ALEX
I reachedover to my nightstand, picked up my phone, and turned off my alarm before it went off in two minutes at 3:15. I’d been lying in bed, wide awake, all night with visions of Sadie running through my head.
When Lexi and I got home last night, Sadie was nowhere to be found. I’d gotten a text from Mia earlier in the day letting me know that she was all moved in, but there wasn’t a trace of her anywhere to be seen when we arrived.
After searching the entire apartment, I knocked on the door to the guest room I’d had Mia prepare for her. When there was no response, I opened it and found her sound asleep with Achoo and Eeyore curled up beside her. I would have thought that the trio would have looked out of place here in my home, but it was the opposite.
As soon as I saw her, a sense of calm, ofrightnesswashed over me.
Lexi had been understandably disappointed that she hadn’t been able to have dinner with Sadie and as much as I didn’t want to admit it, she wasn’t the only one. I’d explained to her that Sadie had had a long day and that she’d see her tomorrow.
And tomorrow was now today.
I stared up at the ceiling fan I’d been watching for the past six hours. Sleep had evaded me last night. The knowledge that Sadie was in such close proximity had infused me with adrenaline making any sort of slumber impossible.
After sitting up and swinging my legs off the side of the bed, I stood and made my way down the hallway. The blackout shades retracted higher with each step I took. I stopped and stared out over the Bay Bridge. Its lights danced off the dark surface of the water. The city was quiet, and I took a deep breath.
Everything felt and looked different today. I wasn’t quite sure what had changed. Yes, Sadie was in the apartment, but that was an external reality.Internally…something had shifted.
I stood with my feet shoulder distance apart, arms crossed, looking out over the city as I tried to puzzle it out. Part of what I’d learned in therapy was to feel and recognize my emotions when they came. If I was sad, then I named it and accepted it. If I was mad, I did the same. It was a way of being present and not avoiding the grief but facing it.
The only reason I’d allowed Maddox and Mrs. G to convince me to go talk to a shrink was because of Lexi. I knew that she deserved more than a father who was barely surviving. She needed me to be as whole and as present as I could be.
So that’s what I tried to do.
The problem I was having now was that I wasn’t quite sure what to name what I was feeling. Then it hit me. This was the first time I could remember that I wasn’t counting down the hours, the minutes, and the seconds until I could crawl back into bed. The day stretching out before me didn’t feel like a marathon I had to survive. I was looking forward to something. I was looking forward to seeing Sadie. I wanted to see how this arrangement was going to play out in real time.
It wasn’t so much pinpointing what I was feeling as much as it was identifying what I wasn’t. The sense of dread that lived in my chest and stomach was gone. The dark cloud of grief and sadness had lifted.
Now that I’d identified what was different about how I was feeling, I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. Sadie was only here because Mrs. G wasn’t. Mrs. G was only here because Ash and AJ were gone.
No matter what the circumstances were in my life, it always came back to that truth. Things were the way they were, because Ash and AJ were gone.
The thing about a loss of the magnitude that I’d experienced was that people didn’t really talk about the butterfly effect it had on everything in life. Anything, good or bad, was tainted by the ripple that the loss created.
Shaking off my moment of self-reflection I made my way to the kitchen. Although I felt wide awake, I knew that I’d be thanking myself later for the infusion of caffeine I was about to ingest. My plan was to stay one espresso shot ahead of the inevitable crash.
I scrolled through the emails that had come in overnight on my phone and was responding to one when I entered the kitchen and heard something. I looked up and froze.
Sadie was bent over trying to reach the back of one of the lower cabinets. She wore a pair of cutoff sweats that molded to her backside and showcased the plumpness of her heart-shaped ass.
I’d instructed Mia to buy Sadie everything a woman might possibly need. Mia had texted me with photos of the wardrobe. When I’d seen the cutoff sweats, I’d thought they looked comfortable and was glad Mia had done the shopping since I never would have thought to buy them. Now, seeing how they looked on Sadie, I wanted to send Mia on an all-expenses paid holiday to the Cayman Islands as a thank you.
The sight of her perfect, rounded mounds and toned, bare legs sent an electrical current rushing through me. My mouth watered and a primal urge overcame me. I’d never experienced caveman impulses in my life. But that’s exactly what was happening as I stared at her backside. I wanted to pick her up, throw her over my shoulder and carry her back to my cave aka bed.
“Do you need some help?” I rasped: my throat tight with arousal. I hoped that if I helped her get whatever she needed she’d stand up and remove the temptation that was coursing through my blood.
At the sound of my voice, she let out a surprised yelp and bumped her head on the top of the cabinet as she spun around. The motion caused the shirt she was wearing to lift up exposing a glimpse of bare skin on her belly. As my eyes lowered to her belly, I noticed that her nipples were pebbled beneath the nearly transparent material covering them.
Sweat broke out on the back of my neck.
“You’re like a ninja. I didn’t hear you come in.” Her breaths were coming in shallow pants, most likely from the scare that I’d subjected her to and all I could think about was that she wasn’t wearing a bra as her chest rose and fell rapidly beneath her thin cotton shirt.
Shit.I needed to get myself together.
“I’m sorry.” I apologized as my eyes lifted to meet hers. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“It’s okay. I’m sorry if I woke you up.” She winced as she placed her hand over the back of her head.
