Page 38 of Breaking the Rules of Love

She opens her eyes and sees me, then instantly looks angrily at Julia. “I tried to stop him,” she says.

“It’s okay,” Sadie replies, but it’s clear from her tone that it isnotokay. “Go back out front. I’ll be there inone minute.”

Julia waits for a second, but Sadie gives her a nod, and she goes back out front.

“One minute?” I ask with a grin, doing my best to be charming and relieve some of the tension. “Damn, that’s all I get?”

“You’re lucky you get that,” she says. Wow, she’s angrier than I thought she’d be. “Why are you here, Jake? I thought I made it pretty clear that I didn’t want to talk to you.”

“Yeah, you did.” I nod. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to talk to you. Doesn’t what I want mean anything to you? What about my feelings, Sadie?”

Sadie frowns and purses her lips. “You see? That’s what I’m talking about, Jake.Feelings. That’s what I told you I didn’t want from this. That’s why I have my rule.”

Her rule. That goddamn rule. If I have to hear about that rule one more time...

“Yeah, yeah,” I reply. “You don’twantto feel anything for me. But youdo. Don’t you, Sadie? That’s why you want to cut me out of your life.”

Sadie shakes her head angrily. “This is ridiculous,” she says, moving to step past me. “A minute is up. I’m done with this conversation.”

“I caught a man snooping around outside your house tonight,” I say. Sadie stops in her tracks, her hand on the door. She turns slowly and looks back at me. “He said his name was Howard.”

The look that comes over Sadie’s face shocks me. Not only that, but it confirms for me something that a half-hour ago I never would have believed.

Howard actually does know her.

26

Jake

“Howard…was at my house?”Her voice is quivering. She drops her hand from the door and steps back to me. “Wh-what did he say?”

“Not so fast, Sadie,” I reply. “Who is this guy? How does he know you?”

Sadie shakes her head. She’s really shaken up by this. Her eyes are on the ground, but it’s not like she’s trying not to look at me. It’s like she’s thinking back to her past, recounting something terrible that happened to her.

“Sadie, are you all right?” I ask, and against my better judgment, I reach in to put my arms around her. But she pushes them away.

I just can’t help myself. Every instinct I have is to comfort and protect her right now. Seeing her hurting like this is killing me too.

“Jake, don’t,” she says, her voice barely a whisper.

“Sadie–”

“What did he say?” she asks again. “What was he doing?”

Well, this is going to be tough, I think, recounting the parting line Howard left with.

“I caught him just snooping around the front lawn,” I tell her. “It kind of looked like he was checking to see if you were home. And then he said he needed to talk to you.”

Sadie scoffs and lets out a burst of laughter. She nods angrily.

“Of course he did. Ofcoursehe did.” She bites her lower lip and starts to pace in tight circles. “That issolike him. That son of a bitch.”

“Whoisthis guy, Sadie?” I press.

She stops and looks at me. “What else did he say? Was there anything else?”

This is it. The way she’s looking at me is almost like she already knows there was more, and she’s just waiting for me to come clean with it. But the last thing I want to do right now is repeat the vulgarity Howard told me to tell her.

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