Page 60 of Top Shelf

“I know you do. But that’s not going to help anything. And it’s definitely not going to help her,” Demi says. And I know she’s right. “She just handled things for herself. That took a lot. Sitting there with him after hearing the kind of foul things he said to her at that game? I could barely look at him. Butshedid. She did. And now she just needsyou.She doesn’t need you to save the day. She saved her own day. And now she just needs you.”

I nod slowly, and she puts her arms around me.

I say goodbye, then slowly walk up the stairs. She’s lying in bed already, facing the wall, and I pull back the covers and slide in behind her. I pull her into me, and I can hear her sniffling and feel the dampness on my arm as I slide it under her head. I pull her into me, and she turns to face me, burying her face in my shirt.

“I’m so proud of you, Sade,” I tell her. “I’m so proud of you.”

She sobs, and I hold her, letting her get it all out, letting her cleanse herself of him once and for all.

“What if it still doesn’t work? What if—”

“Good guys win, Sade,” I tell her, kissing her forehead. “And you are the best of the best.”

A few hours later, I wake up to a rapping on my front door. I wake up, confused. I look at the clock and see that it’s eight o’clock at night. We dozed off after I let her cry herself to sleep on me, and we’ve been in bed ever since. I try to sneak out from under her head, but she feels me move and wakes up too.

“Who is it?” she asks groggily. I climb out of the bed and walk to the window. I look down and see someone walking down my steps, and then the blood runs cold in my veins.

It’s fucking Hayden. I sprint across the bedroom and down the stairs, yanking the door open as Odie starts to bark. But by the time I open it, he’s speeding out of the development in some stupid-ass rental car like a maniac. I look down on the top step, and a large envelope is leaning up against the house.

“Who was it?” she asks, coming up from behind me, wrapping herself up tight in one of my sweatshirts. I grab the envelope and close the door behind me, careful to lock it.

“It was Hayden,” I say, and her eyes are like saucers. “He left this.”

I hand it to her, her name written in chicken scratch across the front. She takes it, her hand already starting to shake, and walks to the table. She pulls out a chair and sits down, looking up at me quickly before she opens it.

She pulls out a large packet of paper and runs her hands over it. She flips through the pages to the last few, and then she looks up at me.

“He signed the divorce papers,” she whispers, a tear in her eye. And then she holds up the last page. There’s a sticky note on it that says,We’redone.

“I think it’s all over,” she whispers, and I walk toward her and pull her up from the table, kissing her face all over.

“You did it, sweet girl,” I whisper to her, and she jumps up onto me, kissing me hard. I don’t know what his definition of “done” is, but as long as he retracts his claws from her life, I’m happy. I don’t care what happens with him and me. I just want her to have peace.

But later that night, after I’ve made her come, then made her come again, then again, I stare down at her while she sleeps. And I say a little prayer that it was a collective “we.” That he’s going to leave me alone too. Because I thinkIbring her peace. And I’d like to keep doing that.

CHAPTERTWENTY-THREE

sadie

I get up earlythe next morning, still spent from the night we had. He’s lying on his side, one arm up over his head, his chest rising and falling at a steady rhythm. Watching him sleep brings such a sense of calm to me I swear I could stare at him like this forever. But after all he did for me yesterday and all he has done for me since the moment I met him, I’m overfilled with gratitude for him this morning.

Not to mention what he did for me last night. And again. Andagain.

God, sex with him should be an Olympic sport.

I slip out of bed and creep across the floor. I sneak out of the room and close the door behind me, heading down to the kitchen. I motion to Odie to be quiet as I give him his morning ear scratch, then head for the fridge.

I love cooking. It’s something I didn’t do a lot for Hayden because he never really appreciated it. It’s something my grandmother taught me to do when I was a teenager, and cooking with her is one of the only happy memories I have with any member of my family. But with him, things were too spicy, weren’t seasoned right, I was trying too hard, I “thought I was a chef.”

I shake my head as I pull the eggs out.

Never again.

Never will anyone make me feel that small.

Tyson makes me feel big, in a good way. He makes me feel seen, and he refuses to let me feel anything other than important.

But something else has happened in the last few days.

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