Chapter Twenty-Six
Harrison
After the strange party at the banquet hall, I’d decided to stay in town for the weekend and hang out with my parents.
We were eating out at Whispering Dove, which was a really weird name for a steak house, but it had been around forever. No one questioned it. It was an Indigo Falls institution and one of the nicer restaurants in town.
We were enjoying our meal together, when I saw the smile drop from my dad’s face. He was looking at something over my shoulder, so I turned around.
And my stomach dropped as I met Sadie’s eyes. She looked beautiful, in a pretty sundress and heels, her skin already lightly tanned even though it wasn’t quite summer yet. The tan always made those blue eyes of hers stand out even more, and I couldn’t look away.
“Oh, I think she’s on her own,” Mom said, looking around. “We should invite her to sit with us.”
“Mom, no,” I protested. “I don’t want to make her uncomfortable.”
She completely ignored me. “Sadie,” she stood up and waved, gesturing for her to come over.
It was awkward for a second as Sadie obviously ran through her options and found none that weren’t rude. She looked behind her for a moment, and I was sure she was waiting on someone. But she walked over.
“Hello,” she said almost apprehensively. “How are y’all tonight?”
“Doing well.” Mom beamed at her. “How are you?”
“Fine.” She was doing that thing with her fingers that she only did when she was nervous but trying to hide it.
“Ready for summer vacation?”
At that, her smile was genuine. “Definitely. Of course, two weeks into it I’ll already miss the kids,” she admitted. “But I need the break. All teachers do. And the kids do, too, of course.”
“Won’t you join us?” my dad asked.
“Oh, ah…” she looked behind her again, and that’s when I saw him walking up. A tall, handsome guy in a button-down and tie.
“Hey,” he said, dropping a kiss on her cheek.
My God. I saw red. I wanted to punch him in the face, throw him to the ground, and beat the absolute crap out of him.
“Harrison,” my dad said in a warning tone.
It was then I realized I’d stood up, fists clenched, and taken a step towards her date. Sadie’s eyes were wide and her date had a confused look on his face.
I instantly relaxed my pose and reached out a hand to shake his. “Harrison Turner,” I said, trying to cover up my Neanderthal behavior.
“Oh, like Turner Luxury Motors?”
I nodded, surprised.
“I’m Thorn. I’m an attorney in Halliwell.”
Thorn? What the fuck? Did his parents name him that on purpose?
“Ah.” I’d lived thirty minutes away in Halliwell for several years now.
I’d made a life for myself there. I mainly worked, hung out with a few friends, and worked out.
I’d tried dating some, but just found my heart wasn’t in it.
No one ever compared to Sadie. Until someone did, I didn’t think there was a point.
We all stood there awkwardly for a moment.
“Well, it was nice to meet you,” my mom said with a nice smile, saving the situation.
“You as well,” Thorn said. He put his hand on the small of Sadie’s back and directed her towards the table the waitress had readied for them.
Sadie glanced over her shoulder once, but it was more to wave to my parents than me.
Right before she turned around, though, her eyes met mine.
It was like an electric current ran between us, and I saw her stumble slightly.
Thorn steadied her, turning to see what she was looking at. When he saw me, his eyes narrowed.
They were just close enough that I could hear him ask, “How do you know that guy?”
“Oh, um, he’s just someone I went to school with a long time ago.”
I looked down at my plate, my appetite gone.
The next time the waitress passed, my dad asked for the check.
I looked up to see my parents watching me, compassion written all over their faces.
They both started to say something, but I held up my hand. “It’s fine. Really. I knew she had to be taken. Besides her looks, she’s sweet, funny, smart, kind—the whole package. The men around here would be idiots not to date her.”
As we walked out of the restaurant, my dad said, “I’m not sure a guy named ‘Thorn’ deserves her.”
I let out a genuine bark of laughter. “That, you’re right about.”
***
The next party was a couple of months later and might as well have been designed to torture me.
It was a couple’s shower with a laidback vibe at Drake’s house.
He had a nice craftsman’s bungalow style house in a new neighborhood just outside Indigo Falls.
He also had an awesome back deck, patio, and pool area with an outdoor kitchen.
Melinda had helped him pick it out and would be living there after the wedding.
Of course, I happened to know that she was already living there and only kept a small apartment in town to make her parents happy.
The party plan was for everyone to swim and hang out by the pool all afternoon. Then we’d don coverups or shorts and a T-shirt, drink, eat steaks Drake’s dad grilled, and then they’d open presents.
So, I had to see Sadie in a bikini and try not to stare at her.
It was impossible. She’d always had the perfect body in my mind.
She was nice and toned, but she had a full ass, wide hips, tiny waist, and large, perfect breasts.
I stared at her, remembering how she’d looked under me.
Or riding me. Or on her knees in front of me.
Fuck.
I looked away. I had to quit thinking about how I’d had my hands and mouth all over every inch of her incredible body.
She was laughing, standing next to Carrie at the side of the pool. “Ready?” she asked.
Carrie nodded and the two of them did back flips into the water.
“Still feel like a moron, huh?” Drake asked, coming to sit next to me.
“Yup.” I watched as she crawled onto a float and put an arm over her eyes to block the sun. “Hey, is she dating some guy named Thorn?”
Drake chuckled. “No. They went out once or twice. She thought he was a tool.”
I felt a sense of satisfaction.
Drake was looking at me with concern. “You know you and her aren’t going to happen, right?”
I did. But hearing him say it out loud was like a gut punch. “Yeah, man. I know.”
He clapped a hand on my shoulder. “I’m not trying to be mean. I just don’t want to see either one of you get hurt.”
“I get it.” It still hurt, though. I knew I didn’t deserve her. I just wish I did. I got up to get a drink. “I’m getting a beer. Want one?”
“Sure.”
Later, we were all sitting around eating and talking. I knew I was being uncharacteristically quiet, but I was having the hardest time not listening in on her conversations. I was trying not to be obvious, but I was pretty sure I was failing.
The girls were all talking about things they’d done to get in trouble at the high school over the years, and I couldn’t help grinning. They were all so good—we all had been—that there wasn’t much any of us had done that had been too terrible.
“Oh my God,” Melinda said, putting her hand over her mouth since she was eating one of the brownies her mom had made for dessert. “What about senior prank?”
Sadie threw back her head and laughed.
I stared at her, watching the way her neck lengthened, her hair draped down her back, and her beautiful face transformed to breathtaking. I sucked in a breath at how stunning she was. And that’s when she turned to me. “Harrison, do you remember rolling the goal posts on the practice field?”
“How could I forget?” I grinned.
She started laughing so hard she could barely get the next sentences out. “We had to climb over the back fence from that neighborhood behind the school to avoid the night watchman.”
I started laughing, too. “And I went over first and turned around to catch you.”
“But I jumped before you were looking, so I knocked you down.”
Blair, Melinda, Drake, and Carrie all started laughing and talking at once. “I can’t believe how much toilet paper we used,” said Carrie.
I noticed that her husband, Thatcher, was on his phone, ignoring the rest of us. He was obviously texting someone. I frowned and looked between him and Carrie. She seemed okay, but there was a slight worry line between her eyebrows that made me know she was aware of what he was doing.
I hoped everything was alright between them.
“And then the night watchman saw us,” Drake gasped out, pulling me back into the story, “and we had to run from him.”
“Everyone made it back over the fence except Sadie,” I said, shaking my head. “I went over first again…”
“And I was so scared the night watchman was going to catch me I launched myself at you before you were ready again…” she said, tears running down her cheeks from laughing.
“And you knocked me down again. But that time you landed on my back, stood up, and ran as fast as you could away from me. You just left me there at the mercy of old Mr. Pate.”
She wiped her eyes, still laughing. “Oh, you were fine once you got up. You passed me like ten seconds later.”
“And I threw you over my shoulder.”
“Then we all stuffed ourselves in Drake’s old truck and got the hell out of there,” Carrie said.
We laughed for a while longer thinking about it.
“How did Mr. Pate figure out who it was?” Drake asked. “I don’t remember.”
Sadie snorted and hit the table, while I barely contained my laughter watching her.
“It was because of my bloody knees,” I reminded everyone.
“He’d seen Sadie knock me down through the slats of the fence.
He figured whoever’d gone down would’ve been injured.
He took one look at my bandaged knees the next day and walked me right to the principal’s office. ”
Melinda’s mom joined in. “And then the principal called all of you in, but you texted me first. Sadie’s mom and I showed up with cookies, and suddenly y’all weren’t in trouble anymore.” She winked at us. “Moms are magic like that.”
“It’s weird to think he’s our boss now,” Sadie laughed, looking at Melinda.
“He still likes y’all’s cookies better than mine or Sadie’s,” Melinda complained, looking at her mother and Sadie’s mom.
“So fun,” Sadie said looking at me with a genuine smile; the kind that made her eyes sparkle and brought out her dimples. It was the first time I’d seen that smile since our freshman year of college.
I watched her, unable to look away and wishing I could freeze this moment forever.
Slowly, she seemed to realize that she’d temporarily forgotten what had happened between us.
She was only remembering the good times.
The smile dropped from her face, but her eyes stayed on mine.
Then she swallowed hard and looked away.
I looked down at my plate, feeling the loss of the moment deeply.
No one around us seemed to notice, and soon both Sadie and I had jumped back into the conversation. It wasn’t the same, though. Anytime there was a shared experience between Sadie and me, she downplayed it or changed the subject.
It hurt. But I understood. Drake was right; no matter how much I regretted losing her, it wasn’t ever going to be okay between us again.
Soon afterwards I stood up and made my excuses to leave, telling everyone I’d see them at the joint bachelor and bachelorette party in about a month.
“Are you not coming to the next couple of events?” Melinda asked.
I shook my head. “No. I’m sorry. We’re coming up on the busiest time of year at the dealership, and then I’m taking my vacation.”
“Well, we’ll miss you,” Drake said, standing to shake my hand and pull me in for a hug.
“Same. But it won’t be long until the party.” I smiled and waved at everyone, only then noticing that Sadie had disappeared.
I hated to leave without telling her goodbye, but it would be really obvious why I was waiting if I didn’t go now.
“Bye,” I said and turned to head out the gate.
It turned out Sadie was in the driveway getting something out of her car. She turned and saw me, a brightly wrapped package in her hand. “You heading out?”
“Yeah.”
We stood there like that for a minute, just looking at each other without saying anything. I didn’t want to make it weird for her, so I held up my hand and smiled, then turned to go.
“Harrison?”
I turned back around so quickly I might’ve fallen if there weren’t so many cars to grab onto in the driveway. “Yes?”
“We really had some good times together, didn’t we?” The look on her face was bittersweet, and I knew she was remembering the bad wrapped up with the good.
“The best,” I agreed. I cleared my throat. “I’m truly sorry, Sadie. I ruined everything. I took that future we had planned and blew it apart with my arrogance. I was so selfish and such a bastard,” I shook my head. “I will always regret what I did to you.”
Her eyes looked suspiciously glassy for a moment. “You remember the future we talked about?”
“Of course.” I pushed my keys in my pocket. “When Drake came to tell me about proposing to Melinda, I had this insane moment of jealousy. All I could think was that it was supposed to be us.” I smiled sadly. “But I ruined that.”
She looked down, not knowing what to say. She surprised me again, though, by looking up and meeting my eyes one more time. “I wish we had a do-over.”
I started to agree, but she kept talking.
“For the longest time, I would’ve hoped it meant I’d never met you in the first place.”
Ouch. That stung terribly, and I rubbed my hand over my heart unintentionally. “And now?”
“Now? I don’t know. I’m caught between wishing I’d never met you and wishing we could go back and change what happened.”
I nodded. It was progress. I’d take it. But I still didn’t know where that left us, if anywhere. “Do you need help taking that inside?” I gestured towards the package in her hand.
“No, I’ve got it.” She smiled, waved, and turned to walk away.
I watched her until she’d gone through the gate and closed it behind her.
As I drove home to Halliwell that evening, I thought long and hard about things. What was I hoping to accomplish? I knew I wanted her back, but the odds of that happening were incredibly low. I knew how I’d behaved was abominable.
So, could I settle for friendship? I dragged a hand over my face.
Of course I wanted to be friends with her.
She’d been my best friend for the longest time.
That had been part of what had made our relationship so great, so special.
The problem would be having to watch her date people and eventually settle down with someone, get married, have a family…
could I really stand by and smile convincingly while all of that happened?
I wasn’t sure I could. I sighed. Maybe it was a moot point anyway. She might not ever be able to be friends with me again anyway.
And I had to be okay with that.