Page 9 of Trash the Dress

She nods. “I’ll let you know. Trashing the dress and documenting it was one thing, cathartic even, but it’s not something I’m sure I want to relive yet.”

“You know where to find me if you want them,” I answer.

“I do,” she says.

She laughs.

“What?” I ask.

“I just said ‘I do’ on the day I was supposed to get married, only it wasn’t to the man who was supposed to be my husband…it was to you. A man I barely know, after having a one-night stand. Life doesn’t always go how we plan it, does it?” she asks.

“No, it certainly doesn’t. But even so, somehow it always works out for the best. What’s supposed to happen, always will,” I tell her reassuringly.

“Right. Says the man who decided he could never love again after going through a similar situation. Got it.”

“Scarlett—” I start, but she cuts me off.

She holds up her hand. “I’m sorry. My humor can be a little prickly when I’m wounded.”

I shove my hands in my pockets to keep from reaching for her. It’s not my place to comfort her any more than I already have. She’ll figure out her path, the same way I did.

“By the way, thank you. It really helped to be with you today. I’m sure I’d be passed out with my cupcakes and wine right now if you hadn’t intervened,” she says with the smallest upward tip of her lips.

“I’m not sure how you did it, but you did turn this day into something magical,” she says.

“I guess my creative nature took over. I’m glad I could help turn something bad into something better,” I tell her.

We both stand and stare in silence.

She laughs first. “Do we kiss…hug? Do we shake hands now?”

I chuckle and shrug my shoulders. “We do whatever feels right.”

She stands still for a few seconds before moving close one more time. But this time she puts her hands on either side of my face and pulls. I let her and she kisses my cheek and then releases me.

She doesn’t say another word, she simply gets in her car and drives away, leaving me staring after her taillights and wondering what came over me tonight. Certainly nothing I’ll be repeating.

The night with her was amazing, but the day served as reminder of why I deemed myself heartless. Yet, Scarlett handled herself better than I ever did…or could. In her dark moments, she found a little sunshine.

And I found a little too as I briefly got to bask in her glow. But as the night settles and the crickets chirp, I know it’s back to my cold reality in the morning where I’m alone and far away from the sun.

CHAPTER FIVE

Zander

“How did the Pierce wedding go?”

I knew Dad would ask. He simply can’t help himself, but it’s also because he knows weddings have triggered me ever since the Vivian fiasco.

“It didn’t,” I respond.

“Come again?” he asks with a raised brow, pausing the food prep behind the counter where drinks are mixed, poured, and served.

I continue doing my part in prepping the bar to open and remain silent on the subject.

Dad stops slicing the fruit we use for cocktails altogether to face my direction. “What happened?”

“Well, your buddy’s son was apparently cheating on his would-be wife. The other woman showed up and made her objections public knowledge to the entire church packed full of guests. She wanted to cause a scene and twist the knife of betrayal around a few times before she was through,” I tell him.

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