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“Sorry. I thought you might be thirsty.” I hold up the water bottle. “After our dance,” I add.
My words sound too eager, too earnest, and I wish I could call them back. Where is my cool? My suave ability to impress women without even breaking a sweat?
Gone. That’s where. Sadie has stripped away all my cool and left me bumbling about like some pre-teen boy talking to his secret crush in the hallway at school.
Sadie drops onto the top step of the wide staircase and holds out her hand. I finish the climb, then drop down beside her,handing her the bottle. She opens it and takes a long sip before offering it to me.
It makes me ridiculously happy that she doesn’t care if I drink after her. That presumably, she’ll drink after me as well. Maybe some people wouldn’t see this as a big deal. Maybe it’s not.
But with Sadie, it feels weirdly intimate. Like she’s taking down a tiny piece of the wall that’s always between us or cracking open a closed door.
I take a long swig, then hand the bottle back.
“That was my room,” she says, tilting her head toward the doorway behind her. “Or at least the room I slept in whenever we were here.”
The overhead light isn’t on, but there’s a lamp at the end of the hall, sending just enough light our way that I can make out her expression, though her eyes are still in shadow. She looks contemplative, maybe a little wistful. I want to ask a thousand questions, but I’m afraid if I say too much, she’ll remember who it is she’s talking to and slam that door closed again.
“It’s totally different now,” she says. “Of course, it is. They were almost finished remodeling it the last time I was here. But I wondered if it would still feel the same.”
“Does it?” I ask as she drinks and passes me the bottle again. I take a slow sip.
Sadie looks down the stairs, down into the darkness, and I think she might be ignoring my question. But then she shrugs. “It’s just a house.”
It’s a nonanswer. An evasion—or at least a deflection. This isn’t just a house—not to her. Not to anyone on Oakley.
Genevieve Markham was the kind of woman who had an impact on the island. You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who doesn’t have a story about her kindness. Or her quirkiness.And the sisters spent every summer here, staying in this house. It matters.
I nudge her knee with mine. “Sadie Markham, I think you’re telling me a lie.”
She rolls her eyes. “Mr. King, I don’t think you know me well enough to judge.”
It takes effort to bite back a comment about how little she really knows about me or how I’d like to get to know her better. I’ve made a tiny bit of headway here, and I’d rather keep my foot in the door than have her slam it in my face.
Stick to the topic at hand, I tell myself.
“Are houses ever just houses?” I ask, giving her as much of a smile as I can manage. I can’t help but think of the empty mansion I avoid like the plague—the one I’m supposed to sleep in tonight.
“I mean, I just spent summers here,” she says. “And I didn’t help with the renovations at all.”
Her eyes lift to mine, and for a quick second, the mask slips, and she’s the same Sadie who danced with me. But then she turns her face away.
“Sadie, this house belongs to you as much as it belongs to either of your sisters. As a memory, as part of you. So does Oakley.”
“Pretty sure Oakley belongs toyou,” she says, shooting me a snarky smile.
I roll my eyes and take a chance, bumping her leg with mine. As I hoped, she bumps me right back.
“You know what I mean,” I tell her.
She’s quiet for a long moment before she shifts and stands, leaving me to miss the warmth of her sitting beside me.
“WhatIknow,” she says, tossing a sardonic smile over her shoulder, “is that I’ve had enough serious conversation for onenight.” She offers me a hand. “But if you promise not to talk, I’ll let you dance with me again.”
“You’llletme?”
She rolls those beautiful blue eyes one more time. I never would have thought eye rolls could be attractive, but on Sadie, they absolutely are.
“Come on. You know you want to.” She wiggles her fingers in front of me. “Don’t make me dance with Frank, Ben.”
