Playing for Keeps Read online

  Caleb glanced at her again, and she realized he knew her well enough to know when something was wrong. “You okay?”

  “Me? I’m great.”

  “Uh-huh.” Reaching for her hand, he gave it a squeeze, and then melted her heart when he brought their entwined fingers to his mouth and brushed his lips against her palm. “It’s going to be okay,” he said. “Parents love me.”

  She had to laugh. “Because you’re cocky?”

  “I was going to say because I’m easygoing and friendly.”

  She laughed again. “You weren’t either of those things last night in bed. In fact, you were downright demanding and bossy.”

  He sent her a badass smile that had all her good parts quivering. “Are you complaining?”

  Hell no. She’d had good sex before, and yet even good sex was somewhat predictable. But with Caleb, she never knew what to expect. He had the distinct ability to be making love to her while adding a certain level of dirty to it that kept things . . . thrilling. She never knew if he was going to get straight to business or if he’d spend long minutes worshipping her body first.

  It was . . . addicting.

  “Ready?” Caleb asked.

  No. But it was six o’clock on the dot.

  The neighborhood was made up of hardworking people and neat rows of cookie-cutter Victorian houses that had weathered the ravages of time and economic strain and gain. Caleb easily managed to parallel park into a spot that she would have never managed to get into. “Did you grow up here?” he asked.

  “Yes.” She stared at the house. “It’s not too late to make a run for it.”

  He came around and gave her a hand out of the car, pulling her into him. Lifting her chin, he looked into her eyes. “Breathe, babe. We’ve got this.”

  She was so glad he thought so. Her mom opened the front door, Sadie’s sister standing right behind her. Both were dressed up for the evening, wearing cocktail dresses in the color of the wedding—pale pink. Sadie had figured this would be the case so she’d dressed up too, but she hadn’t gotten the pink memo. She was wearing her little black dress she’d worn on her and Caleb’s first date, mostly because she liked the way his gaze heated every time he looked at her.

  Introductions were made and Sadie watched her dad join the group, as well as Clara’s fiancé, Greg. All of them were seemingly instantly taken with Caleb, who at one point glanced over at Sadie, eyes amused, like see?

  She rolled hers.

  “Caleb Parker,” her dad said. “I just saw the episode of Shark Tank where you guest starred.”

  “And oh my goodness,” her mom said, “that new app you just put out, it’s going to revolutionize the way teachers teach science in the classrooms. Too bad you can’t come up with a way to make sure kids won’t lose the art of writing in cursive.”

  Her mom could barely turn on her laptop without getting six viruses or wiring half her retirement money to a Nigerian prince, but she was worried about the lost art of cursive. A thought Sadie refrained from saying out loud. Wow. Look at her growing up.

  Her mom turned to Sadie next, expression dialed to confused as to how her daughter had managed to catch a guy so far out of her league. Clara was also staring at Caleb, who seemed perfectly at ease with the attention. “You’re drooling,” Sadie whispered beneath her breath to her sister.

  Clara grinned unabashedly. “Sorry, but he’s the hottest guy you’ve ever dated. He might be the hottest guy on the planet.”

  From behind Clara, Greg cleared his throat.

  Clara winced. “After you, baby, of course.”

  Greg’s eyes were laughing. “Of course. Did you tell Sadie the latest bridesmaid dress news?”

  Oh God. What now?

  Clara pulled out her phone and accessed her pictures. She pulled up one of Sadie in a sample of the chosen bridesmaid dress. “Do you see what I see?”

  “Um . . . that question feels like a trap.”

  “It’s actually what I don’t see,” Clara said. “I don’t see my sister.”

  Sadie stilled and lifted her gaze to Clara, whose eyes were suspiciously sparkly. “I’m sorry, Sadie,” she said softly. “I’m sorry I didn’t see it in the store. You don’t look like you. And I want you to look like you. So I ordered you the other dress. The light champagne-colored lace one that you liked.”

  “But the tattoos on the back of my shoulder and ankle will show—”

  “I want them to. They’re a part of you. I want you to look like you.”

  Sadie sucked in a breath, surprised at the wave of emotion. “Mom’s going to have a cow.”

  “It’s my wedding,” Clara said simply and hugged Sadie.

  It was the nicest moment they’d had in years.

  At dinner, the first few moments were taken up with small talk and passing the dishes around. Unlike Sadie, Caleb didn’t struggle in social situations. He could talk to a scared dog, a bitchy woman, an old guy who lived in an alley . . . He could talk to anyone and have them fall in love with him in the first ten seconds.

  She admired the hell out of that skill, not that she wanted it. “Pass the roast please?”

  Her mom lifted the tray and then hesitated to remove the sharp carving knife from it before handing it over.

  Sadie stared at her in shock and an instant heavy tension hit the table. She didn’t look over at Caleb. Couldn’t.

  “Really, Mom?” Clara finally asked into the awkward silence.

  “What? I mean yes, she looks wonderful and happy, but I’m just playing it safe. That’s what a mother does, you know.”

  Clara shook her head. “Sadie’s therapist asked you to stop with the passive aggressiveness, remember?”

  “I haven’t been forced to see a therapist in years,” Sadie said to the room.

  They all ignored this. “I don’t even know what passive aggressive means,” her mom said to Clara. “And I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  “What did you mean then?” Clara asked.

  “I just meant what I always mean,” her mom said.

  Caleb slid his hand to Sadie’s thigh beneath the table and squeezed in comfort, in solidarity. And that was sweet, but she still couldn’t look at him. Instead, she stabbed her fork into some slices of meat and loaded her plate. It’d been years since her family had learned she’d been cutting herself and taken the control of her own life from her. The nightmare of her parents’ overreaction and having her committed under the 5585—an involuntary hold of an at-risk minor—had nearly done her in.

  She’d survived, barely. And though it’d been years, her parents still did things like remove all scissors from the house and lock up the knives when she came over. Her dad had sold his gun collection. Her mom had given up knitting and thrown away her knitting needles.

  “But what about Sadie?” her mom asked.

  Great, she’d missed something. “What about Sadie what?”

  “We need everyone to be on their best behavior at the wedding,” her mom said, pointedly not looking at Sadie.

  “I will be if you will be,” Sadie said.

  Her dad started to laugh but at a look from her mom, he turned it into a cough. Her mom knocked back her glass of champagne and gave herself a refill with the last of the bottle.

  Sadie pushed back from the table and grabbed the empty. “I’ll get us another.”

  She went to the kitchen and stuck her head in the freezer to cool herself down. She knew her mother loved her, knew that her neurosis about Sadie came from a deeply seated fear that her daughter hadn’t fallen far from the tree. Her mother’d had a terrible childhood, with a mean drunk of a father and a mother who’d self-medicated with booze and pills and gone off the deep end. The fear that Sadie would do the same was very real and Sadie got that. But damn, she was tired of her mom always being on edge waiting for Sadie to crack.

  Because she wasn’t going to.

  She grabbed another bottle of champagne. As she moved back into the dining room, she heard the low rumble of