Page 3 of Love is a Game

“You can pretend you don’t care all you want,” she said, stepping closer to him, “but we both know this was the game that mattered most, and I won. Game over. In a few days we’ll walk across that stage, Haverman will announce my victory, and then I’m leaving Briar Cove and won’t ever have to see you again, which means no chance for a rematch.”

Her heartbeat pounded in her head as she stared him down, so close she could see every freckle dotted across his cheeks. She ground her teeth, waiting for him to say something.

His brown eyes gleamed as his lips twitched upward in a sudden smirk. “You’re gonna miss me, admit it.”

Sadie scowled and turned on her heel. The sound of his laughter followed her down the empty hallway.

Chapter One

Thirteen Years Later

The morning Sadie left Seattle was the first sunny day that spring. As she drove north along the freeway, the lush vegetation around her painted the city in vibrant hues of green, and the Olympic and Cascade mountain ranges were so visible, it gave the effect of being completely surrounded by snowcapped peaks. It was a perfect day for a ferry ride across the Puget Sound, even if she was apprehensive about her destination.

She arrived at the dock just in time to board with the rest of the morning commuters, parking her little sedan tightly between a cluster of motorcycles and a cargo van emblazoned with the word “Bookmobile.” Sadie had planned to stay in her car and check emails until it was time to unload, but the sun beckoned to her, and she made her way up to the deck just in time to see a family of seals slide off their buoy and slip under the water. She smiled. Spotting wildlife felt like good luck somehow. She hoped it was, because she was going to need it.

The assignment itself was nothing out of the ordinary. Sadie worked for the Maddox Hotel Company as an operations analyst, a very good one. It was her job to identify problems in underperforming hotel locations and to suggest solutions. Sometimes she could do the job from her office in Seattle, pouring over reports and data to find inefficiencies. More often, though, the problems required an in-person approach. Sadie had been sent all over the Pacific Northwest, living out of her suitcase for two or three months at a time. The Port Angeles hotel branch would be the same as any other; she’d find the problems, and she would help management implement her solutions.

Except it wasn’t the same. This time, Maddox was sending her home.

Briar Cove, the town where she’d grown up, and where her family still lived, was just a forty-five-minute drive from the hotel in Port Angeles where she would be working. Forty-five minutes was not an insignificant commute, but it was a lot less than the three hours it took to get there from Seattle. That three hours had created a comfortable buffer for Sadie, an easy excuse to see her family as little as possible.

As the ferry docked, she went back to her car and disembarked with the rest of the queue. It didn’t matter that she’d lived in Seattle for almost a decade, or that the last time she’d made the trip home was almost a year before; everything beyond the ferry terminal looked familiar to her. She made a quick stop for gas at the same little station she always went to, and then, ready or not, she headed toward to the highway to face all that was waiting for her in Briar Cove.

When she had first told her parents about this assignment, her plan was to rent a room somewhere so she wouldn’t be in their way. One of the benefits of working for a hotel chain was generous accommodations when traveling for work, and Sadie had gotten used to living in a hotel room. They had balked at the idea, though, and insisted she stay with them. She had agreed, but the idea made her uneasy. It was one thing to stay in her childhood bedroom for a weekend—not that she had even done that very often—but moving back in for a few months was something else entirely.

It wasn’t that they didn’t get along. In fact, she talked to her parents on the phone all the time. On the phone she was able to filter the details of her life, sharing the good and keeping things to herself that she knew her family would complain about. If the conversation did begin to go south, she could make up an excuse to end the call. It was much harder to end a conversation with someone sitting in the same room with you. Sadie had learned soon after leaving home that her relationship with her parents tended to be better when she kept her distance. Even so, she tried to hold on to some optimism that this extended stay would be a good thing for all of them.

By the time she pulled onto her old street, it was midafternoon. She had expected to find the house empty, but Julie’s car waited for her in the driveway. Sadie grinned. She should have known her sister would come over to greet her. As Sadie stepped out onto the concrete, Julie burst through the front door with a shriek.

“You’re here!” she cried, wrapping Sadie in a tight hug. “I’ve been waiting forever!”

“I'm early,” Sadie said with a laugh, wriggling out of her sister’s grasp.

“Come in. I was just finishing up your room.”

“My room? What did you do to it?” she asked nervously.

“Just come see,” Julie insisted, waving her inside.

“Wait, can you help me carry my things?”

“Oh, right.” Julie grabbed the smallest box from the back seat and then bounced back toward the house. Sadie shook her head and smiled, loading up her own arms before following.

Julie stood in front of the bedroom door, her eyes glowing with excitement.

Sadie braced herself for what she would find inside. Knowing Julie, it could be anything. “Please tell me you didn’t put the Ryan Gosling posters back up.”

“I would if I could find them!” Julie said, then laughed at Sadie’s wide eyes. “No, it’s good! Are you ready?”

Sadie shifted the weight in her arms and nodded. “Ready.”

Julie pushed open the door to reveal freshly painted blue walls, illuminated by delicate fairy lights twisted into a leafy garland that hung along the ceiling. A tall plant grew in the corner by the desk. It was the same desk she had used in high school, but Julie had restained it and replaced all of the old, chipped hardware with delicate metal knobs. On the wall behind the desk was a large woven tapestry, made of yarns and fibers that matched the colors of the room.

“Julie,” Sadie said breathlessly as she stepped inside. “This is incredible.”

“I’ve been begging Mom to let me redecorate in here for ages. She finally agreed when she found out you were coming.”

Sadie pointed to the tapestry. “This is one of yours?”

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