Page 90 of Our Sadie

“I love you. I love you and Dom and Zach. And I don’t mean just as friends, nor do I mean it only in that familial way. I mean it as lovers, as a significant other. I feel like that for all of you, and really, I don’t know what else I can say.”

Sadie ceases talking, her eyes lowering as she averts her gaze. For the first time in my thirty years, a woman has told me she loves me, and I don’t know whether or not it’s true. Something is tugging me toward her, but I resist, instead glancing at the two guys who’ve gone through this time with me. Men I’d never even met a short three months ago, yet now know better than anyone other than my dad.

Other than Sadie herself.

If I know her. The real her.

Zach speaks up. “Listen, we know where you’re coming from. Sadie did make a bad call, and there’s no getting around that. But I think this just looks worse than it is. I don’t think she meant to pull some fast one on us. I really don’t.”

“I’m with Zach on this,” Dom adds on.

“But if we move in with Sadie without you, it won’t be the same,” Zach picks up the narrative again. “It won’t feel right. It won’t feel like a family. Not like it’s felt here.”

Zach’s right. This has felt like a family. Yet I still don’t speak. I’ve never thought of myself as an unforgiving SOB, but maybe I am.

Even if I don’t want to be.

It’s that notion that makes me break my silence. “Do you have other secrets we should be privy to?”

Her response stuns me.

“Yes, actually. I’m buying another residence as we speak. A three-story Edwardian. I’m selling the townhouse. There are just too many sad memories inside those walls for me.”

She extends something to me she’s been holding in her hand. Something I didn’t notice. It’s a framed photograph of her parents Craig and Bridget along with a little girl with caramel-brown hair and dove-gray eyes.

In the corner of the frame, sitting on top of the glass, is a key. A house key. A key that matches the ones Dom and Zach are displaying for me now.

“It wasn’t only the plane crash that happened when I lived there. I first comprehended that my parents’ marriage was on the rocks there, too. I need a place that’s less a museum showcase and more of a home. A place with memories that are happy. A place with the three of you in it. Because you’re not just employees to me. You never were.”

More tears brim in her eyes to glide slowly down either side of her nose. “And I truly am sorry for concealing my involvement with Elegance from you. I never dreamed I’d find a love as powerful as I feel for the three of you. But I have. And if you don’t return it, or if I’ve ruined what’s been between us, I’ll understand.”

Streams of saltwater cascade down her face, and my reasons for distancing myself from her are dwindling.

“Anything else you need to tell us?” I ask again, even as I take a step toward her.

“How about thank you?” She emits this sob that sounds like it’s shredding her soul. “Th-thank you for these three months. Even if that’s all I ever get with you.”

I stare into her face and see so much pain there, pain I myself have been feeling, that I just can’t keep away anymore. Pacing forward, I gather her in my arms. She embraces me back as if I’m her lifeline, the only thing tethering her to this Earth.

As Sadie grips me tighter and tighter, I wave the other two over to join us. And as we stand there together as a single unit, no one saying a word, I know—just like they probably do—that I’ll be staying.

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