Page 57 of The Outline


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“I don’t know,” Pete whispered.

“What?”

“I don’t know,” Pete spoke more firmly. “It’s a possibility…Mary thought so. But we never did a test.”

Renn nodded, as though to himself, exhaling from the deepest part of his belly. Time passed in a fog as uncle and nephew faced this life-altering revelation.

As every emotion played out across Renn’s face—anger, hurt, shock, sadness, grief, and finally, acceptance—my head went light. I hadn’t been in a room this tense since the woman in the red dress had walked into the bar in Boston.What the actual fuck was I doing here? I couldn’t take this on.I had just watched Renn hurl an inanimate object against the wall. No matter how good it felt with him, the reality of that shattered glass had brought me instantly to my senses. And as I descended into my own fog, unwilling and unable to be present in the moment, I couldn’t deny it anymore.

Maybe someday I could be with Renn, but not now.

I had been focusing for months on whether Renn could handle Messy Sadie. But somehow, I’d missed one of the more salient points—could I handle Messy Renn?

I could picture it in my mind. Over the next few months, Renn and Pete would dance around each other, talking about the past, working toward a resolution, consoling a traumatized Robbie. And the whole time, I’d be worrying about it. How was Renn? How could I help? How could I fix it? As much as I’d progressed since Henri, the instinct to fix things, to please my man, was there and strong and vibrant. If I stayed with Renn, I’d fall into that role and everything I’d planned for myself would get lost. I wasn’t in the place where I could balance things yet. No matter that I was stronger than I’d ever been, I was still fragile.

But I also didn’t want to hurt him. I had to make him understand.

Through the haze, I heard him engaged in hushed conversation with Pete. Renn was no longer yelling, although the residue of fury remained in the hard set of his jaw. I stayed focused on my own thoughts but caught the men’s resolution—that the possibility of Gage being Pete’s son didn’t need to be explored. No one else knew, and no one needed to know. Renn was still pissed, but in typical fashion, he returned to necessary calm as the minutes ticked by.

Pete looked destroyed. Tears and snot soaked his t-shirt.

Finally, Renn released a leaden sigh. “Give me a few days, Pete. I need to talk to Robbie and make sure he won’t say anything about the card to Gage. But no more fuckups and no more secrets.”

“Renn, all I want is a chance to make it right.” Pete reached out his arm. Renn looked at the outstretched offering long enough that I worried he wouldn’t take it, but he finally grasped his uncle’s hand in a quick shake and left it at that.

“Pete, why don’t you head out the rear exit. I’m not sure what you were planning on doing here today, but you’d better just go back to your apartment. I’ll call in a few days.”

Pete nodded and mouthed “thank you” to me on his way out. Archie spared him a head nod, and I regained my earlier belief that the Stollers would be okay.

“I’m gonna try another plumber.” Archie looked between me and Renn knowingly as he gave us privacy. “I don’t think that ceiling will last the night.”

After Archie left, Renn stood silent for a few moments near his station. He glanced in the mirror, which triggered me to look there too. Our eyes met, and he came over slowly, creeping up behind me cautiously.

“Well, this kind of ruined our moment, didn’t it?” He gripped my hip and wrapped his arms around my waist, pressing his solid chest against my back. After this mindfuck of a day, I felt instantly soothed, allowing my hands to drift along his powerful forearms as I gave myself a few seconds to revel in the feel of him. But when he leaned down and touched his nose to my shoulder, I pulled away.

“Renn, maybe that’s a good thing.”

“What?”

“Yeah.” I paused. “I think we need to put the brakes on…whatever we were doing.” I turned around to face him, putting a few feet of distance between us.

“Wait. Why? Because of what Pete said about him and Mary?”

“No. Not exactly.”

Then his eyes went big, as though something had just entered his mind. “Is this because I yelled? Or threw that jar? Shit! I am so sorry. Sadie, I promise that is really, really unusual for me. I’m not, like, a yeller. Or a rager. Usually.”

I huffed. “I know that, Renn.”

“Then why?” He ran his hands through his hair before waving one of them toward the red envelope. “I mean, I realize it’s been totally insane since Robbie came in, but I thought we were headed toward a different place…before that. Now you’re saying you don’t want to be with me? Like, at all?”

“It’s not that. I absolutely want to be with you. Every time I look at you, I can’t decide what I want to do more—talk to you, or squeeze you, or just crawl all over you. That has never been our problem.” I gave him the hottest of hot looks to emphasize my point. “The problem is that Ican’tbe with you right now. I can’t be with anyone. Seeing this today, I realized I’m not able to take on anyone else’s stuff.”

“I’d never ask you to do that.”

“I know you say that, but that’s not okay, either, is it? I don’t want to be in a relationship with someone I can’t fully support when they need me.”

“It’s not like that, Sadie. Just because I wanted to hold your hand doesn’t mean I expect you to prop me up, or whatever it is you’re thinking. I like having you with me, knowing that I have something good in my life, but I’m capable of dealing with hard things on my own.” He folded his arms across his chest.