Page 54 of You Complicate Me

Sadie smiled wanly at them. “I’m so sorry for ruining breakfast, everyone.”

Nick opened his mouth to reply, but Gage beat him to the punch, saying, “You’ve got nothing to be sorry for. I’ll talk with Michael. We’ll get everything worked out.”

Yeah, Grace thought, Gage, who was halfway in love with the bride-to-be, should have a chat with the groom-to-be. Good plan. “How about I talk to Michael after breakfast, so that Nick and Sadie can spend some time together?” So that maybe, God willing, one of us can get to the bottom of whatever the fuck is going on with these two kids and this rushed, ill-advised wedding clusterfuck.

“You know,” Ruthie said as she smeared apple butter all over a biscuit, “Mavis Tarley in my book club says it’s perfectly acceptable these days for girls to become lesbians. Not just ugly girls, either. Pretty ones like you can do it, too, Sadie. Just something to think about before you decide to marry into this family.”

Everyone took a few moments of silence to digest that little nugget of crazy.

Chapter Twenty-nine

An hour and two pancakes—okay, four pancakes—later, Grace found Michael sulking all by himself in a lounge chair by the resort pool. She didn’t bother with a greeting when she approached. She just smacked him on the back of his head with an open palm.

He yelped and shifted away from her. “What the fuck, Grace?”

She sat down, shaking her head. “I could ask you the same thing. And quit frowning at me like that. You know you deserved it. You were acting like a total douchenozzle at breakfast.”

Michael shoved both hands through his already messy hair and groaned. “I know, I know. I knew it then, too, I just couldn’t seem to stop it. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

Maybe it’s because you’re a child getting ready to marry another child??? But instead of asking that aloud, Grace settled for, “Could it be nerves?”

He shrugged and picked at a loose string on a hole at the knee of his beaten-to-hell jeans. “I honestly don’t know. Things between me and Sadie have been…different since we got here.”

Grace took a slow, deep breath, knowing she was dangerously close to venturing into interference territory. If she was going to go there with Michael, she’d have to tread lightly. Really lightly. Like, sparrow-with-anorexia lightly.

“What do you mean different?” she asked carefully.

Michael blew out an exasperated breath. “Different, okay? We’re usually completely in sync with one another, you know? We eat all the same foods, like all the same places, enjoy doing all the same things. We used to tell each other everything. And now, it’s…I don’t know. I’m finding out Sadie hasn’t always told me the truth about her past, and she’s letting Mom make all these wedding decisions for her.” He paused, shaking his head again. “It’s like…”

“You don’t really know each other,” Grace finished quietly.

“Yes,” he answered, sounding relieved that she understood.

“You need to talk to her,” Grace said. “Getting married is a huge deal, Michael. I’m sure you’re both just…” Jumping the gun on this thing? Far too young and naïve to even think about marriage? Acting like the stupid hormonal teenagers you are? “…nervous and feeling the pressure, you know?”

He nodded. “I know you’re right. But there’s also this whole thing with Gage. I mean, after he helped her when she was sick, it’s like there’s…I don’t know, this bond between them, or something. And then she started pulling away physically…I dunno. The whole thing is just starting to get really weird.”

Danger, Will Robinson! You’re about to interfere!

“Michael,” she began gently, “do you still want to get married?”

Again with the shrug and eye-contact avoidance. “I love Sadie.”

“Of course you do. She’s awesome. But loving someone doesn’t mean you have to marry them right away. Do you still want to marry her now?”

His eyes shifted to hers. “She wants a family. I love her, Grace. I want to give her everything she wants. I want her to be happy.”

And that’s exactly what Grace had been afraid of all along. Michael didn’t care about getting married. He cared about Sadie and what it would take to make her happy. “You need to talk to her, Michael,” Grace insisted. “Now. Get this all straightened out to determine if getting married tomorrow is still what you both want.”

His eyes narrowed on her. “And if we decide it is? You’ll stand by me and be my best man? Not lecture me or try to stop the wedding?”

She really didn’t want to promise that. Grace was now more convinced than ever that getting married wasn’t right for these two kids at the moment. Not that they couldn’t eventually get their shit together and get it done, but by tomorrow? It just didn’t seem prudent. Or likely. But with her promise to Nick hanging over her head like the sword of Damocles, she nodded and said with a conviction she didn’t really feel, “Of course I’ll stand by you. No lectures. I want you to be happy, Michael.”

Even if what makes you happy now can emotionally devastate and ruin you a day, a month, or a year from now.

When Nick found Sadie, she was holding her wedding dress in front of her, staring into a full-length mirror in the reception hall as if answers to every question in the universe could be found in her own reflection. Nick didn’t have much experience with such things, but if he had to guess, he’d say her expression was not that of an ecstatic woman about to be married the next day.

Sadie looked more like a woman about to go in for a pap smear.

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