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Sabrina couldn’t look away, so drawn in by the earnestness in his eyes that she felt completely encapsulated in warmth and love. She’d never felt that way with anyone before, and down deep inside, she was aware that she could get lost in that feeling if she allowed it.
William sighed, as if to impart a huge secret. “I realize now that you think we’ve stormed into your life and are trying to somehow take it over, to push you to our agenda, but the only agenda we have right now is figuring out how to keep you, to convince you that you want us, all of us, for the long haul. All we want to do is love you, Sabrina.”
She blinked several times, the fog in her mind thick and dense. She wasn’t even sure she had heard him right, let alone confident in her decision-making skills. Had she read them all wrong? Had she convicted them without due process, without giving them the chance to explain? Yes, she had done those things, and she’d been righteous in her belief that she was making the right choice, but now…she wasn’t so sure.
Stepping back, she placed much needed distance between them in an attempt to unmuddy her thoughts. “I thought…I talked to my dad and he said…” She frowned, revisiting their conversation. Had she somehow gotten it all wrong? Emotions had been running high. It was possible she’d jumped to the worst possible conclusions and saw warning flags where none existed.
“What did your dad say?” Oliver’s voice was soft, calm, unlike Sabrina’s tumultuous emotions. She wanted to run into his arms and let him hold her until she didn’t feel any of those things anymore.
Scrubbing two fingers between her brows to relieve the tension that had settled there, she said, “Someone knows about us. That we were…together.”
“What? How?” William sounded angry again, disbelieving. Then, he grew insistent. “Sabrina, we never said anything. We wouldn’t do that. That’s a decision for all of us to make…together.”
“We know how unconventional all of this is,” Oliver added, sounding more assertive than she’d ever heard him. “And we know how this would impact you if it got out. We wouldn’t do that to you.”
“Ever.”
The ferocity of their claims was the second step in her undoing, dialing down Sabrina’s indignation and sowing more seeds of self-doubt. She felt as if she were losing her mind, unable to remember a time when she’d ever miscalculated anything as poorly as she had this.
“I…I don’t know what to say.”Or feel. Sabrina was filled with confusion. She hadn’t wanted to believe they would betray her, but once she had reached that conclusion, it was hard to let it go. What if they were lying? What if this was a deflection from the truth? She would be a fool to believe them, if that were the case. But if she didn’t believe them, she could be throwing away a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity at the ultimate form of happiness.
In that moment, all Sabrina could think was, “WWJD?” Translation: What would Janet do? They’d often served as each other’s compass, especially when life got tough. It was always easier for an outside party to see what wasn’t obvious to the person closest to the problem. In this case, Sabrina needed to know if she should throw out her suppositions that had, so far, zero proof to back them up, or if she should hold strong and kick their asses to the curb.
“Say that you believe us,” Oliver said, eyes pleading.
Sabrina’s heart clenched, and if it possessed arms, she imagined it would have reached out to embrace him. But when was a heart ever smart? She had to use her head in this matter, even if it went against her every instinct to take their word at face value.
“‘Brina—”
Sabrina’s hand shot up, palm out, to stop William. She couldn’t think with the two of them standing in front of her, influencing her position. She needed distance, a moment of quiet just to think.
“I need to make a call. Excuse me.”
She didn’t hang around to wait for or listen to their questions or comments. Sabrina brushed past William and swiped her cell phone off the kitchen counter, then she beat a path to the bathroom where there was a lock on the door and an exhaust fan to dampen her conversation.
Sitting on the closed toilet lid, she dialed the number she knew by heart. “Please be home. Please be home. Please be—”
“Hey, ‘Brina—”
“Jan! Thank God.” The sound of her friend’s voice was a balm to her frazzled nerves. “I need advice.”
“Twice in one week? Man, I must be good.”
“At this rate, you may need to start charging for your services.”
“I’m thinking twenty an hour to start.”
Sabrina wanted to laugh, but she was too high-strung for such levity. “I have a problem.”
She went on to explain the whole situation—what her father told her, the plane trip, the guys showing up and their explanation. By the time she’d laid it all bare, her jumbled feelings included, she felt like a weight had been lifted, even though nothing had been sorted out yet.
“Wow, well…what a mess, for starters.” Jan, ever the helpful one, stated plainly. “I can certainly see why you’re discombobulated. And even though I’ve been admiring your life’s direction up to this point, I do not envy the position you’re in now.”
“Any advice?” Sabrina was hopeful, even though Janet’s dialogue wasn’t offering much to go on.
“This is a real head-scratcher…I guess I’d say…what does your heart tell you?”
“That’s the problem,” Sabrina lamented. “It wants to believe them, but logically, I know they could easily be feeding me lies just to keep up the ruse long enough to finish enacting their plan. I can’t afford to be stupid about this. There’s too much on the line.”
