Chapter Twenty-Nine
Harrison
Sadie had brought a date to the wedding rehearsal and dinner.
I sat in the pew waiting for the wedding planner to get to a part of the rehearsal where I was needed.
Right now, she was going over the order of the ceremony with the preacher, the vocalist, a couple of Melinda’s friends who were reading scripture, and so on. It seemed to be taking forever.
And the only ones in the whole church who didn’t appear bored were Sadie and her date.
He was a handsome fucker. He was tall and muscular with blond hair and blue eyes.
He and Sadie seemed incredibly comfortable with each other.
They were talking a little too loudly, laughing, and I was pretty sure I’d seen him trying to arm wrestle her, which was weird dating behavior, but whatever. I couldn’t take my eyes off them.
She looked so damn happy. It made me feel like a selfish bastard that I wished all those happy, genuine smiles she was giving him were directed at me.
After the wedding tomorrow, I’d probably never have the chance to earn one of those smiles again.
I got the strong sense that Melinda and Drake would rarely be inviting Sadie and me to the same events anymore once this was over.
Our friends had closed ranks to protect her from me, and that was fine.
The wedding and all the parties surrounding it had been a brief respite from that, and I wasn’t sure if it had been a good thing or a bad thing for her.
It had been both for me. It was good because I loved being around her. It was bad because I was reminded even more of what I’d lost and how unlikely I was to ever find something so great again.
Drake came and flopped down in a chair beside me. “Is it terrible that I can’t wait for all of this to be over with?” he whispered.
I grinned. “Not at all. It’s a lot, man.”
“It is,” he grumbled, but I saw how his eyes followed Melinda everywhere. They were perfect together.
“Who’s, um, Sadie’s date?” I hated myself for asking but couldn’t hold back any longer.
“What?” Drake followed my line of sight and started laughing. “You haven’t seen her little brother in a while, huh?”
I literally gasped. “That’s Timmy?”
“He goes by Tim now, but yeah.”
A big smile spread over my face for two reasons. It was great to see Tim again. But it was even better that he wasn’t her date. It also explained the arm wrestling.
I also understood why Sadie’s mom kept giving them the evil eye and trying to get them to be quiet.
“Yeah, I think Melinda’s mom was hoping he’d hit it off with one of her cousins. People are always trying to set Tim up, but the dude is a perpetual one and done kind of guy.”
I nodded, trying to look like I was scrolling through my phone instead of watching Sadie from across the church. I was having a hard time thinking of sweet little Timmy as a player, but I guessed stranger things had happened.
“Sadie mentioned you to Melinda.”
I almost dropped my phone. “She did?”
Drake nodded. “She said it seemed like you were back to being like you used to be before all the drama went down.”
That was a good sign. I waited to see if he would say anything else. When he didn’t, I asked, “What do you think that means?”
“I don’t know.” He leaned back in the pew. “I’d like to think it means that she can at least imagine being friends with you again.” His eyes cut over to mine. “What do you want it to mean?”
I looked down. “I mean, I’d like it to mean I could ask her out again and have a second chance. But I’m afraid that might be too much to hope for.”
“I was leaning that way, too. Seeing the two of you during the game night competition was so fun. It was just like it used to be.” He winced.
“I had already started reading the stupid question off the card before I realized what it was asking. I tried to think of some other way to direct it halfway through reading it, but my mind went blank. Later, I thought of a few different ways. I could have asked who King Charles’ grandfather was, the name of his sister, his children’s names…
basically anything that didn’t mention the horrible affair he had. ”
“Thanks, man. But isn’t that the first thing anyone thinks of when they hear his name anyway?”
“Probably.”
“Okay, wedding party,” the wedding planner’s voice boomed through a microphone causing both of us to jump. “Time to get lined up!”
“Jesus,” Drake said, his hand going to his heart.
This was my chance. I would be matched with Sadie since I was best man and she was maid of honor. I knew we wouldn’t have many more opportunities to talk.
I hurried to find her, giving Tim a handshake and a back slap.
He pulled me in close for a moment and whispered in my ear.
“If you ever make Sadie cry again, I will literally kill you. I was too young to come after you before. I’m not now.
” When he pulled away, he had a big smile on his face like he hadn’t just threatened me with homicide.
“Are you okay?” Sadie asked, her brow furrowed. “You look kind of pale.”
I cleared my throat. “Fine. I’m fine.”
Tim walked off, narrowing his eyes at me and making a throat cutting gesture. When Sadie turned to look at him, though, he was all smiles. “I bet you had a hard time recognizing Tim, huh?”
“I sure did.” For more reasons than one. It was hard to believe the little kid I’d spent hours playing driveway basketball with had just threatened to kill me. Also, he was huge. He was taller than me and outweighed me by a good thirty pounds, all of it muscle.
She beamed, obviously proud of him. “He’s one of the managers at the quarry now.”
I gulped. “The quarry?”
“Yeah, you know the one between Indigo Falls and Halliwell?” She laughed. “He jokes that he’d have no problem hiding a dead body.” She rolled her eyes. “He’s so ridiculous.”
I forced a chuckle. Tim was a little… scary.
I was desperate to change the subject so I could quit picturing Tim throwing a wrapped-up carpet containing my dead body into the quarry.
“You look nice tonight.” She looked gorgeous, but I felt like I’d be coming on too strong if I said that.
She was wearing a simple black and white dress, but on her it looked stunning.
“Thanks.” She smiled. “You look nice, too.” Her eyes flitted over me, and by the way her cheeks turned a little pink I could tell she still found me attractive. It gave me hope. Hope for what, exactly, I wasn’t quite sure.
The night went on. We made it through the rehearsal and then were seated next to each other at the dinner. The conversation between Sadie and me had been fairly relaxed. There was always an undercurrent between us. Attraction, history, knowledge, heartbreak, betrayal—it was a thick undercurrent.
Things turned awkward towards the end of the evening, though, and I couldn’t put my finger on why.
Sadie kept trying to say something to me, but she kept getting cut off by friends and family standing up to toast the happy couple.
Melinda and Drake had told us to save our speeches for the wedding reception the next evening, so there was no pressure on us to perform at least. But I was getting irritated by how many people were getting up to say something.
I wanted to hear what Sadie had to say.
Finally, I couldn’t take it any longer. I leaned in during one of Melinda’s great aunt’s speeches, which turned out to be surprisingly inappropriate, and whispered, “What are you trying to say to me?” in her ear.
She gave me a tight smile. “I… I was, um, wondering if we could talk after the dinner is over.”
“Sure. Of course.” I was excited until I saw the nervous look on her face.
Then a sense of unease came over me. My therapist had recently asked if Sadie had ever wanted to know details of me cheating.
He said it was normal for the injured party to want to know exactly what had happened, how many times, how long the affair had gone on, what caused it, whether they did something wrong, and so on.
He said it was often difficult, but that it sometimes led to healing.
“I thought we could sit out on a bench on the river walk.” She gestured to the beautifully lit path that bordered the river that ran through town.
“Okay.”
“I’ll grab a bottle of wine and a couple of glasses and meet you out there in ten minutes,” she said.
“Oh. So, you mean right now.” It made sense. Dessert had already been cleared away and people were leaving. It was just that suddenly I was interested in delaying this conversation. My hands were sweating.
“Yeah.”
“I’ll meet you there in a minute.”
***
I sat on the bench, legs spread and leaning forward with my arms resting on my thighs. I was staring down at the water and waiting on Sadie to come out. I finally heard her heels clicking down the stairs from the country club.
I turned to watch her approach, watching as the light breeze blew her thick, blonde hair over her shoulders.
She was so fucking pretty, with her beautiful face and perfect body.
Once again, I was struck with just how big of a fool I’d been at nineteen years old.
Sadie and I could be married by now. We might even have two or three children running around like Blair and her husband had.
But I’d had to go and fuck it all up. I had a feeling I was about to have to talk about that time in detail.
I stood up to help Sadie with everything she was carrying. She had one of the gift baskets of gourmet foods Melinda and Drake were giving to out of town guests. She had two bottles of wine, a corkscrew, and two glasses as well.
“Wow. How long are you planning for this talk to take?”
She looked at me with steel in her pretty blue eyes. “As long as it takes.”
Okay, then. I took one of the bottles, uncorked it, and poured us each a glass of wine. I handed hers to her. “What do you want to know?”
“Everything.”