26. World’s Worst Chippendale #3
“He told me to go to that room and sleep in that bed, but I thought it was going to be Donovan in it,” she rushed out.
“Miller told you to sleep in that bed?” I repeated, sure I must have heard her wrong.
Vicki took a breath, her perfectly manicured fingers twisting in front of her. “Yes, Jeremy told me to sleep in that bed. He said Donovan was waiting for me, and when I got in and saw you there, passed out, I thought it was just a prank.”
I tried to assemble the pieces of the puzzle she was filling in for me. “So, all this time, you knew nothing happened between us?”
Reluctantly, she nodded.
“Why didn’t you say anything, when I asked you about it?” I heard my voice distant and echoing with disbelief.
Vicki’s eyes darted away. “I was embarrassed. I thought the prank made me look stupid. Desperate. And then… the more time that passed, the less I wanted to bring it up. It felt like ancient history.”
All these years, I’d worried that I’d actually cheated, and Vicki knew this entire time nothing happened. My best friend knew I got roofied. This was insane.
She took a deep breath, collecting herself.
“I’m sorry. I was young and self-involved.
” She searched my face, and for the first time since I’d met her, I saw a person instead of a myth.
“But after I heard what Jeremy said he did, and Sadie is back in town, I knew I had to say something. I can talk to Sadie, if you want me to. Tell her exactly what happened, or I guess didn’t. ”
“No, it’s fine.” I could tell Sadie, it would be better if it came from me.
I still hadn’t told her what Gio told me.
She’d had so much going on with Buddy, I hadn’t found the right time to bring it up.
But if other people in town were hearing about it, it seemed like the time was now. “Thanks for telling me.”
Vicki hesitated, then offered a real, unvarnished smile. “You’re a good guy, Dawson. I hope everything works out for you.”
She melted back into the crowd, just another face in the swirl of attendees.
I stood there for a long moment, trying to anchor myself.
The ground felt different, less like quicksand and more like something solid.
For the first time in years, what happened on grad night seemed less like a curse and more like a screwed-up chapter that could be closed.
I scanned the crowd once again, searching for Sadie, and found her.
She’d drifted away from the auction action, settling in on a wooden bench overlooking the ocean, speaking on the phone.
She wasn’t crying, but she didn’t look happy.
I slowed down, suddenly self-conscious about my size and the echoing clomp of my footsteps.
Sadie heard me coming anyway—she always did—and turned, squinting up at me. When she hung up I lowered myself down on the bench beside her and asked, “Everything okay?”
“Just work stuff.” Her lips curled in a smile. “Five grand, congrats! When’s the big date with Timmon’s heiress? Should I start prepping the ‘Mother of the Bride’ speech for your mom?”
“You can start the speech, but only if it’s you walking down the aisle.”
Her smile faltered, and I wondered if I’d gone too far. But then her eyes twinkled. “So you’re saying I don’t need to be jealous?”
“It wouldn’t matter if I got auctioned off to Marilyn Monroe, Helen of Troy or Aphrodite herself, I’d still be thinking about you.”
“You do realize those women are all dead, right?”
“So you’re saying I’d need smelling salts?”
She bumped her shoulder against mine, and for a second, I almost forgot the last twelve years we’d been apart. “You’re disgusting,” she said, but she was smiling now, the real smile, the one that pulled the right side of her mouth up first and made her eyes crinkle at the corners.
“Guilty.” We sat there in companionable silence, the kind that only two people who’d grown up together could share.
The waves chewed at the sand and pulled it back, over and over.
I could feel the words building inside her, and I tried not to rush it.
Sadie was always better at the slow burn, at letting the silence do the heavy work.
She shivered a little beside me, whether from the cold or from nerves, I couldn’t tell. I stood, offered her my hand. “Ready to go?”
She nodded and took my hand, together we walked the sand back to where I’d parked.
The festival was still in full swing, the lights strung along the pier blinking on as the sky darkened to cobalt.
We didn’t talk much on the way, but it didn’t feel awkward.
It felt like the night itself was giving us permission to not fill every silence.
I opened the truck door for her, waited until she was settled before sliding behind the wheel. I wanted to say something profound, or at least clever, but all I managed was, “It’s really good to see you again, Sadie.”
She looked at me sideways, her hair catching bits of streetlamp. “It’s good to be seen.”
I pulled away and decided it was time to take her to the place I’d bought for both of us. The house that had been our dream. It was time to take her home.