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SADIE
“So,” Ward flopped down on the bed in his guest room, “what are you going to say when you see him?”
“I don’t know. I’m hoping the right words come to me when I lay eyes on him again.” I grabbed my hoodie, folded it up, and stuffed it into my duffel bag to give myself something to do with my hands. The truth was that I was too nervous to even imagine how things might go. I avoided letting my mind run wild with all the possible outcomes.
“One, I still think you should have packed the red sequin dress.” Ward had stopped by my apartment with me after we cleared out at HypeKey and helped me pack—if you considered critiquing all my wardrobe choices for not showing enough leg helping. He’d insisted I stay over at his place tonight so we could celebrate both of us quitting on the same day, and to formulate my plan of attack for returning to Kelly Bay. “And two, you can’t go into this thing cold. You need a whole speech planned out.”
I lined up my boarding pass and wallet on the corner of the writing desk and set my duffel bag on the chair. My toiletry bag was on the counter in the bathroom, and I’d add it to the duffel in the morning after I was all dressed. My clothes for tomorrow hung from a hook on the front of the closet door. Ward had offered to drive me to the airport in the morning so I wouldn’t have to deal with the subway. It had started raining right after we left HypeKey and the forecast said it was likely to continue for the next two days. He told me I couldn’t expect to win Drew back if I “showed up looking like a drowned rat who’s been on public transportation all day.”
There was nothing left for me to prepare for tomorrow besides figuring out the words I needed to say to Drew.
“How about if I speak from the heart?” I offered.
“Of course you should speak from the heart. But sometimes your heart could use a little…polish.”
“Rude.” I laughed.
“Maybe. But you know I’m right. You go all babble-y stream of consciousness when you’re super nervous.”
“Truth.” I flopped down on the bed next to him.
Before we could hash out my big speech, a loud banging came from downstairs followed by someone ringing the doorbell repeatedly.
“I swear, every third overnight that man forgets something and manages to lock himself out of the house.”
Ward jumped up and left the room to go let Mike in while I lay there and debated what I was going to say to Drew once I got back to Kelly Bay.
“Sadie,” Ward called from downstairs, “you’re needed at the front door.”
I frowned but pulled myself off the bed and trudged down the stairs. “What’s going—” The words died in my throat.
I was three steps from the bottom of the stairs when the sight at the front door stopped me in my tracks.
Drew stood on the porch of Ward’s brownstone. His hair, wet from the rain, glistened like onyx. His blue eyes—bright and sharp—captured mine, and my heart galloped in my chest.
My eyes roved, cataloging all his features as I descended the last few steps. Somehow his cheekbones looked impossibly sharper than before. The dark circles under his eyes and his disheveled appearance told me he’d had a rough few days since the last time I saw him.
Was everyone in Kelly Bay angry with him because of me and those articles?
Did he retreat back into his recluse lifestyle?
What was he even doing here?
My brain struggled to compute the situation. It didn’t seem possible we’d been apart for less than a week when there was a lifetime’s worth of unspoken words filling the space between us.
But holy shit, Drew was in New York.
The memory of our last encounter came slamming into me. As much as I would love nothing more than for him to scoop me up in his arms and kiss me until I couldn’t see straight, I didn’t know why he was here. I didn’t have some poignant speech figured out, and if I said the wrong thing and he shut me down again, I couldn’t live through it a second time.
Better to handle things cautiously. If he was here, that must mean he wanted to talk. Maybe once I’d given him a chance to say his piece, then he’d hear me out.
“What are you doing here?” I hadn’t meant for it to sound like an accusation, but it did.
“You weren’t at your apartment.”
“I meant in New Yo— Wait. You went to my apartment? How do you know where my apartment is?”
“Brenda gave me your address. And Ward’s, in case you weren’t home. And Ward’s phone number in case you weren’t here. That would’ve been the next step.” He cast a sheepish glance at Ward and shrugged.
