Page 18 of Top Shelf

Well, she doesn’t knoweverything.But she knows that if she would have stayed, I would have worshiped the ground she walked on. I would have worshipedher.She knows that when she left, she took part of me with her. Neither of us have spoken a word about it. But we don’t have to.

I keep smiling, stroking her hand with my thumb.

I want to keep it playful.

I have to so I don’t get too deep into this.

I need to keep it surface level.

“I’ll play house with you, Blackwell,” I tell her. “But I’m warning you, I make a pretty good fake boyfriend. Better be careful you don’t fall head over heels.”

CHAPTERNINE

sadie

I won’t admitthat I had butterflies the whole ride back to the bar.

I won’t admit that half of me was hoping he’d lay one on me when we said goodbye—ya know, just in case someone was watching.

And since he told me he would call me as soon as he talked to Levi, I won’t admit that I have had my phone in my hands since.

And as much as I want my scumbag of a husband to hightail it back to the West Coast, I won’t admit that there is a small part of me that wouldn’t terribly mind being Tyson Calway’s girlfriend—even if it is all pretend.

The next morning, I’m back on my computer, applying for my fifth job of the day, when my phone buzzes. I practically leap over the kitchen table, making my dad look over the rims of his glasses suspiciously.

“Sorry,” I mutter. “I thought it might be someone from one of these jobs.”

“You wouldn’t need a job if you’d kept your husband,” my mother chimes in—unsolicited as always—as she walks through the kitchen, her high heels clicking across the tile. I feel the hair on the back of my neck rise, just as it always does in her presence. She was the reason I spent so much time at friends’ houses growing up. No one had a mother quite like my mom. No one had a mom that was so passive-aggressively damaging.Especiallynot Mrs. Calway—either of them.

Tyson’s mom passed away when we were in high school, but she was such a free-spirited woman. She loved her family so fiercely, but not in a way that made them scared or anxious in their own home. I remember, she was the first woman I had ever been around that didn’t wear makeup. She wore flannel shirts and jeans, but I remember thinking she was the most beautiful woman in the world. Her and Mr. C. didn’t go out much, but they never seemed to be missing out on anything.

And most of all, they wereniceto their kids.

When she died, Mr. C. got remarried to another woman. She was vastly different from the OG Mrs. C., but she took in the Calway kids like they came from her. And the way she loved her own daughter was nothing like I had ever seen. A mom who breathed confidence and adoration into her kids with every move she made.

And then whenshepassed away too, all of that love stayed with them. All of them. And it made its way through to one of my favorite people on the entire planet: Tyson.

Here I am, in my thirties, trying to undo the damage my mom caused me while simultaneously living with her.

I have given myself three months to find a full-time job. And if I don’t, my plan is to ask for more hours at the coffee shop or take on another part-time job. I will do anything to be out on my own. To be able to breathe in my own environment without being shrouded in the constant feeling of not being enough.

“Ah, yes,” I say, sipping my coffee, “my mother, ladies and gentlemen, with the ever-helpful, confidence-building comments.”

She scoffs as she grabs one of her shakes out of the fridge.

That’s the other fun part about my mom.

She’s tiny.

I’m built more like the women on my dad’s side—a little curvy, pretty big boobs.

But Debbie Blackwell? That woman has a figure most twenty-somethings would die for. Of course, I know it’s because she eats less calories per day than a toddler should. And when I was a teenager, before I got taller, she’d ever so gently remind me that I should “snack a little less” and “move a little more.”

That was fun.

I look down at my phone, and to my delight, I see Tyson’s name. I scramble to open the message.

Are you free for a quick call?

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