asshole.”
She surfaces laughing so hard she has to wipe water out of her eyes.
“Worth it.”
I shake my head, set my own glass beside hers, and dive in after her.
The water is warm enough that neither of us wants to get out for almost an hour.
We float on our backs, race from one end of the pool to the other, and spend far too much time trying to dunk each other underwater.
More than once, one of us has to climb out only to refill our wine before climbing right back in.
By the time we finally give up, my stomach hurts from laughing.
Wrapped in towels, we make our way back upstairs long enough to throw on clean clothes before wandering into the theater room with another bottle of wine tucked under Katie’s arm.
The room is ridiculous. Oversized recliners face a massive screen that takes up nearly the entire wall. Colored lights glow softly along the ceiling, and the sound system is nicer than most actual movie theaters.
Katie grabs the microphone sitting beside the karaoke machine and points it at me.
“First song.”
“I’m not going first.”
“You absolutely are.”
“I’m absolutely not.”
She narrows her eyes.
“I planned this whole night.”
“And?”
“So I make the rules.”
I sigh dramatically.
“This is a dictatorship.”
“Damn right it is.”
Twenty minutes later, we’re both screaming lyrics to “I Wanna Dance with Somebody”.
Any hope of sounding good disappears somewhere around the second song.
Neither of us cares. We dance across the front of the room like we’re performing for a sold-out stadium instead of an empty theater, laughing whenever one of us misses a line or comes in at the wrong time.
At one point, I catch my reflection in the dark television beneath the screen. My hair’s a mess. My cheeks hurt from smiling. I don’t think I’ve laughed this much in a long time. Katie finishes “Last Friday Night” with a dramatic bow that would be embarrassing anywhere else.
I clap anyway.
“You’re so full of shit.”
“I know.”
She hands me the microphone.
“Your turn.”
I roll my eyes, take it from her, and shake my head.
“If this ends up on the internet, I’ll kill you.”
She grins.
“Bitch, I don’t even know how to upload a video.”
“That’s probably for the best.”
She drops into one of the recliners, laughing as the opening music for “Party in the USA” fills the room. By the time midnight rolls around, our voices are shot, we’ve gone through more wine than either of us planned, and the theater room looks like we actually live there.
Neither of us is ready to call it a night.
A couple of hours later, we wander upstairs with half a bottle of tequila still sitting on Katie’s nightstand and a pile of empty snack wrappers scattered across the floor.
We change into pajamas, brush our teeth side by side while arguing over whose turn it is to pick the movie tomorrow, and finally crawl into her bed.
Katie reaches over and switches off the lamp. The room falls quiet.
Moonlight spills through the sheer curtains, casting pale strips of light across the ceiling. We lie on our backs staring up at it, neither of us making any move to sleep. Sleepovers have never really been about sleeping.
“They’re my favorite part,” Katie says after a while.
“What?”
“This.”
I turn my head toward her even though I can barely make out her face in the dark.
“Lying here talking.”
I smile.
“Mine too.”
Another comfortable silence settles between us. Neither of us is anywhere close to falling asleep.
“Michael told me something,” Katie says quietly.
“What?”
“He told me he wants to marry me.”
My chest tightens. Of course he did.
Luca told me weeks ago that Michael had already bought the ring. He’s had it since July. I remember the smile on Luca’s face when he told me, genuinely excited for his cousin. I’d smiled too, swallowing another secret I wasn’t allowed to share.
I hate how many of those there are now.
“What did you say?”
A quiet laugh escapes her.
“I told him I wanted to marry him too.”
I close my eyes for the briefest second.
“That must’ve made him happy.”
“I’ve never seen him smile like that.”
Katie rolls onto her side, her head propped up on one hand.
“I know he hasn’t actually asked yet, but...” She laughs softly. “I think about it all the time.”
She smiles into the darkness.
“What our wedding would look like. Where we’d live. What our kids would look like.”
A lump forms in my throat.
“I know that sounds crazy.”
“It doesn’t.”
“He told me he wants forever.”
Her voice is so certain it almost hurts to hear.
“I’ve never wanted anything the way I want that man.”
I stare at the ceiling, blinking back the sting in my eyes. Katie has no idea that the ring already exists. No idea that Michael has been carrying it around for months. No idea that I’m keeping one more secret from her.
She lets out a happy sigh.
“And if Michael marries me...”
She nudges my shoulder.
“...and Luca marries you...”
I turn my head toward her.
“We’ll both be Amatos.”
A laugh escapes her.
“Our kids will grow up together. They’ll be cousins.”
I smile into the darkness, even as guilt settles heavier in my chest.
“I’d like that.”
“So would I.”
She reaches over and squeezes my hand.
“We’re going to be family,” Katie says quietly. “I can’t wait.”
“Me either.”
Katie lets out a sleepy sigh.
“I’m so glad you’re here.”
I turn my head toward her.
“I’m glad I’m here too.”
She smiles without opening her eyes.
“We should do this every week.”
I laugh softly, and she yawns.
“I love you.”
The words catch me off guard, not because she says them, but because tonight they land a little differently. I swallow the lump in my throat.
“I love you too.”
Neither of us says anything after that. Katie’s breathing slowly evens out beside me, and before long, I know she’s asleep.
I stay awake a little longer, staring at the moonlight stretched across the ceiling. I hope one day we’re lying in another bedroom somewhere, talking about our husbands, our kids, and everything else we’ve spent years dreaming about.
I hope this isn’t the last sleepover we’ll ever have. Eventually, I close my eyes. A few minutes later, sleep finds me too.