Page 9 of Love Resurrected
“You seemed pretty determined to put it on my carefully dressed table and fuck it all up, so what’s wrong with just leaving it there?”
“It’s decoration or something,” he says.
“You want me to put dirty jackets and helmets around as decoration?” I wave my hand around the room I’ve spent two solid days working on. I’ve transformed it from a stuffy meeting hall to a tropical oasis, complete with a sand dance floor and a faux roasting pig on a spit.
He looks around the room, as if for the first time. His jaw drops. “Oh wow, it looks great in here.”
“Was that a compliment?”
He turns and smiles. “Yeah, I’m sorry. I’m just pissed about being the station errand boy. I didn’t mean to take it out on you. Not entirely, anyway.” He holds out his hand. “Brad Matthews.”
Now I remember him.
He’s Sadie’s husband, Ethan’s, best friend. I just haven’t seen him in a few years. Maybe since Sadie’s wedding even. I take his hand and shake it firmly. “You’re my Bachelor Number Nine,” I say.
“Huh?” His brow wrinkles. “No, I’m not doing this thing. That’s not me.”
“I think it is,” I say. I grab my notes from a nearby table and glance at them. “Yeah, Brad Matthews, firefighter, forty-five years old, Bachelor Number Nine.”
His eyes cloud over, and the asshole personality returns. “Yeah, well, count me out. I won’t be here.”
“Then why did you sign up?” I ask.
“I didn’t sign up.”
“You’re on the list,” I say.
“Not because I signed up,” he argues.
“Well, someone signed you up then.”
“Fucking Remi signed me up.”
“It’s too late to back out now,” I say.
“The hell it is.”
“We've already printed the programs, sent out the invites, and run the promos. The event is tomorrow night. It’s definitely too late.”
“Too bad, because I won’t be here. And neither will Remi Bauer, because I plan to kill her.”
He turns and leaves the same way he came in. I’m left wondering what the hell to do about a possible last-minute cancellation, which will throw off the timing of the entire evening. And just where am I supposed to put a bunch of smoky-smelling helmets and jackets at a party that is all about coconut bras and grass skirts?
3
Tenley
“God, that was like three years ago almost,” Sadie says over video chat. She’s at her house, packing her outfit and things she’ll need for tonight’s auction event, while I’m at mine, doing the same.
“She was at your wedding though, right?” I ask.
“Yeah, but that was right before she died. She went downhill fast after that.” Sadie is telling me Brad’s story. I knew I’d met him before. Itwasat Sadie’s wedding. She continues, “That was the last time Kat was out with friends before she passed. I want to say she died a few weeks later. And Brad fell apart. Locked himself in his house and wouldn’t come out for a really long time.”
“That’s awful.” I stop and stare at the screen. Brad locking himself away reminds me of how both my dad and I reacted after my mom left us.
Sadie is still moving about her room. “Right? It hit everyone hard. Kat was just one of those people that everyone loved, you know? She was so beautiful, and funny, and really, like, the glue that kept their entire group together. It’s still so sad.” She looks at the screen, her eyes watery. “Ten?”
“Yeah?”
