Page 118 of More than Need

“Of Richard. I’d thought about one for you too. Makes sense now why Dawson didn’t want to do that one with me. The point is that we’ve been close our whole lives. He was there for me when I found out aboutyou. Knew how torn up about all of it I am. And then he sleeps with you behind my back, and I can’t… I can’t understand it.”

“Maybe you don’t have to,” Riley said. “You’re both adults now. He doesn’t answer to you.”

“I know that,” she said defensively.

“He didn’t do it to hurt you. And I certainly never meant for it to happen. He is supremely annoying.” Riley had wanted to shut Dawson’s mouth, in one way or another, their entire relationship. Even when he’d shown up drunk at the precinct.

Sadie laughed. “He’s an acquired taste.” She sobered and stopped swinging. “Are you—do you have feelings for him? Or was this some weird revenge thing?”

“I’m not so petty as to do something like that.” What he and Dawson did had nothing to do with her, in any way.

“I don’t want you to hurt him,” Sadie said. “No matter what he’s done—because he’s always getting himself into things he shouldn’t—he doesn’t deserve that.”

“I could say the same thing to you. If you’re looking for me to say that I won’t, then I’ll have to disappoint you. Those kinds of words are meaningless; we don’t know what will happen in the future, and making those kinds of guarantees will inevitably make me a liar.”

“You know, I can’t tell if you’re an asshole or not.”

“I am.” He spoke the truth, even when others didn’t want to listen. He’d never been one for sugarcoating his words or using lies to make someone feel better. Quinn had always been better at dealing with people who were grieving than he’d been. His detective—and longtime friend—worked well with surlier partners because he complemented them with his calm levelheadedness.

Sadie snorted out a laugh. She started swinging again, kicking her feet up. “I know this is hard for you. It’s hard for me too. The sibling thing, and the being pregnant thing, and my best friend thing. Don’t take him away from me.”

“That’s up to you,” Riley said. If she chose to continue making it an issue, then their friendship would deteriorate because of it, and that had nothing to do with him.

“And you?”

“What about me?”

“Will you talk to me again?”

Riley stared at the empty playground equipment and the road that led to where Gideon and Dawson waited. “I don’t know you. Part of me doesn’t want to know you.”

“And the other part?” she asked tentatively.

“The other part wonders what I missed too,” he admitted. “I can’t promise anything.”

“I’m not asking you to. I’m just asking you to try. For us and for Dawson. He’s stuck in the middle of this.”

Riley had never meant him to be. But he couldn’t deny that Dawson bridged the gap in a way nothing else would have.

“I didn’t get to annoy you as a kid, and I think it’s only fair I get the opportunity to do it now.”

Riley sent her a sardonic look, and she laughed. A start. Whether a good or bad one, only time would tell.

Riley and Gideon wenton ahead without him, and Dawson spent a whole ten minutes pacing, wondering whether he should go talk to Sadie at the park or wait till she got home.

They’d spent a lot of time conversing there. The park wasn’t used much, except for that brief period after school when parents were trying to tire their kids out before they took them home. They’d thought of it as “theirs.” Now he didn’t know if she’d welcome him there.

After another five minutes, he snatched up his keys and headed outside. “Don’t be a fucking coward, Dawson,” he muttered to himself. She couldn’t yell at him if they were in public, right?

He found her on her favourite swing—the right. She said it swung better, but he’d sat on it once when he’d gone without her, and it felt exactly the same as the left.

Dawson carefully sat in the swing beside her. When she didn’t say a word, he figured he had to start this. “Sadie, I’m so sorry.”

Her lips flattened, and she still wouldn’t look at him. “For what?” she asked sharply. “Sleeping with my brother, or lying to me about it?”

“I… I can’t be sorry about what happened with him. Iamsorry that it ended up hurting you. I thought I could keep it separate, and I mean, of course, I couldn’t, but I thought I could.” He shrugged helplessly. It’s not like the fact he’d been an idiot came as a surprise. He’d known all along and still run headlong into it. “I didn’t know what to do, and he’s…” Magnetic. So damn appealing. He’d drawn Dawson in, and he hadn’t exactly tried very hard, if at all, to resist the pull.

“I might have understood,” Sadie said quietly. “If you’d just told me. Maybe I wouldn’t have, I don’t know, but you should have at least given me the chance to decide without being blindsided by it like that.” Her face wrinkled. “Especially not by seeing you all but fucking against the wall. I don’t want to see you like that. Or him. You’re like a brother to me too.”

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