Page 116 of Heartbreak & Cupcakes
I’d also promised that I’d bring Lexi by to see her as soon as the party was over so she could give Mrs. G the rundown while it was still fresh in her mind.
“Camilla seems to be working out.”
Camilla had been on the job since we got back from Disneyland. She was fine. Sadie liked her. But she wasn’t Mrs. G and she wasn’t Sadie.
“Lexi says that she likes Camilla but misses Sadie,” Mia continued.
That makes two of us.
I didn’t miss that it was the second time Mia had slipped Sadie’s name into the conversation.
“She’s special, Alex. Please, don’t be an idiot.” With that vague but pointed statement Mia walked away, crossing the room toward the aforementioned special woman.
When Sadie saw Mia walking toward her, her face lit up and she held her arms out and the two women embraced.
“I’d love to be the bologna in that sandwich,” Nick commented as he walked up behind me.
I hadn’t noticed him come in. I glanced to my left and saw that Bella had already found Lexi and the two of them were giggling by the pizzas.
“It’s nice to see Sadie here.” Nick said as he lifted a bottle of an overpriced IPA to his mouth.
“Mia has a date tonight,” I dropped casually, hoping to divert the conversation from Sadie.
Nick lowered the bottle from his mouth and his eyes widened. “Shedoes?”
I nodded.
“Who does what?” Maddox asked as he flanked the other side of me.
“Mia has a date,” I filled him in, and felt a twinge of guilt in my chest that I’d given up her personal information just to deflect any attention on my relationship with Sadie.
That was low.
Maddox’s eyes lit with interest as his brows rose. “With who?”
“Someone from her gym.” I was being deliberately vague. I knew that my Neanderthal friends had most likely placed a bet on whether or not ladies or men floated her boat. I blamed Nick who insisted the only reason that she had zero interest in him was because she must not like people with his plumbing. “A trainer.”
They were both staring at me, and I could feel the anticipation in the air. “She said that he’s really fit.”
I watched as Nick’s shoulders slumped and Maddox’s megawatt smile turned from a hundred to a thousand watts. “Heis, huh?” Maddox turned to Nick and hissed through clenched teeth. “That’s gotta sting.”
“It’s his fault.” Nick tilted the neck of the bottle toward me. “She doesn’t want to do anything that might be viewed as unprofessional in front of her mentor the real estate god.”
I grinned. “Don’t blame you’re lack of game on me.”
Maddox slapped his hand on Nick’s shoulder, “I hate to tell you this homie, but that girl is just not that into you.”
Nick shook his head as a grin lifted on his lips. “Can’t win ’em all.”
His ego was far too big to have one rejection, even if it did span the course of eight years, get him down.
“There are other fish in the sea. Speaking of fish and seas, are you going to ask Sadie to the cruise?”
Every year Maddox, Nick, and I held an annual fundraiser for the foundation we’d begun that benefited foster children coming out of the system. This year we were having a dinner cruise. The foundation distributed funds for housing, scholarships, job placement, and anything that a family would normally support a young adult with.
Out of everything in my professional life, it was what I was most proud of. It was my passion project.
“Why would I do that?” No one knew that anything had happened between me and Sadie and I wanted to keep it that way.
