Jack & Sadie

by JB Salsbury

  Jack & Sadie

  JB Salsbury

  Copyright © 2019 by JB Salsbury LLC

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover Design: Pixel Mischief Design

  Edit: Joy Editing

  Proofread: Read by Rose

  To my Fighting Girls

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Epilogue

  Where it All Began

  Also by JB Salsbury

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  High School Graduation

  Jack

  Tonight is the night we’ve been counting down to for the last four years. The culmination of our adolescence, the big send-off into adulthood.

  High school graduation.

  As much as I’ve looked forward to my last days at Las Vegas High, these last few months, I’ve found myself wishing time would slow and the end would drag out a little longer. All because of one girl.

  My girl.

  Sadie Slade.

  Our parents being best friends, we were practically raised together. I can’t remember a single day when I haven’t been in love with her. Even when she was an obnoxious little brat who would dress my Transformers in Barbie clothes, I loved her. And when she went through the awkward stage in middle school—braces, bad haircuts, and long, lanky legs—I loved her still.

  As I watch her across her parents’ backyard, her hair wet from the pool and hanging over her conservative one-piece bathing suit—yeah, you got it. I still fucking love her.

  “Here.” My best friend, Tanner, drops onto the poolside barstool next to me.

  The guy is a doppelganger for Archie from Riverdale, but with brown hair instead of red. We’ve been friends since elementary school and are headed to the same college. The only difference is I got in on merit and he was grandfathered in—literally. His grandfather wrote a hefty check.

  He hands me a blue Gatorade that’s more vodka than electrolytes. “You’ll need more of this if you’re going to make it through this horrible playlist.”

  I take the drink and suck back a few gulps, unable to take my eyes off Sadie as she talks to our high school’s quarterback as if he’s actually saying something of substance for once. She’s a fucking angel. “My girl loves her eighties music.”

  Sadie’s parents had agreed to host the graduating class’s after party. They had it catered by the school’s favorite pizza place. There’s a dance floor, frosty beverages in every flavor, and a DJ who spins all of Sadie’s antiquated requests.

  “You know, if you’re not creeping her out by staring at her all night, you sure as shit are creeping me out.”

  I down another few gulps, feeling the burn as liquor warms my stomach. “Can’t help it.” I hand him back the bottle. “Look at her.”

  Sadie Slade is an amusement park for the senses—the way she moves, the way she laughs, the little shifts in her expression as she talks.

  He chuckles. “Dude. You are so whipped. How do you expect to survive without her for four years?”

  Those words deliver a blow to my chest so devastating it takes away the heat of my buzz and replaces it with that all-too-familiar ache. I snag the bottle back and chug it. “Don’t talk about it.”

  Her ears must be burning because her eyes find me through the sea of graduated seniors. Her makeup-free face seems to glow under the strings of lights above her head, and right on cue, the piano opens to our song. “Can’t Fight this Feeling” by REO Speedwagon pours from the speakers. She smiles, and I shake my head slowly, a big-ass goofy grin pulling my lips so hard I can feel the air hit my molars.

  “God, you two are like a cheesy teen movie,” Tanner mumbles.

  I ignore his dumb ass. He’s jealous. I’m used to guys envying me because they all wish they had Sadie, but she’s only ever had eyes for me. How the fuck did I get so lucky?

  With a slight jerk of my head, I ask her silently to come to me. Her answering smile is bashful and gets my blood pumping. She excuses herself from the conversation and slips away. Her long, lean body seems to float as she walks toward me.

  I always thought she moved as though her feet never touched the ground and figured she’d be an excellent dancer. I was wrong. She hates being the center of attention and prefers hours alone in front of a canvas or with her head buried in a sketchbook.

  As she makes her way through the crowd, she’s hugged by girls and gawked at by boys. Despite her introverted approach toward life, she’s loved by everyone who knows her. I suppose it should bother me, but it never has because of one simple and well-known fact.

  Sadie has always been mine.

  She stops at arm’s length and eyes Tanner. “What’s in the bottle?” Her gorgeous blue-green eyes come to me. “And why are you guys being anti-social?”

  I snag her hand and tug her between my knees. She smells like coconut with a hint of chlorine. “It’s only vodka, and we’re not being anti-social. I’m ready for this party to thin out so I can spend some time alone with you.” Even though her parents could be watching from any of the dozens of windows at the back of the house, I pull her tightly between my thighs and slide my hands around her waist. “Did you play this song for us?”

  Don’t grab her ass. I fist my hands at her spine. I want to be respectful. If I’m not, my mom and dad will kick my ass. That is, if Sadie’s parents don’t get to me first. But we’re both eighteen, and we’ve been an official couple since Sadie’s seventeenth birthday. So I keep my hands where anyone who’s looking can see them, and she does the same. But as soon as we’re alone—

  “Of course I did. It’s our song.” She ducks her chin, and even in the low light, I pick up on her reddening cheeks. “Stop looking at me like that.”

  Loose from alcohol and feeling a little dangerous, I pull her closer and smirk. “How am I looking at you?”

  Tanner huffs out a laugh. “Same way you’ve been looking at her all night, dude. It’s embarrassing.”

  I don’t take my eyes off Sadie and point at my face. “This? Is this the look?”

  She grins. “Yes.”

  “Ahh, well. You should get used to it then. This is me looking at you and thinking about how much I love you—”

  “Whipped,” Tanner coughs.

  “And I’m staring to get my fill so when I leave—”

  She presses two fingers to my lips. “Shush! We’re not talking about that, remember?”

  I smile against her fingertips and kiss them before she drops them from my mouth. “I’m sorry.”

  “We have time. Five weeks before you leave, right?”

  Four and a half, but I don’t correct her. “Yep. Plenty of time.”

  Even though she’s smiling, her eyes cloud over with sadness and I regret bringing it up. But I rea
lly do have an internal clock running on our time left together, and it’s ticking louder and louder every day. If she felt half the urgency I do, she’d call this night quits and send everyone home so we could finally be alone.

  She frowns, and I hug her close, sensing she needs it. I always tell her there’s nothing she can hide from me. Side effect of growing up together, I know her better than anyone and can read her moods before she’s even aware of them. Which is why I need to be strong for her. I’ll keep it together and do whatever it takes to keep us together.

  Sadie is mine.

  She always has been and she always will be.

  Nothing will change that.

  I won’t let it.

  Sadie

  At midnight, I changed out of my bathing suit and into shorts and a tank top to say goodbye to my graduating class. Needing time to wind down, Jack and I curled up on a cabana to look at the stars. I’ve never been the most social person, but I can fake it when I need to, and tonight is one of those nights. Socializing is exhausting when it doesn’t come naturally.

  The boy sitting next to me strumming his guitar? He was born with the gift of gab. He’s never met a stranger because he falls into easy conversation with everyone and they become insta-friends. He’s on a first-name basis with everyone from the Starbucks barista to our school’s principal. It’s by mimicking him that I’ve been able to fake it as long as I have.

  Soon he’ll be gone, and I’ll be alone to forge awkward interactions without him there to swoop in and save me.

  No longer in his swim trunks—pity, because the view was so nice—he’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt. He turns to me with a warm smile. “Do you have a request?”

  Snuggled together with only the stars and moon for light, I rest my cheek on his arm, relaxed and a little drowsy as he strums and plucks soft, soothing music. “What you’re playing is perfect.”

  He kisses the top of my head. “Don’t fall asleep.” He peers toward the back of the house. “You think your parents are asleep yet?”

  “Probably.” My dad had his face glued to the window until the party shut down. I look up at Jack. “We can try to sneak up now.”

  He grins in that crooked way he gets from his dad—charm, good looks, and people skills for days. I’m the luckiest girl alive. “Yeah?”

  “We have to be really quiet, and you need to be gone before the sun comes up.”

  “You’re willing to risk getting caught?”

  “I am if you are.” I heft myself off the lounger and he follows. We walk toward the house, side by side with our arms wrapped around each other. “You’re the one who would catch hell from my dad, not me. To be safe—because I really don’t want my dad to murder you—we shouldn’t make out, but we can cuddle.”

  “We can make out a little.”

  I laugh.

  “Your dad will kill me, but…” He presses a kiss to the top of my head. “It would be totally worth it.”

  Tiptoeing upstairs, we sneak by my brother’s room and my parents’ room, and we dart into mine. He leans his guitar by the door slowly as to not make any noise.

  “I have to take a shower,” I whisper as I creep toward the en-suite bathroom.

  “You know,” he says, following me but pausing in the doorway, his muscular arms braced above his head on the doorframe. “I could use a shower too.”

  As nice as that sounds, I give his chest a little shove. My parents catching us sleeping would be bad enough. Naked in the shower? That would most definitely get Jack killed. “You can take one after me.”

  Jack groans, and I laugh as I close myself inside alone.

  One day we’ll live in our own place and be able to satisfy every urge for each other whenever and wherever we want.

  I think back to our first time together. We lost our virginity to each other on our one-year anniversary. Jack’s parents were out of town, so we ordered a pizza and swam in his pool under the stars. We hadn’t planned to go all the way that night, but one thing led to another. Making love to Jack was everything I’d imagined it would be. He was thoughtful, gentle, and aware, and every time since that has been equally as sweet.

  Life with Jack is beautiful.

  Which is why these next four years are going to be our first real challenge. The first significant obstacle to our life-long romance.

  I step into the shower, and now that I’m alone, I give myself permission to think about him leaving. I try to avoid the topic whenever we’re together because he’ll read me and know how much I’m hurting from the thought of being without him. Keeping him in Vegas was never an option. He’s ridiculously smart and driven. He’s played every sport and he graduated at the top of our class. And so…

  Jack is going to NYU.

  I’ll be stuck in Vegas, going to Valley Community College.

  …Yay.

  I dry off, wrap myself in a robe, and brush my teeth. When I walk back into my bedroom, I find Jack in his boxers and T-shirt, on top of my white eyelet comforter. He looks up from his phone, and his eyes light up when they fix on me.

  I shake my head. “I wish I could see what you see when you look at me.”

  His expression grows serious. “I wish you could too.”

  I turn away before he can see the emotion bubbling up to the surface. “Shower’s free.”

  His feet shuffle on the carpet to the bathroom, and the door softly closes behind him.

  See, here’s the thing. I have struggled with self-esteem since I flunked the color brown in preschool. Seriously, who flunks a color? I was diagnosed with dyslexia in third grade and attention-deficit disorder in fifth. From middle school through high school, I had tutors and worked with specialists and still only managed a 2.4 GPA.

  No matter how pretty a girl is on the outside, she’ll never be pretty enough to make up for what she lacks on the inside. And for me, I’ve always felt stupid. Never smart enough, always five steps behind my peers. Things that come so easily to others may as well be Sanskrit to me.

  I slip on pajama pants and a tank top, then slide between the soft sheets. I must have been dozing off, because Jack wakes me as he crawls in behind me. His big arm comes around my middle and his nose goes to my hair.

  I weave my fingers into his at my waist and squeeze them tightly. “I’m going to miss you so much.”

  “I’ll miss you too.” He kisses my head. “It’s only four years.”

  “Four years is a long time.”

  “We’ve been inseparable for eighteen. Four years ain’t got nothing on that. Besides, I’ll be back every holiday and every summer.”

  I nod, not trusting my voice, and close my eyes to hold back the tears.

  “Sadie.” He pulls me closer so that everything from my butt to my shoulders is fixed to his front. “There is nothing in this world that will ever be as important to me as you are. As soon as I get college out of the way so I can get a decent job, my only goal will be starting the life we always talked about. Three bedrooms on a quiet street with an art studio for you to paint, a dog, and some kids.”

  “What if you meet someone else and—”

  “Not happening.” He slips his muscular thigh between my legs. “We were made to be together. No one will ever take your place, not in my heart or in my life.”

  “I feel the same about you.”

  “I know you do.” He yawns and sinks deeper into our shared pillow. “What we have is the forever kind of love. Never forget that.”

  I fall asleep to him softly singing the lyrics to “Can’t Fight this Feeling,” and all is right with the world.

  Chapter One

  Five Years Later

  Jack

  “I’ll tell you what.” I stir my Bloody Mary and take a sip. “Being hungover in San Diego beats being hungover in New York any day.” I tilt my face toward the sky. Even with my eyes closed behind my sunglasses, my brain registers the sting of sunlight, but the heat on my skin soothes the ache.

  “It’s the beach. Something abo
ut the salt air and sunshine,” Tanner says. “Why do you think I agreed to fly all the way across the country to get married?”

  We’re sitting on the beachfront patio of a restaurant at a swanky resort and spa in Del Mar, one of the glitziest cities in San Diego county.

  Our server approaches us, the epitome of a California girl with her sun-bleached hair, suntanned skin, and bright blue eyes. “Are you guys ready to order breakfast?”

  “We’re waiting on two more.” Tanner checks his phone. “They’re finishing up at the spa.”

  I hold up my nearly empty glass. “Bailey, if you could keep these coming, I’d love you forever.”

  She smiles bashfully, and I grin back. “Sure thing, Mr. Daniels.”

  “Call me Jackson.” I watch her walk away, and once she’s gone, Tanner shakes his head. “What?”

  He shrugs. “I don’t know how you do it. Chicks can’t hold a conversation with you without turning bright red.”

  “It’s because I’m nice. You should try it sometime.”

  “It’s a shock you’ve managed to stay single as long as you have.” He pulls a big green olive from his drink and pops it in his mouth. “I mean…” He chews and swallows. “Even Maribeth loves you, and she doesn’t even like me.”

  I squint through my sunglasses. “You’re saying your fiancée doesn’t like you?”

  “No. She loves my money.”

  I lift my brows.

  “Not that I’m complaining. I love my money too. Most low-maintenance relationship I’ve ever been in. If I want to become an executive director by the time I’m thirty, I don’t have the time to invest in a relationship based on emotions.”