The Weekday Brides 04 - Single by Saturday by Catherine Bybee Page A

Michael. “You didn’t tell her?”
    Michael squirmed in his seat. “You and Mom can give her the details. We’re late…right Zach?”
    Karen felt Zach’s gaze before she confirmed with her own eyes that he was looking at her.
    Karen pulled her sticky shirt away from her body.
    “Yep, we gotta go. See ya later, girls.” Zach pulled away.
    She watched the car leave before turning to Judy. “What parade?”

Chapter Nine

    “How was it after everyone left?” Zach asked Mike as they left Karen and her nearly bare shirt that acted as a second skin. He really did need to get this ridiculous attraction to his brother’s wife out of his system. He had a girlfriend for crying out loud. He’d suggested Tracey return to her house the night before instead of staying over with him at his. Zach told her that he anticipated Mike and Karen coming over that night and didn’t want to complicate matters. The excuse was lame, but it worked. He’d been dating Tracey for nearly six months. She lived in Monroe, the next town over, but nearly everyone knew her in Hilton before Zach started dating her.
    They got along well enough, liked the same movies, and laughed at the same jokes. Yet neither of them had ever suggested the other move in or elevate their relationship to anything more than what it was. He cared for her, but there wasn’t a zip of chemistry that ignited with a look.
    His mom had asked once if he saw himself settling down with Tracey long term. He hadn’t considered moving toward forever with Tracey. Somewhere in the back of Zach’s head, a tiny voice kept asking three little words.
Is this it?
Is this the kind of relationship one looks for all one’s life and can’t imagine living without?
    Zach knew his life wasn’t on track. He woke up an hour before he was scheduled to and stared at the ceiling in his room. He’d lain there and contemplated life as if he were a fucking poet or something. At thirty-one, he had the routines of a much older man. He went to work every day, traveled the same roads, and took predictable vacations with the same people year after year. After he returned from California, he hadn’t been the same. The drive alone across the desert on the back of a bike was enough of a James Dean moment to remind him of the days when he’d been young and felt as if the entire world was in front of him.
    Now he was taking his brother to his latest job site to show off his accomplishments as much as to relieve his brother of the confines of their childhood home.
    “Dad went to bed early.” Mike answered his question. “Mom tried to help Karen understand him.”
    Zach offered a joyless laugh. “We’ve known him our entire life and we barely understand the man. I wouldn’t expect Karen to understand the great and powerful Sawyer Gardner.”
    Mike’s gaze traveled to Zach’s side of the truck. “I always thought you got him more than any of us.”
    “Just because I worked with him more, doesn’t mean I get him.”
    “Karen has his number. She has this way of figuring out what makes someone tick within an hour. And then if pushed, she has no qualms with pushing that person against the wall with whatever bugs them most to get them to have a light-bulb moment.”
    Zach had noticed that about her. He’d felt a strangely proud moment when she told their father that she wasn’t sure if she liked him either. Rena had it right. Karen had balls. Zach heard the admiration in Mike’s voice when he spoke about his wife. His sexy, smart, and ballsy wife.
    Zach hated the itch inside him that made him acknowledge the deep roots of envy when it came to his brother. Never once hadZach begrudged Mike any of his success or his fame. He knew Mike worked his ass off, and Karen was right…he did it because he was taught to. Both of them had learned a strong work ethic from their dad, not a bad trait to have, unless it kept you from enjoying life.
    “Dad could have used a light-bulb moment long before now,”