Hard to Handle

happiness.

Meanwhile, Sadie deserved what? To be left at the altar? To dismantle the wedding she’d planned brick by brick while Trey enjoyed his new fling? Only it wasn’t a fling. It’d turned into an engagement. A wedding. And now a baby.

Sadie turned to leave but Trey blocked the doorway with one outstretched arm. “Wrong again, Sadie,” he said. “Things have always been about you.”

“Well, this has been nice,” she said, her voice dripping with derision. She pushed his arm away and he backed up, staying in front of her as she walked.

He lifted his hands. “Wait. I’m not berating you. Let me finish, please.”

Sadie didn’t want to let him finish, but she also didn’t want him chasing her out of this coat closet and making a scene. If her mother and Celeste saw them arguing, they would pounce on Sadie in tandem. Resigned, Sadie crossed her arms and shot out one hip, letting Trey know he had a very, very limited window to dispense whatever speech he had in queue.

“When I asked you to marry me, I meant it,” he said. “I know to you, it seemed very spur of the moment because it was a random afternoon in a mall, but I assure you, I’d had it planned for at least a year.”

She blinked behind her sunglasses, digesting the new scrap of info.

“We got along well, were great friends, things were good between us. So I thought, why not now, you know? What are we waiting for? After dating for almost two years, I figured we’d end up married anyway.”

Well. Not exactly a profession of undying love, but then, what did she expect?

“But after the engagement, Sadie…well, I don’t want to use the term bridezilla, but—”

The word sent her defenses sky-high. Even as she uttered a harsh “I was not,” part of her wondered if Trey had a small, barely discernible, itty-bitty smidge of a point.

“Our engagement turned into your project du jour, and you know it. The three-ring binder you had under your arm twenty-four seven was more your fiance than I was.”

Ah, the binder. She loved that binder. Tabbed markers separated everything from color swatches, flower ideas, dress designs, cakes, and the vows she’d written for both of them. She’d cataloged and detailed the menu choices and had chosen meals specifically based on the food intolerances of her guests. Sadie had made it her mission to have a complaint-free wedding. A perfect wedding.

“You were so wrapped up in the planning,” Trey said, snapping her out of her memories of the planning, “I’m not sure you would have noticed if it was me waiting for you at the end of the aisle or someone else.”

Sadie frowned. “I had to be wrapped up in the planning, Trey. You wouldn’t lift a finger to help out.”

“Not true.” His calm, collected demeanor was grating her nerves. “Remember the appointment for the photographer? The appointments for several photographers? I went, and you steamrolled over me, choosing the package you thought was best, choosing the price point you thought was best.”

“But you told me to spend whatever I needed,” she said, clinging weakly to her position.

“And I meant it.” He touched her arm. “It wasn’t about money, Sadie. It was about the time we weren’t spending together. Once you painted a bull’s-eye on becoming my wife, you were so laser-focused, there wasn’t any room left for me in your life. Cripes, we saw so little of each other, it was like we’d broken up. Remember the weekly dinners at your mother’s house? When you bothered to show, it was an hour late, and you made calls on your cell phone half the time you were there.”

Sadie shook her head, but the movement didn’t hold much conviction. Probably because, while she wasn’t about to admit it aloud, Trey was right. She hadn’t attended many of Mother’s Sunday dinners during that time. Once the fifteen-month marathon leading to her walk down the aisle had begun, there simply hadn’t been enough time to do it all…

“It worked out for the best,” he said, patting her arm. “I know you still resent me for ending it, but you should know it’s because of you I found Celeste, the woman I was meant to spend the rest of my life with.”

Ouch. Sadie was tempted to look down at her gut for a protruding knife. She sure as hell felt one there.

“Admit it.” Trey slid his hands into his pockets. “You didn’t want to marry me. The wedding was another task to check off your list, a chance for you to impress everyone you knew.”

The knife twisted. She wasn’t going to stick around long enough to have it removed and jabbed into her again. Sadie elbowed past him and encountered Celeste in the foyer.

“Darling?” Celeste said as Trey joined them. “Everything okay?”

“Peachy,” Sadie answered for him.

Celeste frowned, a darling little line denting her forehead, and cradled her flat abdomen.

“Someday, Sadie,” Trey said, pulling Celeste against his side and wrapping a protective arm around her, “we hope you will be a part of your niece or nephew’s life. Even if you can’t truly be happy for us.”

Sadie turned her back on them and stomped outside before her brunch made an encore appearance.

Chapter 9

Turns out one of Axle’s friends-slash-customers was remodeling a 1957 Panhead and, in the process of dismantling it, realized he wasn’t able to remantle it. Axle had called Aiden in to close and gone out to offer his advice and expertise.

Aiden made a mental note to up his A game. When he was running Axle’s someday—think positive—he wanted to keep the personal touches Axle added. Well, as personal as Axle got.

The remaining work hours had flown, and thoughts of Sadie had only managed to increase with the hours that passed. He was standing at the counter, where he’d kissed her rather thoroughly last night. So, yeah. Thoughts.

At five he locked up, looking forward to a lengthy ride. Somewhere outside of the city, where the trees lined the roads and the traffic was sparse. He thought about asking Dad to go, then thought maybe he’d just go by himself. Dad. Axle. Aiden was surrounded by men who didn’t talk. He wondered how they’d become friends in the first place. Maybe they just pointed and grunted at each other.

Aiden swiped his keys out of the drawer where he’d tossed them, and his hand bumped into an object in its recesses. He pulled the square something out of the drawer, a pink cell phone with a sparkly pink case. He smiled. The ultrafeminine phone could only belong to one woman. A woman who had the shoes to match.

Aiden slid it into his pocket, deciding to stop by her apartment and drop it off. He’d like to see her today. Hell, he’d like to see her every day. Maybe he could talk her into a joining him for a bike ride. Doubtful. He eyed a pink helmet on a shelf on the back wall. Same kind he’d bought and returned last year when she refused to climb onto Sheila.

Maybe this time she wouldn’t refuse.

After he locked up the store and stowed his new purchase in a saddlebag, he rode the short distance to Sadie’s apartment. As he knocked on her door, he recalled the moment he’d stood on this porch a year ago and kissed Sadie for the first time. She’d been feeling raw and vulnerable after all they’d shared; he could see it in her eyes. Aiden felt more purged than exposed, and like he was ready to dive into the next stage of his life. Starting with the kiss he’d planted on Sadie Howard’s lips.

Thoughts so mired in the past, Aiden was caught off guard by the elderly woman scowling at him from the other side of the door. She clutched her blue bathrobe and scowled some more. “Can I help you?”

“Uhh…” He rocked back on his heels and studied the number on the side of the town house. Yep. This was it. “Does…Sadie Howard live here?”

“Here, actually.” Sadie hung off of the doorknob of the town house next door, leaning out over the stoop and smiling at her neighbor. “He’s mine, Mrs. Norman.”