Page 24 of 10 Signs You Need to Grovel

My son. Not our son.

It’s fine. I get it. She’s been a single mother for ten years. Comments like that are habit. Still, her words dampen the fizziness crackling through me.

Needing a moment to collect myself, I glance around the clearing. Olivia’s closer than before, no longer maiming trees with rocks. She’s standing there watching us, for sure Freudalizing our every mannerism.

“Is that the girl from the diner?” Sadie asks.

“Unfortunately, yes.”

She laughs. “This might be more entertaining than I thought.”

“Yeah, no. No part of her is entertaining.”

Sadie tips her head, scrutinizing me again. Her attention drifts to the ground, to a pile of branches at our right. “Hidden Sparks of Life,” she says.

Anyone else might give her some serious side-eye, unsure what nonsense she uttered, but I know Sadie. At least, I did. She’s playing her game, studying random patterns, imagining them as art.

All I see are a bunch of broken branches. “There’s nothing there but dried wood.”

“But if you light dried wood, it sparks.” She picks up a stick, runs her fingers over the peeling bark. “These sticks build into a fire. They create heat. Warmth. Food. Light. They start out as rough and broken and become life.” She drops the stick and dusts her hands on her shorts. “Don’t sell yourself short, Des. Being comfortable around Max might take time, but you’ll get there. Doing this for him was a great idea.”

She walks off to talk to the other kids.

I alternate between freaking out and freaking out. When my phone rings and I see Lennon’s name, I storm off toward the trees and jam my thumb on the answer button. “What the fuck?”

“Truth or dare, my friend. You chose dare.”

“I chose nothing.”

“Exactly. If you don’t choose, I choose for you. And I dare you to ask Sadie if she’s single.”

My long hair is down today, covering my neck tattoo and adding a layer of heat to the fury burning me up. “It doesn’t matter if Sadie’s single.”

“I beg to differ.”

Is this why he’s pushing me? He learned details about Sadie’s love life and is forcing me to face truths I’d rather ignore? “Do you know something I don’t?”

“I know you’re a coward who will never ask her, so I decided to do something about it.”

I growl. He didn’t overhear that phone call—Sadie worrying she wouldn’t like who I’ve become or that I wouldn’t be good for Max. He has no clue what I’m up against.

“Fact is,” he says, “you have to stop pretending you don’t care. If she’s single, you need to start making up for lost time. If she’s not, you need to find a way to put your feelings aside so you can coparent Max. It’s time to pull up your big-boy pants.”

My growl graduates to a snarl.

“You should thank me,” he says. “I got out of there before Max recognized me. He might’ve put two and two together.”

The last thing he’ll get is a thank-you from me. “Fuck off with your meddling.”

“Anyway, I’m heading back to Houston, so the program’s now in your hands, as is your future. Don’t mess this up or hurt my business. And quit being a quitter. I’ve never known you to welch on a dare.”

“I didn’t accept the dare!” I whisper-yell.

“Exactly,” he says and hangs up.

Feeling unhinged, I pull up Mirielle’s contact and shoot my former neighbor a text. She asked for regular updates, and I’m a minute from losing it.

Des: Lennon hired Sadie to lead the hikes too.