Page 15 of Merritt and Her Childhood Crush
“Poor Lo. She leaves for one day, and you swoop in and change all her plans. How veryfirstbornof you.”
“Shut up with your birth order nonsense, middle child. Do you want this place sold for max profit or not?”
“Definitely max profit. Carry on demolishing whatever adorable plans Lo made.”
Sadie takes a sip from a mug that saysI read because kicking people is frowned upon. So VERY Sadie. Her eyes slide over to the left, and a slight frown makes a crease between her brows. She sets the mug down, and I hear her typing for a minute. Then, she’s back.
“So, how is it being on Oakley again?” she asks, like she didn’t just stop some kind of cyber-attack with a few keystrokes. “It was weird seeing it again through adult eyes.”
You can say that again.
“It’s definitely weird.”
“Have you seen Hunter yet?”
Annnnd …there it is. It’s not like I didn’t expect the question at some point. Even if Sadie doesn’t know the whole story—only Gran did—she at least knew Hunter and I weresomething.
As a kid, her nosy nature looked more like spying, and it drove me crazy how readily she figured things out about me. She’s only honed her skills as an adult, which means she’ll get the truth out of me eventually, but this is not a conversation I want to have right now.
I’ve only hadONEcup of coffee. After a night of drinking wine and practically begging Hunter to come over, I’ll need more caffeine in my system before I’m ready to tacklethisparticular subject.
“Briefly,” I finally answer.
I can’t bring myself to admit the details of our encounter, though Sadie would appreciate a description of the view I had while Hunter carried me back to the house. I wish I could scourge the mental image from my brain.
Or … print it out and frame it. Can’t decide.
“Then I saw his wife—well, ex-wife?—and kid at the grocery store. She was with some other guy. She’s about to have a baby.”
I don’t mention Isabelle by name.
Sadie’s eyes drift back to what I assume is her computer screen, and she talks while she types. “She and Hunter did get married really young. Statistically, odds were against them making it.”
“Man. You’re like the spokesperson for anti-marriage.”
“Spokesperson?”She shrugs and wrinkles her forehead. “No. But a card-carrying member of the never-getting-married society? You know it. And proud, too. But kids—I don’t know. I like them. Maybe one day.”
“Really?”
I’m not sure why this shocks me. Even though I’ve claimed, publicly and frequently, I’ll never have any, out of the three of us, I would have picked Sadie as the one who’d be childless by choice. Not me.
Because you wanted children once. You and Hunter talked about having kids,a very annoying voice reminds me. Are you sure you didn’t make this rash changebecauseof Hunter?
Man. I might be doing okay dodging Sadie. But this pesky internal voice—which reminds me so much of Gran—won’t give me a break.
“Is that so surprising? Do you think I’d suck as a mom?” Sadie sounds shockingly vulnerable for a moment, and I’m stunned into a momentary silence.
“No. You’d be amazing.” She would. Fun and creative and whip-smart, Sadie would commit every parenting book to memory just to find healthy ways to break the rules and forge her own path. Her kids would adore her.
Why am I having such a weird, emotional reaction to talking about kids?
“I just thought because you’re so anti-relationship, that meant you weren’t thinking about starting a family. Seriously, you’d be the best mom.”
Sadie ducks off-screen for a moment—is she crying???
When she comes back in view, her normal sardonic smile is back in place. “Yeah, can’t blame me for not wanting to get married after watching our parents.”
The three of us carry deep scars from our parents’ ugly divorce. Dad blindsided Mom when he left her, then spent all the money he could without leaving heranything. Which continued to be a theme for him. It’s exactly why Gran—our dad’s mom—left the three of us everything and her own son nothing.
