Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 61576 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 308(@200wpm)___ 246(@250wpm)___ 205(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 61576 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 308(@200wpm)___ 246(@250wpm)___ 205(@300wpm)
“Sadie, are you all right?” I ask, and against my better judgment, I reach in to put my arms around her. But she pushes them away.
I just can’t help myself. Every instinct I have is to comfort and protect her right now. Seeing her hurting like this is killing me too.
“Jake, don’t,” she says, her voice barely a whisper.
“Sadie–”
“What did he say?” she asks again. “What was he doing?”
Well, this is going to be tough, I think, recounting the parting line Howard left with.
“I caught him just snooping around the front lawn,” I tell her. “It kind of looked like he was checking to see if you were home. And then he said he needed to talk to you.”
Sadie scoffs and lets out a burst of laughter. She nods angrily.
“Of course he did. Of course he did.” She bites her lower lip and starts to pace in tight circles. “That is so like him. That son of a bitch.”
“Who is this guy, Sadie?” I press.
She stops and looks at me. “What else did he say? Was there anything else?”
This is it. The way she’s looking at me is almost like she already knows there was more, and she’s just waiting for me to come clean with it. But the last thing I want to do right now is repeat the vulgarity Howard told me to tell her.
But with the state she’s in right now, I just can’t bring myself to add anything more to the situation.
“Nope,” I lie, shaking my head. “That was basically it.”
Sadie smiles knowingly and points a finger at me.
“Come on, Jake. You can tell me.” She’s almost laughing now. “I know that bastard told you to tell me something. And you don’t want to tell me what it was because it was something foul. But I won’t respect you if you don’t tell me, Jake. So just tell me what it was.”
I sigh. These two really must have a lot of history if she is this on point with what happened back at the house. “Are you sure, Sadie?”
She nods. “Oh, I’m sure.”
“Okay,” I say hesitantly before taking a breath. “Howard said to tell you that he and someone named Tiffany say hi–” Sadie shrieks and slaps a stack of plastic cups off the counter beside her. They clatter to the floor. She really looks like she’s ready to kill somebody.
I pause but continue. “And that Tiffany was…way tighter than you ever were…”
Sadie’s face goes redder than spaghetti sauce, and I’m almost a hundred percent sure there’s going to be a homicide in the restaurant tonight.
“That bastard!” she hisses under her breath.
“But Sadie, who even is this idiot?” I ask. “He was all scrawny, had holes in his jeans, was wearing a ratty Las Vegas sweatshirt, and looked one step away from being homeless. Why are you even worried about him?”
Sadie twists up her lips and makes a face like her head is about to explode. None of this is making any sense to me at all. I feel like I’ve been swept up into the plot of some hidden camera reality TV show.
Sadie takes a deep breath and closes her eyes.
“That stupid son of a bitch, Jake,” she says, poison dripping from her tongue, “is my ex-husband.”
27
Jake
There are moments in life that you encounter that you genuinely just don’t know how to react or what to do with them. This is one of those moments.
Howard is Sadie’s ex-husband? That guy? The ratty creep in the Las Vegas sweatshirt? There’s no way in hell. How does that even make sense? Sadie is a goddess, and that man back there looked like he’d just crawled out of the sewer.
Part of me feels like a judgmental asshole thinking like this. Not everything is about looks, right? Maybe the guy had really good game or something. Good “rizz,” as the kids are calling it. But then I think back to our interaction at the house and remember how much of a creep he was, and that notion goes right out of my mind.
No. There’s something else going on here. “Sadie, how in the world–?”
“I know, Jake,” she says, putting a defensive hand up. “I know, okay? But he didn’t always look as bad as he probably looks now. He was actually quite handsome once.”
“Are you serious?” I’m gawking in disbelief. That guy was handsome once? What happened to him?”
Sadie shrugs. “He’s been living a rough life, I’d assume. Making bad choices. How the hell should I know? I haven’t seen or spoken to him in two years!”
Behind Sadie, one of the cooks calls out, “Order up! Table four!”
“Shit!” she curses under her breath.
I step forward to embrace her and then stop myself. I want to take the order out for her so she can have a minute to recover and process the information I’ve just come to her with. But then I remember that I’m not an employee here. And on top of that, I’ve never been a server, and I am nowhere near in dress code for the restaurant.