Page 82 of Silver Player

“She’s excited to be here,” I say, although she acted sour about it before three p.m. She wouldn’t tell me how working for him came to be, especially as she’s declined working at the bookstore.

“So Friday…” He smiles sheepishly back at me. “Charlie offered to have Sadie over. Pizza movie night or something like that.” Billy rolls his eyes like Charlie is a dull man. “My mother wants both the girls to come to the house instead. She mentioned Sadie practicing piano.”

As the evening ended at the Harringtons, Elaina invited Sadie to play her piano anytime and then made me promise Sadie would visit twice a week. As I hesitated, saying we’d need to coordinate with my work schedule, Billy volunteered to bring Sadie to his mother’s home, and Elaina even offered to pick Sadie up from school, all to which Sadie said, “You know, Dad, if you bought me a car, I could drive myself.”

She doesn’t have her license yet, and she only calls Billy dad when she’s sarcastic. A pregnant pause lingered before George Jr. chuckled. He said Sadie sounded just like Mati at that age, and Elaina hugged her.

Sadie’s assimilation into being a Harrington is happening a little too fast for me.

“That’s fine,” I find myself saying, although the pit of my stomach disagrees.

“You okay?” Billy asks, his forehead furrowing before we notice Sadie following another waitstaff person to a table.

“Yeah.” I sigh. It’s going to be okay, right? I tell myself this affirmation several times each day, assuring myself Billy Harrington means what he says. We will continue to work it out. He wants to recognize Sadie as his, and he’ll step up in all areas of need. We have yet to discuss a therapist. We have a lot of things we need to discuss, but he interrupts my thoughts with a question.

“You aren’t going to cancel Friday, are you?” His smile turns seductive, and I recall what we did in the front seat of his truck.

“Oh no, I’ll be there for our date.”

Over the past day, I’ve decided it will not be a booty call. We will go out to dinner like adults. We will discuss Sadie without her being in the other room. We will work out details for the future. Perhaps it won’t be a romantic date, but it’ll still be a date all the same.

“Our date,” he teases and then winks, adjusting a knit cap on his head. He looks like an older skateboarder…and a troublemaker.

+ + +

Come Friday, I don’t know how to dress for our date. He said to dress up, but I don’t have anything nicer than my everyday clothes, which qualify as mix and match material. A shopping trip might have been in order, but I didn’t have the time, and with nerves in my belly, I decide Billy gets what he gets with me.

Within one week of Sadie working at the Pub, plus piano time with Elaina, I feel her slipping away from me. Grace tried to affirm this is the life of a teenager. Always so busy, she said. But the unease won’t rest.

She’s loving the job at the pub, meeting people who don’t care about her age or her status.

She’s the boss’s kid, they tease her, but she says they don’t mean it. They’ve all been so nice.

The connection has even helped her attitude improve a little. However, I’m giving the excitement of employment time to settle. I haven’t given up the idea of a therapist. Elaina offered me a number, and I made Sadie an appointment for next week.

“Am I babysitting?” Sadie asks as she lies on my bed while I fidget with an earring.

“No, Charlie just thought it would be nice for you to get to know Lucy, and I think Elaina wants to spend more time with her granddaughters.” It feels foreign to say the word. My own mother never got to meet Sadie. Sadie never knew my mother, and the thought makes me sad. They would have loved one another, and perhaps Theresa wouldn’t have been so hard had our mother still been here when Sadie was born.

“Should I call her Grandma?” Sadie asks, and my heart pinches.

“I think you can call her whatever you’re comfortable with.” Mrs. Harrington does seem rather formal, and Elaina seems improper, but as she doesn’t call Billy dad, I think calling his mother by the title grandmother might hurt a bit.

“All of this is just a ruse so you and Billy can go on a date,” Sadie says, surprising me.

“It’s just dinner,” I clarify, putting in an earring, the string of bracelets on my wrist clattering together as I lift my arm, and I catch Sadie’s eye in the mirror.

“But you like him, right? You like each other?” Sadie hesitates, and I’m overwhelmed with how complicated my relationship with Billy has become.

“Sure, we like each other,” I assure her. United front, I tell Billy all the time.

“But I mean, you like each other like each other?” she repeats, wanting more of an explanation, and I wish I had answers for her other than it’s complicated. “Do you think you could love him?”

“Oh Sadie.” My eyes leap up to hers in the reflective glass. “Would that be weird for you? Your father and your aunt? Not to mention, no one can predict love. It just happens, and I’m not certain Billy’s a love kind of man.” He seems sensitive and passionate, but love? I think he gave his heart to Rachel and whatever happened with her, she kept it when she left.

“But it could happen,” Sadie continues. “You could fall in love, move in together, and I could live happily ever after with both of you.”

Oh boy.