Slow Twitch - Реинхардт Лиз. Страница 36

“Sullivan, don’t cry,” she begged. “Here, bub, do you want a baba?”

She held a bottle out to him, but he only cried louder. Then Cadence’s face crumpled, and she sat on the edge of her bed, put her hands over her face and cried like a baby.

“I’m so sorry, Sullie. I’m so sorry. I just don’t know what you want, buddy,” she sobbed.

Seeing her cry turned Sullie’s waterworks on full blast. He was practically screaming when I knocked on the window.

In hindsight, it probably would have been smart to go back down the escape since I knew Sullie was up and Cadence was alone, but the whole moment came on me faster than I could think it through. When Cadence heard the knock, her eyes went wild, and she grabbed a field hockey stick that was next to her bed.

“Who is that?” she yelled. Sullie’s little mouth made an ‘o’ of surprise. “I will fuck your shit up! Get lost!”

She had good volume, and she was pretty damn scary. I help my hands up, surrender style and let her see me for a minute so I didn’t get clubbed in the head.

“Saxon?” She finally put the stick down on the bed, still well within reach. “What are you doing here? You scared the crap out of me!”

“I’m unarmed.” I gave her my most charming smile. “I saw the light on and--”

“Decided to spy on me?” she snapped. “Have you done that before?”

“No.” I cursed my ridiculous need to live like I was the Caped Crusader. “I was actually a little scared to get your mom and have her kick my ass for bugging you.”

Cadence relented a little. “She is a little scary,” she conceded.

Now that things were calm again, Sullie’s moment of silence was over for good and he was sobbing again.

“I heard Sullie-boy. I thought you might need a little help,” I offered.

Cadence’s brow knit and then her face flamed a bright red. She realized that I had seen her sobbing her ass off. “Okay,” she mumbled.

“Hey Sullie,” I said through the window. He quieted down a little bit. Cadence unhitched the screen, and I climbed in and bumped my head on the window. “Holy fuck!”

Sullie laughed a bubbly, happy sound.

Cadence looked at me like I was her knight in shining armor. So I spent the next half an hour being a buffoon, making Sullie laugh in any way I could possibly think to do it.

Nothing was too humiliating.

I barked like a dog and got on all fours like a horse so Sullie could pound on my back and get a ride up and down the stairs, I got bonked on the head and in the balls to the point where I was fairly sure I was going to be brain-dead and impotent before the night was over, and I sang along to seven lullaby songs, mostly making up words as I went along.

Soon I was able to lay Sullie down in his little Winnie the Pooh crib. I finished off, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Starfor him.

“Twinkle, twinkle little star, I like pickles in a jar, Salami’s good, don’t eat it dry, Yellow mustard you should try, Twinkle, twinkle little star, I like pickles in a jar,” I crooned quietly.

Cadence was standing in the doorway, arms crossed, her face calm and happy.

“Pickles and salami?” she asked in a whisper.

I shrugged. “I didn’t know the words. I don’t think Sullie cared.”

We moved away from his room like ninjas, and once we made it to Cadence’s, we both flopped on her bed in happy camaraderie.

She turned and looked at me with big, sweet, green eyes full of pure gratitude. “Thank you. So much, Saxon. I was losing it for a few minutes.”

“I’m glad I decided to climb your fire escape.”

She smiled a little and smoothed her hair. It wasn’t something just any guy would notice, but I was a practiced manwhore. She smoothed her hair because she was wishing that she looked a little better. Because she wanted to impress me.

“Tonight just got all screwed up,” she explained. “Mom and Dad went to a wedding in Maplewood and they got a hotel room, Pammy is staying out til God knows when after work, and Jimmy went to some all-night video game marathon after his shift. I didn’t have work, and I thought that I would have the night off. But since I was the only one home, I got kind of stuck with Sullie.”

“That sucks.” Our hands were just a few inches away. I moved my fingers slightly closer; not quite touching her, but almost.

“I don’t want to think about it that way.” She sighed, then turned on her side, pulling her hand away from mine to prop her head on it. “I love him, you know? It’s just, sometimes this family can be really, really overwhelming.”

“So where’s Jeff tonight?” I didn’t want to get caught in that trap where I joined in and bitched about her family. And that family was particularly scary to bitch about. I wasn’t doing cartwheels over the fact that Jeff had already come up, but I needed to know where I stood.

“He’s in this frat and they had a big party tonight.” Her eyes flicked down and her mouth crumpled into a frown.

“You were going to go?” I tapped her foot with the toe of my shoe and she looked up at me, those big green eyes tired and sad.

She shook her head. “It’s some kind of thing with the fraternities and sororities. Fraternity guys go with girls from their sister sorority. It’s not really a date. It’s just tradition,” she explained. “It sounds like it could be a tradition, right?” She looked at me with such a hopeful expression on her pretty face, I realized that I had two options.

I could blast her dipshit boyfriend out of the water and make a case for why he was probably a lying, sack-of-shit cheater.

Or I could go against my every instinct and be at least halfway reasonable.

This girl was doing strange things to me. I rolled onto my side and looked at her. “Fraternities and sororities have all kinds of weird traditions. That said, if you were my girlfriend, I’d have them make a new tradition right there.” Before she could say anything else, I changed the subject. “Did you eat? You want to order something?”

She looked at me for a long minute and pursed her lips. “Yeah, that would be cool. How about Chinese?”

So we went down to the Erikson’s small-as-hell falling-down kitchen, found the Chinese food menu, and started ordering our asses off.

“I have to have fried dumplings.” Cadence looked at the menu intently.

I wrote it down on a Dunkin’ Donuts napkin. “Alright. I need barbeque spareribs. And General Tso’s Chicken.”

“And eggdrop soup.” She closed her eyes and crinkled the menu against her chest. My heart dropped to the bottom of my guts. “Do you like that?”

“The one with the weird white floaties?” I asked. She nodded. “Yeah, that’s cool.” I fucking hated egg drop soup, but I really liked her, so in my warped mind eating that slime soup was a way to show her I cared.

We got spring rolls and egg rolls, cream cheese wontons and extra pork friend rice. By the time I got off of the phone, Cadence was smiling hard and didn’t want me to see. She looked straight down at her lap.

“What’s up?” I pushed on her shoulder with two fingers. It wasn’t nearly enough touching, but it was going to have to do for now.

“It’s going to be a lot of food.” She shrugged. “I can afford it,” she rushed, her smile dropping a little.

“Are you kidding? You could have smashed my head in with a field hockey stick. Or called the cops and nailed me for a B and E. I’m paying as thanks for your overall sanity.”

She laughed out loud. It was a loose, happy sound. “Thanks, Saxon. I kind of thought tonight would suck. I’m…I’m glad you came up the fire escape.” She looked a little embarrassed and flustered.

“Don’t thank me yet.” I crossed my arms and leaned back on the counter. “I might have peaked with my idiotic version of ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.’ Maybe it’s all downhill from here.”

She shook her head and all that dark, shiny hair spilled over her tanned shoulders and sweet, gorgeous boobs. “I doubt that.” She looked around her kitchen, swiveled her sexy hips, and raised her eyebrows.