Page 18 of I'm Yours

“No. That she and I have become close.”

“How close?”

I hear her suck in a breath and I squeeze my eyes closed. This is what I said was okay. I didn’t want Sadie to be left without family just because she didn’t love me the way I wanted her to.

“We see each other. Your dad sees her.”

“I feel like you’re just giving me pieces of a huge puzzle and I can’t even find the edges to start it out.”

“I’ll explain our relationship with Sadie to you tonight.”

“Fine. Just… nothing changes, okay?”

More damn silence greets me, which is grating on my nerves. “Okay, Reed. Nothing changes,” she says ominously then tells me she needs to get off the phone and I’m greeted by more fucking silence.

Chapter Five

Sadie

Isit in my office chair and wipe away the stray tears that don’t seem to want to stop falling since Reed came into my studio. I knew he was back home and I’d eventually end up seeing him. I just didn’t expect it to be today. Or that I’d be dressed this way the first time I saw Reed in twelve years. I’m not ashamed of teaching classes on pole dancing, but it’s not as if I would wear these clothes out in public.

When my eyes landed on Reed standing in the middle of my studio, my heart felt like it was in my throat, his name rolling off my tongue in a breathless whoosh. It was as if my world had just been righted.

I knew when I said his daughter’s name that I shocked him. He has no idea how much I know about him. A few months after he left for college, his mom tracked me down and wouldn’t relent until I told her what happened. I didn’t tell her we’d slept together, but I did let her know that I told him I didn’t love him. Without her son telling her, she knew his feelings for me. I just didn’t realize that she knew I returned those feelings. But she also knew that I was scared.

That day, I cried on her shoulder for what felt like hours. Once I was finished, Lindsay looked me in the eye and said she wasn’t going anywhere no matter what the future held between her son and me. It was a promise her son had made to me time and time again. A promise he didn’t keep. But, I don’t blame him. Why would he keep a promise after I broke his heart? However, for the past twelve years, she’s held true to her promise. Even after he married another woman. At first, I felt weird, meeting for coffee or spending a day baking with Lindsay knowing that Katherine was in the picture. But it wasn’t about Reed with us. Lindsay was — is — the mother I never had. She’s kind and loving, funny, and makes the best pies I’ve ever tasted.

And Reed would kill me, but she’s one of the best pole dancers I’ve ever taught.

After Reed left and my world felt like it was crumbling, I turned to a dark place. I made bad decision after bad decision. Danger lurked all around me. I spent time with people I had no business even talking to, much less associating with. I was spiraling out of control, experimenting with drugs and binge drinking to try to numb the pain of knowing that my life would forever be the same. Living in the trailer, taking care of my brother and my mother who didn’t want to be taken care of at the time. Depression had settled deep in my veins and I would do anything to dull the crippling sensation that was stopping me from moving forward and making a life for myself. I accepted the life that I thought I deserved, especially after breaking Reed’s heart and lying directly to his face.

The only place I could find any sort of comfort was when I was dancing. Unfortunately, that led to me making a living by stripping. It wasn’t ideal but it pulled me away from a life of medicating with drugs. And, I honestly loved it. I was able to block out the lewd comments and dollar bills being stuffed between my skin and panties and I just… danced. I lost myself in the music and the way my hand sliding around the cool metal of the smooth pole felt. My eyes would fall closed and my back would arch as I slowly circled the pole and I would just… dance. It got to the point where I was a featured dancer. The owner of Eve’s was a respectable businessman, not anything like what many people assume a strip bar owner would be like. He recognized my love for dancing and saw the way the guests reacted. By the time I quit, I was the most requested dancer and was making money I only dreamed of. It was a hard decision to leave Eve’s, but it was time.

I saved every cent I could, working at the diner during the day and driving forty minutes to Eve’s Gentlemen’s Club five nights a week. For seven years, I worked myself to the bone but it was worth it. I was eventually able to quit working at Eve’s and worked only at the diner until two years ago when I took over ownership of the studio. I took a risk adding a pole dancing class. Until I bought the studio, nothing other than ballet was taught. But Lindsay supported me and everyone in town trusts her. Even though many people were wary, they came with an open mind.

For years, I lived in a bubble, thinking that everyone in the town of Lakeside thought a certain way about me. Turns out, I was wrong. They didn’t think of me as trailer trash or a stripper. They saw that I was Sadie Jones, and just like Reed told me more times than I could count, that was enough. I didn’t hide what I did for a living, but that never mattered. Everyone in the town knew why I was doing what I did and rather than judging me for it, they applauded me. Well, most of them, anyway. Of course there were the select few. Catty women who probably felt more jealousy or possibly even threatened by me. Even a few men who thought that what I did for a living meant they had every right to touch me whenever they’d like. But the number of people in Lakeside who supported me far outnumbered the jerks who thought I was beneath them. It solidified my love for this small town and opened my eyes to how much I tended to judge others, too.I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished and discovered that I’m worth more than I once thought. Sure, I still have my moments, but I finally realized that I’m just as deserving of my heart’s desires as others are. I shake off the question that filters through my mind if that includes Reed.

The ladies who signed up for my class embraced it and have been having so much fun, begging me to add more time slots. I still teach most of the classes but have three employees. Chelsea does three hip-hop classes a week and one yoga, Kandace helps with the ballet classes so we can hold more than one level of lessons at a time, and Violet who teaches tumbling. LDS is so busy that Reed’s dad, Alan, has been encouraging me to expand and move to a bigger building. With as much room as we need for the pole classes it does make sense; scheduling all the classes has become quite a headache with the limited amount of space we have. I have students who drive an hour to get here because we offer what a lot of dance studios don’t.

Alan’s taken the lead on finding locations, including empty lots where we could build a brand new building. It’s a heady feeling, to go from not being able to put food on the table for my family to owning my own profitable business and earning enough money that I can build a studio from the ground up.

Now that Reed’s back home, I fear that I’ll lose Lindsay and Alan, even though they’ve both assured me that wouldn’t be the case. How can it not, though? He’s their son. Their flesh and blood. I’m the girl who broke his heart and then hung around like a lost little puppy dog without a home.

I can only hope that Reed and I can become friends again and possibly come to an understanding where I still get Alan and Lindsay as a part of my life. Maybe that’s wishful thinking, or possibly selfish, but for the last twelve years, I’ve come to rely on them more than I’d like to admit.

“Everything okay, boss?” Kandace asks, peeking her head into my office. She finished the class for me and now it’s only the two of us in the studio.

I offer her a smile that she sees right through. “Uh oh. What happened? Who was that?”

“Alan and Lindsay’s son.”

Her eyes widen and she looks behind her, as if she would get a glimpse of him still standing there. Reed Sanders is a bit of a legend in Lakeside, even if he doesn’t know it. But she has no idea who Reed is to me. That I gave him my virginity and have never gotten over him. Twelve years hasn’t done anything to diminish my love for Reed, which I’m sure to some (or most) seems pathetic and quite strange that I can still feel love for a man I haven’t seen in person in a dozen years, but I can’t stop my heart from calling out to him. It probably wasn’t a good idea to become so close with his parents, but not having a part of Reed wasn’t an option either.

“Holy shit, for real?” Her reaction is exactly as I’d expect it would be. Reed was the boy next door

“Yeah, he’s signing his daughter up for ballet.”

“No way!” She studies me when I offer up a weak smile. “Then why do you look like you’re about to puke?”

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