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“Who’s to say what was and wasn’t supposed to happen between us, Sadie?” I cut in quickly before she could say something she didn’t mean, staring at her veiled profile in the low light of the waiting room. “Who’s to say how we should feel about each other and what we should or shouldn’t do about it?”
“Wait, how we feel about each other?” Sadie looked at me, blinking, and I could see a minuscule glimmer of hope blooming over her pretty face and a flush of pink blush spreading over her cheeks. “Connor, what do you mean by that?”
I wondered if she had ever planned on telling me whether she cared for me or not.
Probably not. Having sex with someone and being attracted to them were worlds away from being in love with them, and it seemed that Sadie found it easy to admit that she wanted me, rather than anything else. I remembered her burning words under the hot stream of water in the shower and I shifted in my seat, forcing myself to stop imagining her warm skin pressed against me. She must have thought I was after the same thing and she wanted to clear it up with me. Again, I wanted to laugh.
“Sadie, listen. I want you to know that I really do…” I started confidently, ready to let her know the hard truth of the matter. Alex’s words of telling me how I really felt about her rang continuously in my mind and I knew it was the right thing to do. Even with the threat of her rejection, at least I could say that I had been man enough to let her know what I felt about her. I couldn’t imagine keeping the hot ball of burning emotion inside of me much longer anyway.
The soft, high cry of a baby’s voice stopped me in my tracks and we both turned toward the sound.
“He’s a real beauty of a baby boy,” Ben said from the waiting room doorway. There was a wrapped bundle in a blue blanket cradled in his arms. He looked up at us with tear-filled eyes. “Our Sammy.”
I knew the conversation was most likely over with and I resigned myself to not knowing what exactly I had been about to say to her. Was it a confession of love? It didn’t really even matter anymore, I thought. I knew what I felt for her and I could guess that she felt similarly for me. There was too much tension between us for it to be anything else. Something had been building in the space between us, like static electricity in the air. We needed to settle it before the heat became too much to bear. I wanted her and I would be damned if I went back home without letting her know the truth of the matter. I wondered about the oddness of it all. I had never thought of anyone the way I did Sadie. A lot of women had come through my life, a lot more than I cared to admit. They never meant anything to me, though. They were warm bodies and I had been the same to them. I couldn’t find it in me to be afraid of the way I felt even though I knew that if I voiced my feelings, it could be the end of whatever tentative sort of partnership I had with Sadie. We were like best friends, we had grown as close as I was to Jack. Though I didn’t also want Jack lying warm in my bed. I coughed, snorting out a laugh as I tried to shake that image from my mind.
Sadie looked away from me suddenly and bounded across the room on light feet, forgetting our conversation entirely, it seemed. She touched the baby and cooed softly over his chubby little face. Her father handed the baby over to her and she moved carefully into another waiting room chair, far away from me. Sadie rocked the gurgling newborn back and forth, and I could hear her and her father talking quietly in the corner of the room where the soft glare of the TV was not so bright. I let them have their moment of softness. It was a sort of pure love that was almost unknown to me, as I watched them hold the baby and smile over him. Sadie was glowing as she held her brother’s son, bright as a burning star that had fallen to earth. Suddenly, an intrusive thought came of Sadie holding our child and what a beautiful mother she would make. What the hell? I shook my head and sat back in my chair. I sighed long-sufferingly, wondering if we would ever figure out what was between us or if we would forever remain here, stuck still in the tension-filled limbo of our oddly serious friendship.
