Also, his name is Aldridge Sinclair. What does a guy even do with a name like that?
He’s not funny. He’s not particularly engaged in the wedding. But he’s extremely attentive to Kayla.
And by the looks of it, she’s sick of it.
She keeps trying to talk to the Fischer brothers, but her fiancé stops her every time, trying to draw her attention back to him.
Bruce shoots me a look that I’m sure I accurately interpret: how the heck are these two together?
“It’s one thing for your father to buy you a team in a place calledMullet Ridge,” Aldridge says in a rich New England accent. “It’s another to keep it. It’s embarrassing.”
“It was sweet,” she says, even though I know she doesn’t care about baseball. “And I’m starting to like it.”
“Are you really going to stay in thattownwhile you find your little workers?”
The “workers” he’s talking about are the coach and GM.
Her smile is exhausted and nothing like the one I’ve seen from her in other circumstances. “Tripp said I can stay at his place in Sugar Maple while I figure things out with it.” She looks at the rest of us. “My cousin, Tripp, owns this farm and has somebeautiful places to stay here. Bruce, you’ll have to stay in one of the cottages when you come out to see your boys play.”
Bruce nods, but he looks as sympathetic as I think the rest of us feel.
Aldridge Sinclair is an emotional leech, and how he landed Kayla is a mystery.
But it’s not one I care to solve. The only thing I care about is getting Liesel back in my arms.
The dinner ends and it’s finally time for the reception and dance. I’m eager to hold the woman I love. Her thick blonde hair is pulled into a side ponytail, her sleek, silky sage green dress is doing incredible things for her curves, and the small, secretive smile she’s flashed me a dozen times tonight needs to be kissed off those sexy lips of hers.
Lucas and Logan chat up a couple of Juliet’s cousins, and Bruce sits down to talk to Juliet’s gran, who is the cutest little old woman alive. She and I sat together while Nate and Juliet were taking pictures, and she showed me all her favorite GIFS.
It was odd, but totally awesome.
Liesel saunters over to me in a way that makes her hips look like lethal weapons. “Want to dance, hotshot?” She pulls me up by my tie.
“More than anything,” I say.
We walk over to the farthest side of the dance floor from her meddling family, and I wrap one arm around her waist and a hand around one of hers. Her hand around my neck plays with my hair. “You know,” I tell her, gazing into the gorgeous blue of her eyes, “you lied in your toast.”
“How do you figure?” she asks.
“You said Nate is getting the most incredible woman in the world. But that’s not true, because she’s currently mine.”
“Currently?” she tugs on my hair.
“Now and always.” I kiss her temple, and I feel her eyelids flutter against my cheek in a butterfly kiss that sends a wave of goosebumps over me.
“Oh, it’s always now, is it?” she teases as we sway.
“I’m not letting you go,” I say in her ear. “I haven’t gotten that Christmas sweater yet.”
A laugh bursts out of her, and she leans closer to me. “In that case, I guess I’ll have to keep it forever.”
“In that case,” I echo. “I guess I’ll have to keepyouforever.”
Liesel’s heels are at least four inches, and it erases enough of our height difference that I can feel the ball of her cheek against my chin as she smiles.
“I love you,” she whispers.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” I tease.
