Page 92 of The Sadist and the Brat

“It hurt like a son of a bitch,” Sadie said, then laughed. “But I came so hard I saw God. Fucking Doms.”

“Bastards, every last one,” Amanda said and tapped her wine glass against Sadie’s water bottle. “Here’s to ’em.”

Chapter Fourteen

On Thanksgiving Day, Sadie helped her mother divide the leftovers into Tupperware. “Mom, why don’t you buy some new containers?” she asked, scooping green beans out of a casserole dish. “These are all stained.”

“That’s because I used them for spaghetti sauce once,” Jennifer Bloom replied, elbow-deep in the big pot of mashed potatoes. Her dark brown hair was tied back in a braid, the streaks of silver that had begun to appear in the last few years gleaming. “But they’re still good.”

Sadie shook her head, knowing better than to argue. “Do you want me to save room in these containers for anything else, or should I fill them up?”

“Fill them up.” Jennifer plopped a spoonful of mashed potatoes into the container in front of her. “I can stick anything left behind in the freezer. Is this enough for you, or do you need more?”

Sadie eyed the mountain of potatoes. “Mom, don’t give me all that. It’ll go bad before I can eat it all.”

“So, put some in the freezer.” Jennifer set her spoon down and grabbed a lid. “I hate to think of you ordering in every night.”

“I don’t order ineverynight,” Sadie protested. “Sometimes I eat cereal, or macaroni and cheese. And I recently learned to make waffles.”

“Sadie, taking a package out of the freezer and shoving a frozen hunk of bread into the toaster is not ‘making waffles’.”

Sadie laughed. “Not freezer waffles, real ones made with flour and butter and milk—”

“Wait a minute.” Jennifer held up a mashed-potato-flecked hand, the hazel eyes Sadie had inherited wide with shock. “You meanactualwaffles?”

“A friend taught me,” Sadie said haughtily and began snapping lids on the green bean containers.

Jennifer’s smile went sly. “A naked friend?”

Sadie groaned. “Mom.”

“What? You think I don’t know about naked friends?” Jennifer scoffed. “Please. When I was your age, I had naked friends coming out of my…ears.”

“When you were my age, you were married with two kids,” Sadie countered.

“Okay, so I only had one naked friend by then,” Jennifer said without missing a beat. “But I had plenty when I was younger.”

“Gee, is that the time?” Sadie exclaimed and reached for the ties on her apron. “I have to go.”

“You do not,” Jennifer said. “You just don’t want to tell me about your naked friend.”

“It’s halftime,” a voice boomed, and Sadie looked up as her father bounded into the room. “Where’s dessert?”

“You get no dessert until my kitchen is clean,” Jennifer informed him, and pointed to the pile of Tupperware on the counter. “Pick something and put it away.”

“Okay.” Always agreeable, Michael Bloom began spooning gravy into a container. “What’s new, Sadie Lady?”

Smiling at the nickname, Sadie opened her mouth to answer, but her mother beat her to it. “She has a naked friend, but she doesn’t want to talk about it.”

“Why not?” Michael asked, his shaggy mop of ginger curls bouncing as he shook the last of the gravy off the spoon. “Is he weird?”

“Not weirder than you,” Sadie shot back, fumbling with the apron ties. They’d wound themselves into a knot, and she couldn’t get it undone.

“You should’ve brought him to dinner,” The gravy handled, her dad reached around his wife to pick up the turkey platter. “We could judge for ourselves.”

“Screw it, I’ll wear the apron,” Sadie decided and leaned over to kiss her mother’s cheek, then her dad’s. “Thanks for dinner, Mom. Everything was great. Dad, you got gravy on your tie.”

Michael scowled down at the stain. “Nuts.”

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