The loft door opened at the turn of her key in the latch, metal grinding on metal. A strange sense of solace instantly furled around Hazel, tugging her over the threshold. She didn’t get much farther than a first step.
The sound of Sadie’s tittering laugh echoed down the bookshelf-lined hallway that led to Dylan’s bedroom.
Hazel froze with the loft key in hand, ears prickling. The cheerful guffaw rang out again.
Feeling as if she were an intruder, Hazel set out in the direction of the merriment. John Grisham novels and cookbooks promising to reveal the secrets of the best way to braise duck filets gave way to the sight of Sadie sitting up in bed like a Victorian damsel, teacup in hand. Dylan had drawn his chair close to the bed. His back was to the door for only an instant, but it was enough to etch the image onto the inside of Hazel’s eyelids.
Then Dylan twisted around.
“Hey, you’re home.” He seemed surprised by this turn of events.
“Yeah…” Hazel nodded to the cards strewn over the bedding. “Poker?”
“Go Fish,” Sadie corrected. “Hi.”
Without any makeup and surrounded by white bed sheets, Sadie looked pallid and washed out, her hair limp against the sides of her face. Hazel found her gaze tugged to the ugly goose egg swelling on Sadie’s cheek.
Sadie must’ve noticed, because she glanced away—to Dylan. “Could you give us a minute?”
“Sure.” He was quick to rise, folding up his hand and laying the cards on the bedside table next to the stylish white teapot. “I’ll get dinner going,” he told Hazel, leaning in to kiss her temple.
She smiled. “I’ll come help you—”
“No, you just got off work. Talk,” Dylan urged. “Promise I won’t set anything on fire.”
Left alone with Sadie, Hazel hesitated a moment before nudging the door shut. “How’re you feeling?” Oblique politeness was the best she could do. Ugly, selfish thoughts snarled at the back of her mind, like snakes in a feeding frenzy.
“Tired,” Sadie admitted. “Although I slept most of the day away. I, uh, woke up a couple of hours ago. Dylan said you went to work.”
“Yeah. Don’t worry, I told Marco you were sick.”
Sadie smiled crookedly. “Thanks for covering for me.”
It’s not the first time.
In the hours since they had found Sadie weeping in the dirt, Hazel had gone from relief to rage to bewilderment, a rinse cycle of emotions that chased each other in endless revolutions. After a moment’s dithering, she drew Dylan’s chair back and sat gingerly at the end of his bed, her elbows propped on her knees. “You gave me such a scare, Sadie.”
What were you thinking? Why did you go up there?
She was afraid to ask, should the answer be as terrible as she imagined.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“I don’t understand what happened. You were fine when I left…”
“Do we have to talk about it?” Sadie asked, turning to place her teacup on the bedside table. Her bruised cheek caught the light from the reading lamp as she did so, puffy skin gleaming a worrisome reddish-purple. There was no way it would fade in twenty-four hours.
Hazel forced her questions behind a locked door. “No. Of course not. We can pretend it never happened.”
“Worked for you, didn’t it?” Sadie shot back. She might have been laid low, her heart in tatters and her pretty face marred, but she wasn’t defeated.
If she hadn’t found her in Dylan’s bed, being so chummy, Hazel might have been relieved. As it stood, she had to take a deep breath and find some way to clamp down on the startling flash of anger that threatened to kindle in her chest.
“You know it didn’t,” she said instead.
Sadie was the only friend who had seen her through her darkest hours in college. She hadn’t known how bad Hazel’s relationship had gotten—no one had—but later, she had given Hazel the benefit of the doubt and helped her with a job, a foothold in the world. Neither of them were well-off or shattering any glass ceilings, but they had each other. Sadie had once helped Hazel pack up her dorm room and leave St. Louis. She had witnessed Hazel’s exodus back to their hometown and not asked any questions.
Hazel owed her that much.
“You’ll never guess who I saw in Dunby,” she put in with false cheer, eager to change the subject before they said something they might regret.
“Mother Theresa?” Sadie guessed.
“No—”
“Jesus? No, I know—
Elvis
?”
Hazel rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t conceal a smile. They often played this game. “Malcolm…and Penelope.”
It hadn’t been the happiest surprise, but reliving the memory was worth the lingering hurt just to see Sadie’s eyes widen in disbelief.
“No way.”
“Way. Daddy and him have some sort of deal going.” Hazel toed off her sneakers and propped her feet up on the bed spread. “We had dinner together. Mom served tenderloin steak and fresh herbs from the garden. One big happy family…”
Sadie sat back against the mound of pillows, jaw a little slack. “Shit… Did, uh, did Malcolm say anything?”
“About fucking with my mind and messing me up for life?” Hazel shook her head. “Not exactly dinner table conversation.” She left out the part where her college sweetheart had done his utmost to corner her in private and twist the knife in a still-open wound. Sadie didn’t need to think about evil men just now. “Penny looked good, though.”
“
Penny
?” Sadie repeated, grinning.
“It’s what he calls her. God, you should see them together,” Hazel groaned, draping herself across the foot of the bed on her side. “They’re so mushy and all over each other, ugh. They’ve even started to look like they hatched from the same egg.”
“I can’t believe he’s still with her. Weren’t you two—?”
“At the same time,” Hazel confirmed. “Malcolm always was a
playa
.” There was more to it than that, but this was not the time to dredge up the ugliness of the past. The present could do with a bit of a makeover, too.
Sadie giggled, then winced, raising a hand to her cheek. “Ow, it hurts to laugh…”
Didn’t sound like it when you were with Dylan.
The thought stabbed through Hazel like a needle. She propped herself up onto an elbow, restless. It felt strange to lie in Dylan’s bed and gossip with Sadie as they might have done in junior high, had they been friends back then.
Looking back, Hazel couldn’t remember why they’d kept to their separate cliques. She supposed it had had something to do with the Dunby caste system, that rigid and unscientific taxonomy of broods determined by ancestry and the caprices of town gossips.
“Have I thanked you yet?” Sadie asked out of the blue, the corners of her lips still turned up. “You didn’t have to come get me—”
“Like hell I didn’t,” Hazel scoffed. She flicked Sadie’s knee with a fingertip. “You had my car, remember?”
Sadie had been borrowing it ever since she’d wrapped her own around a tree one night. She had always claimed it was an accident—one from which she had emerged miraculously whole—but after this morning’s race to find her, Hazel had her doubts. It was one more topic that they didn’t touch with a ten-foot pole.
Can’t say we didn’t learn from our mothers…
“You feel up to helping with dinner?” Hazel wondered.
“You mean I shouldn’t stay in bed and wallow all day and all night?”
There was some truth to that, but Hazel was under no obligation to acknowledge it. “You can wallow all you like, but I don’t trust Dylan with a hot skillet.” With a sudden burst of energy that was mostly just willpower, Hazel pushed herself upright. “Come on. He needs someone to keep an eye on him.”
Sadie arched a skeptical eyebrow. “Really?”
“Oh, yeah. He’s hopeless on his own.” Hazel pulled her up by the hand, noticing in passing that Sadie was wearing one of her shirts and a pair of boxers borrowed from Dylan. Like an unpinned grenade, she flung the flare of envy that stirred in her chest wide, hoping the shrapnel wouldn’t embed in her flesh.
Sadie was her friend. That took precedence.
* * * *
Dinner at the loft was rarely formal enough to call for setting the table or trotting out the cloth napkins. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise that Ward and Dylan wanted to make an effort when they had guests. Dylan couched the suggestion in a vague, “I just think it’d be nice.”
Ward, for his part, stopped at claiming that he’d been raised right, which apparently meant proper suppers and digging out the good silver. It didn’t stop him leaning against Hazel’s flank as she arranged the cutlery and whispering, “I’ve always been fond of this table,” in her ear.
A shiver raced down her spine at the innuendo that edged his voice.
“I bet you are,” she volleyed once Ward had retreated and she could breathe again. It was too late to pretend she hadn’t felt the full force of his quip.
She remembered the last time they’d used the table quite clearly. It hadn’t been for its intended purpose. Barely twenty-four hours ago, Hazel had tasted the wood while Dylan had moved inside her, his thrusts picking up speed.
Discreetly, she pressed a hand to the joint of thigh and hip, sighing on the delicious flicker of pain that flamed beneath her skin.
“I gotta admit,” Sadie blurted once they finally sat down to enjoy the fruit of Dylan’s labors. “I really thought this was going to be
so
weird.”
“Why?” Ward asked nonchalantly, passing her the bowl of sautéed kale and artichoke.
Dylan anticipated her answer. “Because of you. She was warned.”
Hazel nodded, sucking her cheeks in to fight off a rebellious smile. Teasing Ward was generally a safe pursuit. He wasn’t quick to take offense and he gave back as good as he got. His weak spots were easily avoided. As long as Hazel didn’t bring Dylan into her jokes, Ward would put up with a lot.
But Sadie didn’t know that and instead of rolling with the needling, she scoffed, “No, you guys… Just, everything. My best friend is dating two dudes. You gotta admit that’s weird.”
“It’s a little unorthodox,” Dylan agreed.
“And crowded, right?” Sadie pressed, gesturing with her fork. “I totally get the appeal, but the logistics seem so complicated. Like, how do you decide who does the dishes or who gets to pick the channel when you watch TV? Hard enough with two people—”
Hazel reached for her glass. “We manage.” There wasn’t much she could do to bring an end to Sadie’s queries. Once something caught her interest, she was like a dynamo, churning away to dig up all there was to know about that thing—that someone.
It was how she had eventually pried Hazel’s secrets from the tight clutch of her hands. “
I know something happened. You can tell me. I won’t judge.”
To her credit, Sadie had been a woman of her word.
Hazel all but cringed as her best friend rounded on Ward.
“You went to college with Dylan, right?” she asked, blunt and shameless.
“
He
went to college with
me
,” Ward replied.
“So you guys hooked up back then or what?” Sadie swirled her fork through the emerald strips of kale on her plate. She didn’t seem convinced by the texture and had yet to take a single bite. “I mean, no judgment. I’m all about free love and all that. Guy on guy? That’s cool. Not my usual thing, but if Hazel likes it, that’s what matters, right?”
Less than accidentally, Hazel tipped over her glass. Water streamed all over her placemat and Ward’s plate. “Oh, crap…” In the flurry of activity that ensued to mop up the spill before it dripped to the hardwood boards beneath the table, she flashed Sadie a glare.
Stop it.
“I’ll get the paper towels,” Ward sighed, pushing his chair back with a screech of wood on wood.
“I’ll help.” Hazel rose with him, heart sinking like a stone when she registered the dark twist to his features. “I’m so sorry. I swear I haven’t told her anything.” The circumstances in which Dylan and Ward had become Dylan-and-Ward were not, she’d understood early on in her relationship with them, up for public debate. She could keep that secret as Ward had kept hers. It was the least she owed him. “Ward—”
“It’s fine,” he said, in a voice that made it sound like the exact opposite.
Hazel caught his arm. “Look, just hang in there an hour more. Please? Then I’ll drive her home and we can pretend none of this ever happened. She means well,” Hazel added, as though that tiny detail might sweeten the bitter pill.
Protective didn’t begin to cover Ward’s complicated feelings for Dylan. Whether or not they were returned—and Hazel had her suspicions, but she didn’t want to rock this particular boat—it still hit too close to home to have Sadie pry.
“I told you,” Ward insisted, “I’m fine.” The smile he plastered onto his wide mouth was more sharkish than friendly.
Hazel smothered a groan and trudged back to the table.
Sadie pointed an accusing finger as soon as their eyes met.
“You
didn’t tell me Dylan spoke Mandarin.”
“I know a
little
Mandarin,” Dylan corrected, cheeks dimpling as he grinned at the woman beside him. “I took classes and listened to a few tapes. That hardly means—”
Undaunted, Sadie launched into a stream of fluent Mandarin that left both Hazel and Ward trading confused glances as they dealt with the spill. Dylan, for his part, burst out laughing.
“Okay, I got
that
part. Um…” He twisted in his chair as he gathered his thoughts, resting a hand on the back of Sadie’s seat.
The reply he formulated in Mandarin was more halting than Sadie’s, but no less incomprehensible.
“Anyone else get the feeling they’re being discussed in
foreign
?” Ward quipped, casually helping himself to a wedge of artichoke from Dylan’s plate.
Hazel smirked. “So sayeth the Green Card holder.”
She couldn’t tell if they were making light of something that had them both worried or if she was the only one fretting while Ward, always confident in himself and Dylan’s devotion, tried to reclaim the spotlight.
It didn’t work.
Over the next minutes, it quickly became apparent that Dylan and Sadie had found something of a kindred spirit in one another and though they occasionally tried to translate for their audience, there was no disguising the connection that flowed between them as they maneuvered around the sharp consonants and lilting vowels. Sadie claimed Dylan spoke very well, a charge he brushed off with a wave of his hand. She also claimed he had a northern accent.