He looks at me for a long moment.
And then he's gone and the room is just a room again and I’m sitting at the piano alone. My hands are in my lap. Every place he touched is still echoing with the memory of it, a note that's been struck and won't stop ringing, trembling on through the air long after the key has lifted.
I press one finger to middle C. It rings out, soft and solitary, into the empty room.
Everything starts here, he'd said.
I don't want it to end here too.
Chapter 21
Liberties
WALKER
Imake it back to the family about two minutes before she does.
Long enough to get my shit under control. To not look like I’ve been turned inside out by what just happened between me and Sadie.
Or so I think.
Tanner takes one look at me and his face splits into the widest, most irritating smile I've ever seen.
He opens his mouth.
“Don't,” I say. “Whatever it is, just don’t say it.”
“I was just going to ask if you wanted a beer. But also,” he adds, grinning now, “where's your girlfriend?”
“None of your business.”
Belatedly I realize I should probably correct him on the “girlfriend” part of it, but I don’t.
He smiles into his own beer like the smug son of a bitch he is, then hands me a bottle from the cooler on the porch. “Youlook like you could use something stronger. Should we break out the whiskey?” A pause. “Or you could just go find Sadie. Pretty sure she'd have the same effect.”
“Shut. Your. Fucking. Mouth.”
He just shakes his head, grinning.
When Sadie comes back out, her cheeks are slightly pink and her hair is freshly smoothed and she slides back into the conversation like nothing happened at all.
She's better at this than I am.
Jonah makes the rounds before we leave, hugging Grandpa, hugging Tanner, hugging Slade, and then circling back to take Sadie's hand like he's making sure she's still there. Like he's including her in the inventory of people he needs to account for.
Dad watches it with a look on his face I haven't seen in years.
Hope, maybe.
At home, Sadie and I both tuck Jonah in, at his insistence. Now that Sadie is hanging out with us on weekends, doing family dinners with the Rhodes clan, the lines are getting blurrier. I'm both elated and worried by that. Because she's set to leave at summer’s end. And I already know it will break his tiny heart when she does.
What the fuck are we going to do without her?
Sadie and I spread out on either side of his bed and we all take turns reading a bedtime story. Jonah shows off his newfound ability to read some sentences all by himself. And I know that's all thanks to Sadie.
I watch her over the top of his head while he sounds out the words, her hair falling forward over her shoulder, her lips moving faintly along with his.
We’re so lucky she came into our lives.
