The Wedding Party (The Wedding Date, #3)(18)

She needed another glass of champagne, that’s what she needed. She checked her makeup in the mirror, washed her hands, and ventured out of the bathroom.

She spent the next hour eating the delicious snacks that kept coming out of the kitchen, drinking champagne, and lightly flirting with two of Drew’s doctor friends (who were dating each other, which made the conversation very low pressure). Alexa was all over the place, talking to her friends and family. It was nice to see her so happy. Maddie had been a little suspicious of Drew in the beginning—a pretty boy doctor from Los Angeles, of all places, was no one’s idea of a stable guy for their best friend—but he made Alexa so happy that he’d won her over.

Finally, Alexa walked up to their group with a bottle of champagne.

“Refill? My mom insists on doing a toast, so everyone needs some champagne now to be prepared.”

Maddie held out her glass for Alexa to fill.

“So, Alexa, have you jumped into wedding planning yet?” Drew’s friend Adam asked. “Do we have a date?”

Alexa laughed and shook her head.

“Oh God no. I have a few spreadsheets other people sent me of how they did it, but just looking at them made my eyes glaze over. All I know so far is that my sister is my maid of honor, and Maddie here and my friend Theo—you guys have met him, the guy in glasses over there—are both in the wedding party. Work has been too crazy these past few weeks for me to think about anything else, but I’m sure it’ll come. I’m relying on Maddie to help out a lot with the whole dress situation.”

Did she say Theo was also in the wedding party? The same Theo? Yes, it had to be; she pointed at him.

“Theo’s in the wedding party, too?” She hoped her voice didn’t sound as alarmed as she felt.

“Oh yeah, didn’t I tell you?” Alexa beckoned Drew over. “I asked him tonight. He’s going to be a bridesman, which is a very silly-sounding word, but then so many wedding-related words are ridiculous.”

So much for that thing about not seeing him for months or more. She’d be seeing him constantly now. For, like, the next year. She pasted a smile on her face.

Clink clink clink.

Oh thank God, the toasts. Something else to occupy everyone.

While Alexa’s dad made the guests laugh and cry, Maddie wondered why it had never occurred to her that Alexa would ask Theo to be in the wedding. It made perfect sense: he was one of her closest friends; they saw each other all day every day; and Theo was one of the few people who had heard about Drew from the beginning. It was probably just that he was a guy, and she was used to weddings with strict gender divides for the bridal party. In general, despite how much she loved dresses and high heels, she was not big on gender roles—she could use her own power tools and change her own tires, thank you very much—but in this one tiny, specific case, she wished Alexa had been a hell of a lot more traditional.

Whatever. She was a big girl. She could deal with this.

“To Alexa and Drew!” Alexa’s dad shouted.

“To Alexa and Drew!” Maddie and everyone else shouted back as they clinked glasses.

For the rest of the party, she tried to avoid looking at Theo, which meant that she looked at him far too often. Once or twice she caught him looking at her, which made her feel both victorious and furious. How dare he keep looking at her like that? How long could this go on?

People finally started to trickle away well after midnight, and Maddie collected some of the abandoned bottles all over the house and brought them into the kitchen.

Everyone who was left at the party helped to clean up, despite Alexa’s efforts.

“You guys, really. You don’t have to do this. Drew and I can figure all this out tomorrow. You’re our guests.”

Theo nodded.

“Sure, Lex. No problem. I’ll go home in a second. Just tell me where to put all these platters first.”

Alexa sighed and pointed at the cabinet next to the back door.

Alexa’s cousin Leann bumped the music back up, and the cleaning party turned into an impromptu dance party, with everyone laughing and twirling around the living room and the hallway. Drew grabbed Alexa and dipped her to the floor, as she shrieked and laughed, and everyone around them clapped. Without even meaning to, Maddie glanced at Theo, and he had the same smile on his face she felt on her own. He met her eyes and she looked away.

Maddie gathered up some of the gifts people had brought for Alexa and Drew—despite their “No gifts necessary!” note on the invitation—and took them into the guest bedroom. Maddie brought everything in a wine bag into the closet, since she knew that was where Alexa and Drew stored all of their wine. Maddie kept trying to get Alexa to just buy a wine refrigerator, but she claimed she didn’t need to, when that closet was so cold as it was.

Maddie set the bottles on their sides on a shelf and shivered. Okay, Alexa had a point: it was freezing in there.

She heard the door creak open and closed behind her and turned.

“Oh! Hi, Theo, I was just putting the wine . . .” Her voice trailed away as he got closer and closer to her.

“What are you doing?” she whispered, when he was so close they were almost touching. She shivered again.

“Are you cold?” He rubbed his hand up and down her bare upper arm. “Looks like you have goose bumps.”

“I, um . . . It’s chilly in here.”