Free Red Zone: Boys of Fall by Mari Carr Page B

night is enough either. Is there a middle point between a full-blown relationship and a hookup?”
    “Sure there is.” Sadie knew that fact all too well. “That’s where I am right now.” She hoped that if she said the words aloud to Paige, it would help her reinforce the beliefs she’d always held on to with the tenacity of a bulldog. “Not all of us want to settle down and get married with a houseful of kids. For some of us, it’s just not what we’re made for.”
    “You’re not?”
    Sadie slowly shook her head. She needed to say this, to get the words out. “No. I have enough issues as it is. I don’t need to inflict them on some offspring of mine, or set up house with a husband when I know he’ll only end up disappointed down the line.”
    “Just one husband? Maybe that’s your problem right there.”
    Sadie knew Paige was teasing, but she didn’t smile. “Nah. It’s not a problem. It’s a philosophy. And it’s practical.”
    Paige nodded. “I think I’m growing allergic to becoming practical. All I’ve ever focused on was business, business, business. I wanted to grow the store and make my granddaddy proud.”
    “How’s that working for you?”
    “As far as the store goes, incredible. Profits are up, customers are happy, word is spreading. Charli and I have talked about expanding, and it’s a real possibility if things keep up as they are. But personally…I’m not going to say how long it was since I did the deed before last weekend. Let’s just say our president was in his first term in office.”
    “Oh. Ouch.” Sadie winced in sympathy. “No wonder you went big when you finally went.”
    “Big? Try huge.”
    Sadie snorted a laugh at Paige’s risqué joke.
    Paige rolled her eyes. “Jeez, pervert, that’s not what I meant. Though if we’re dishing, they are both really well-endowed—”
    Sadie made a slashing gesture with her hand when she noticed Drake standing directly behind Paige.
    His big-ass grin told Sadie he’d clearly heard what they had been talking about as he claimed the stool next to Paige.
    “What’s your poison?” Sadie asked.
    “PBR’s fine. Thanks, Sadie.”
    “Pleasure’s all mine.” Sadie moved away to fill his mug, then set it in front of him. “Let me know if you need anything else. Like, say, another huge drink.”
    She laughed as she walked away, but the good humor was short-lived. Talking to Paige had forced Sadie to face facts she’d been trying to ignore the last few nights.
    Every time she fell back into Joel and Oakley’s arms, she lost a little bit more of her heart. She was an idiot to keep going back to them, knowing things couldn’t end the way they wanted.
    However, there was no doubt in her mind, she was going to keep paying the fool. She couldn’t give them up. Not yet.
     
    * * *
     
    Sadie stood outside the bunkhouse and cursed herself for being a fool. And a nympho-fucking-maniac. She’d told Oakley that bullshit about anticipation making sex better just this afternoon. The conversation with Paige a few hours earlier had stirred up all kinds of confusing thoughts in her head making it impossible for her to concentrate. In the end, she’d gotten so hot and bothered and frustrated that she’d messed up at least a dozen drink orders and broken three glasses.  She’d been so fucked-up her dad had told her to go home for fear she’d do some real damage. His exact words had been, “Get the fuck outta here before you burn the place down.”
    So she’d hopped on her bike, traveled two blocks toward her apartment, then turned around and headed here. She glanced at her cell phone. It was just after midnight. The lights in the ranch house and the bunkhouse were off. The entire spread was pitch black. Not that she was surprised. Days started early at a place like this. The polar opposite of her sleep-until-early-afternoon, then-stay-up-half-the-night lifestyle. She was the vampire in Oakley and Joel’s early bird world.
    She