Sadie raised an eyebrow at me and smiled before answering the video call that must've been my little sister Aurora wanting to show off her certificate award to her too.
I could've never guessed that Sadie was among the list of people that my baby sister would go through when in the mood for video calls. I knew she had our brothers and me on her own Gen-Alpha's version of speed dial, with assigned emojis near our contacts on our moms' phones for her to easily recognize us long before she could recognize our names.
I didn't imagine that Sadie could've kept in contact with her too after our break up, which happened when Rory was barely a toddler.
When Aurora was born Sadie was a senior in high school and about to go to college. We had all been dragged into the delivery room to see her enter the world—which probably had a significant impact on my fear of getting pregnant.
Seeing my mother giving vaginal birth when I was seventeen was the most effective birth control method my parents could've ever come up with.
Maybe alongside making me queer. That had also been pretty effective for several chunks of my life.
Mom Amelia wanted a "magical birth", with the most important women of her life attending and telling stories and singing songs and keeping her company, which was very much on brand with her personality. She had always loved a good party and her people.
She also was the most comfortable person I knew when it came to nudity, so that worked out well too.
My mom Laura obviously had the front row and the most active role—after the medical staff—among everyone, but then my aunts were there, my grandmas, and Chelsea, and Sadie, and I, and so Rory got to be born in our little coven.
To that day it was Rory's favorite story to hear, how so many people were there for her very first birthday ever.
For the majority of it, my main job had been to not pass out.
We did sing her 'Happy Birthday' while she was still slimy and screaming on our mom's chest, but it was mostly for Mom Amelia's benefit, who had just done an insane thing and was finally catching her breath and laughing and crying all at once.
Sadie had stared at me for most of it, a bit embarrassed by the circumstances, a bit actually worried I wouldn't make it, but incredibly happy throughout the whole thing.
She had held my hands and kissed my temples and held me for the parts in which I looked the most pale.
And she had sung my little sister into the world with the rest of my family.
I hadn't let myself think so much about that day for a while, but seeing Sadie picking up the phone made me want to know more about them. It made me want to know about how they kept in touch for years while I was in college and Sadie and I were no longer a couple.
I guessed she was somewhat of a cousin to Rory—if the kid saw her having a similar role as Chelsea and Malakai, my aunts' kids.
"Hey, Love!"
Sadie's voice and words made my heart swell and gallop around in my chest, I had to squeeze my eyes shut for a moment from how overwhelming it was to hear the genuinely happy tone in those words.
It was my turn to enjoy watching her be all cute with my little sister. The difference was that it meant so much more for me. It must've, when she looked at the screen and the child's crooked smile had hints of mine I couldn't help but wish that some of the feelings Sadie had for the kid were a reflection of feelings she might've still had for me.
"Hello, Sadie, guess what!" Rory laughed, unable to hold back her excitement.
In that, she resembled Mom Amelia's character, she was a constant ball of uncontainable joy.
"Don't tell me you got that elephant you wanted!" Sadie pretended to guess.
I leaned further back on the couch with a stupid smile on my face, and brought my knees to my chest, needing to hold onto something.
"No, Mama said we need to buy a house with a bigger yard first, and the real estate market right now is a mess," She quoted word for word what I imagined she had been told. She sounded not an ounce defeated by that predicament. If anything she seemed hopeful that the market would eventually pick up and that was going to be her ticket to the real-life elephant she had been begging for.
I pressed my lips together holding back a laugh that came out in a huff from my nose.
Sadie flashed the prettiest smile at me before looking back at her phone, and my stomach swooped.
"So what is it?" Sadie could sound so genuinely curious I would've fallen for it myself hadn't I been there a minute prior.
"Look!" Rory shouted impatiently.
I shifted just a little bit to catch a glimpse of the screen—without being visible to my little sister—and Sadie moved her phone slightly to accommodate for that. I smiled watching the award paper shake in front of the camera and Sadie pretending to read it.
"Oh wow! Did you win an award?" Sadie queried with excitement.
"Yes for reading one hundred books. One hundred, one, zero, zero," Rory danced on the spot, award in hands.
"Not ten? One zero?" Sadie asked.
Rory shook her head horrified, "One, zero, zero, two zeroes," She pressed.
"That's fantastic news!" Sadie finally conceded and smiled at the child.
"Which books are you sending me next?" Rory immediately asked, not missing a beat.
I furrowed my eyebrows, did Sadie send books to her?
"To what number of the little monkey did you get?" Sadie asked, her tongue darting out to wet her lips.
My eyes got stuck right at the corner of her mouth while I tried to maintain a decent hold over my heart rate.
"Seventeen—one, seven, at home, but I read one eight at school, so the next one is one nine—nineteen," She explained.
"So how about that one and what number is after that again?" Sadie's pitch went up toward the end of the sentence, to fully play up her confusion.
"Twenty! Two, zero," Rory nodded, "Nineteen and twenty of the little monkey books?" She looked around.
"Are you tricking Sadie into sending you more books??" Mom Amelia's voice sounded far in the room.
"No, she's not!" Sadie raised her voice a little bit to be heard by my mom before winking at the child and whispering, "They'll come tomorrow, okay?"
Rory nodded with the cutest mischievous smile on her face.
I wanted to die.
My heart couldn't hold that much.
"Wait, is that Keynes?" Rory squealed when my cat stretched up, his head close to Sadie's chest, "Are you at my sissy's??"
Shit, we had almost gotten away with it.
Sadie's mouth tilted to the side. Rory could be tricked into believing that her owning an elephant was only prevented by the housing market's state of affairs, but my cat on Sadie's lap could only mean so many things to her, and there weren't enough ways to spin it in the half a second it took Mom Amelia to run to the phone.
I watched my mother take up all of the screen with her face, her eyes locking on Sadie's, she knew the answer. She could probably quickly recognize my apartment in the background.
"That's my shirt," She told Sadie, with a knowing smile and teasing eyes.
Sadie sighed, her lips in a tight line but a smile hidden in the corner of her eyes.
They were communicating without saying words, when had my mom gotten so close to my ex-girlfriend?
"Is she there?" She murmured.
Sadie gave the slightest nod and I felt my face flush immediately. Like with the turn of a switch, I was immediately crimson red.
"Is she freaking out?" She asked as if I couldn't hear her, but knowing I did.
Sadie took her time to look at me, she watched carefully how panicked my expression must've looked and how bright my cheekbones were.
She was somewhere between pleased and amused by it. When her eyes returned to the screen she offered my mom a half-shrug-half-nod, which I found generous, a vigorous nod would've been more accurate.
"Hey baby, I love you! You know your moms are on your side and you can do no wrong, nobody judges you! Always proud of you," Mom Amelia raised her voice as she didn't know how close to Sadie I was sitting on the couch, right outside the frame.
She was telling me she condoned cheating if that was what I had decided to do, or so I assumed. She must've thought Sadie and I were doing—God knows what—and probably behind Colin's back, otherwise her comment made no sense.
"I know Mom, anything up until murder," I brought myself to say, still not on camera, with no willpower to go into detail about the exact circumstances right then with Sadie and Rory in the room. She could assume whatever she wanted, she wasn't too far off anyway.
"I think you wouldn't do it without a good reason, I'd most likely take your side," She answered honestly.
"I'll keep it in mind," I leaned over and my head was almost against Sadie's shoulder.
Sadie caught my intentions, and tilted her phone slightly to allow my mom to see me.
"You guys can go now," She looked at us, way too delighted in my opinion, "Say bye to Angie and Sadie," She shouted at Rory who had run off somewhere.
"Angie and Sadie?" Mom Laura's voice came through from afar.
"Oh God," I muttered, making Sadie shake with laughter under my head.
"Sadie sweetie, call me later," Mom Amelia pointed at the screen as Rory ran back into view to howl a goodbye.
Sadie nodded and just like that the call was over.
And we were way too close to each other on the couch.
I could either make it weird by jumping back or follow my heart and embrace it.
I went with the latter and rested my cheek on her shoulder, I felt Sadie stiffen for a moment before resuming her normal breathing pattern.
I still had an effect on her.
Which I knew.
But it was still very nice to witness.
I reached over to stroke Keynes' gray fur, the cat then was spread all over Sadie's lap.
Sadie's hand tentatively reached up to touch my face. I closed my eyes, and my forehead scrunched up at the overwhelming sensation of her fingertips and short nails tracing lines on my cheek and jaw down to my neck.
Shivers lightly shook my body, causing the softest laugh from the girl sitting right next to me.
I wasn't sure how my body was going to handle anything that could happen between us if I could barely stand her light touch on my face.
I took a deep breath and savored her touch, the way it made me feel at home, the way it made me realize how homesick I had unconsciously been for years, and how I yearned for that and so much more.
It made me want to apologize to her for being with Colin.
I couldn't believe how I had been so convinced I loved him and how I did love him, but then again, being close to Sadie was a completely different thing, it fed my soul, and it filled me in.
"So what do you think about next weekend? Should we go off on an adventure?" I brought back the topic that my little sister had abruptly cut off.
"I'd love that," Sadie's voice was a warm and soft hum, and much closer to my head than I had expected it to be.
Which was silly of me since I was the one who leaned against her in the first place.
I nodded, "There's a small cabin out there I like to rent sometimes to get a massive change of scenery from the city."
"Tell me about it," She requested softly, her fingers tracing my collarbones.
"Uhm, it's a little house in the middle of nowhere, no neighbors for a while, and it has a massive private yard that goes into the woods, with a fire pit and a tree house—"
"A tree house?" She sounded surprised.
I tilted my chin up ever so slightly to see her face and my heart skipped a beat when Sadie's hand impulsively gripped onto me, as if afraid I was going to lean back away.
"That's not even the best part. In the woods, still on the property, there's part of a small river going through it, and there's a hammock and you can lie there, under the trees, near the river, in the woods..." I trailed.
"We do well in the woods," Sadie murmured playfully.
I almost passed out right there at the memories mixed with how close she was to me, her hand still on my neck, sending all types of goosebumps down my body.
The woods had been good to us when we were younger and needed somewhere private to hide and be alone. In the woods, we had been ourselves before, at a time when Sadie wasn't allowed to be herself in most other places.
Her lips had found my body in the woods in ways they hadn't ever done before.
I pressed my face a little bit harder to her shoulder, to suppress any desire to do anything else.
Flashes of her cheeks pressed against my inner thighs, and her big hazel eyes looking up at me under her long eyelashes, taking in my body all the way to my face, flooded my memory and made me want to run off with her right then.
The woods had been so good to us before.
Had she suggested what I did I would've had very high expectations for the trip. I could only imagine what she was hoping would come out of it.
"My mom wants you to call her later," I remembered all of a sudden, "What're you going to tell her?"
She shook her head and leaned her cheek against my hair before reaching for a strand to tuck behind my ear, "What would you like me to tell her?"
"I don't know, I didn't realize you guys were so close," I told her lightheartedly.
"Is that okay?" She sounded worried but didn't let me go.
I nodded against the shirt covering her shoulder, "Of course it is—not as much that Rory prefers you to me," I joked.
She relaxed and leaned back slightly shifting us in such a way that more of my weight was against her. I readjusted but was careful to not put any distance between us.
"I'll tell her the truth?" She offered, "I think she'll be proud of the fact that you haven't cheated on Colin for a matter of principle. I figure that's what a parent wishes from their child, no?"
I shrugged, "I think if you told her we had sex she'd be just as proud, knowing her," The words were out of my mouth before I could decide whether to say them or not.
Sadie was quiet for a moment, maybe also lost in her thoughts the same way I had been a moment prior when thinking of the woods.
"I guess you're right," She agreed.
"Is she going to be happy about my plan to break up with Colin?" I asked, and the more I said it out loud, the more it sunk into me that that was going to be the right thing to do, even if not the easiest I had ever done.
Sadie snorted and stroked my cheek again, "She's going to be happy that you're doing what you think is right for yourself," She avoided the question.
"Smart-ass," I bumped her shoulder with my nose.
She turned her face so that instead of her cheek her lips and nose were pressing on my hair.
Had we kept on shifting like that eventually our bodies would've ended up pressed against each other, with us having taken turns making the smallest possible step in that direction.
I was willing to see that happen, but I also didn't have so much patience if that's where we were going to end up anyway.
I watched her face shift to a slightly darker expression once I pulled back to sit again next to her. My heart pulled in an achy way for that, I couldn't watch how I caused her sadness.
"Can I hold you?" I thought out loud, holding high hopes for her answer.
She nodded a bit too quickly, which made me smile brightly at her. And maybe I dreamed it, or maybe she was slightly self-conscious for a moment, but it didn't matter, cause she was swinging her legs over my lap, Keynes held securely in her arms while she tucked her shoulder under my arm and placed her forehead against my neck.
We still fit like pieces of the same puzzle.
My heart grew at least a size and a half from the effort of beating so fast.
I wondered if she could feel my quick pulse on my neck. I hoped she did, she should've known, she deserved that much.
One of my arms snaked around her back and my fingers dug into her waist causing a sharp breath to get stuck right past her lips, my stomach flipped at the feeble sound.
My other hand rested on her knees, my thumb drawing circles on her skin, taking in again after years the several shades of difference between our complexions.
Getting to hold her felt like a vivid dream, my eyes burned and I wasn't sure if it was happy tears that were threatening to spill or simply the result of how overwhelming her presence was, and how strong my feelings for her still were.
I watched her reach for her phone and my nose rubbed against her forehead in a silent question.
"I need to order Rory's books before I forget," She explained.
I nodded and was set to watch her do it, but her phone's background caught my attention and made me reach to see it better. Sadie let me take her phone from her hands, our fingers brushing against each other's.
It was a picture of Sadie and Rory together, a closeup of their faces, smiling at each other, face to face, their foreheads almost touching. My little sister's deep brown eyes mirrored the happiness in Sadie's, and her dark brown hair contrasted perfectly with Sadie's light curls. It was a very beautiful picture.
Based on Rory's looks the picture could've been taken not longer than a year prior, it looked fairly recent.
"She's my little best friend," Sadie explained, "Don't tell James."
I tightened my grip with the arm I had around her. My heart full, "It's so beautiful," The smallest part of me felt irrationally jealous that she had mentioned two best friends, and neither of them was me, I had once held the title, and it was dear to my heart.
I had once been so many things for Sadie.
I wondered how many of those things I could've claimed back if I tried hard enough.
A.N. This was a fun cute little thing to write, but give me all of your thoughts! ♥️⭐️
I noticed last chapter didn't get as many votes as usual, do we not like Sadie and Angie alone together?
I know so many of you are looking forward to what's about to happen and I can't wait to show you!! I'm holding my breath til Friday with all of you!!! ⭐️⭐️⭐️