The Wedding Party (The Wedding Date, #3)(32)

Ben slammed his hand down on the bar. Everyone turned to stare, of course.

“The hot one? That Maddie? The one who I tried to get to go out with me and who was so mean when she blew me off it made her even hotter? That Maddie?”

Why did his brother have to be like this? Theo put his head in his hands.

Ben poked him in the side.

“Seriously. That Maddie?”

Theo nodded and sat up.

“Yes, that Maddie, but can you please shut the fuck up about it? It’s a secret, and I clearly never should have told you, but now that you know, can you just pretend that you don’t and we can both move on?”

Ben shook his head silently.

“Wow. I’m impressed.” He grinned at Theo and took the cherry out of his drink. “But wait. Why is it a secret?”

Theo shrugged.

“Neither of us wants Alexa to know; it would make everything even more complicated. You know how Alexa is; she’d be thrilled, which would make it really awkward when this thing eventually blows up. Maddie doesn’t even like me, so the whole thing won’t last that long, but . . .” But the sex was great, so he didn’t care.

Ben snapped his head around.

“No, don’t stop talking. You were about to say something interesting there.”

Theo grinned and waved at the bartender for another drink.

An hour and a half later, Theo felt his phone buzz in his pocket as he walked out of the BART station in Berkeley.

You home? I had a very annoying day. Can we sit on your couch and make fun of all of the people on house hunters and then take our clothes off?



Oh thank God. He texted Maddie back.

Absolutely. Walking home from BART now, should be home in ten min. I also had an annoying day, and I’ll warn you, was just in sf drinking with my annoying little brother, so I’m drunk and hungry and ready to do all those things



I’ll pick up pizza on the way. Be there in 30 min



Well, this was turning out to be a much better Friday night than he’d anticipated.

Thursday night, Maddie was right at the beginning of her nightly dish-washing routine when her phone rang. Washing her dishes every night was the only real habit she’d ever managed to keep on the housekeeping front. And it was only because a few years before, her cousin had bet her that she couldn’t wash her dishes every day for a month. Out of sheer competitiveness, Maddie had done it, and the habit had stuck.

She pulled her phone out of her pocket and hit speaker.

“Hey, Mom. You’re on speaker. I’m washing dishes.”

“Hey, girl,” her mom said. “Why are you always washing dishes when I call you?”

Maddie scrubbed out her coffeepot and set it upside down on her dish drainer.

“Because you always call me when I’m washing dishes! How was your day?”

Her mom laughed.

“Oh my God. Did I tell you about all the dick pics?”

Well, that was something she didn’t expect to hear from her mom.

“Um, NO. Who is . . .”

Her mom laughed harder.

“No, no, not to me. Some jerk was sending unsolicited dick pics to one of the patients.” Her mom was a social worker at a local hospital. “She asked me for advice, and I told her to just block his number, but her friend had a better idea, and they spent like twenty minutes finding other, and um . . . much bigger pictures on the Internet, and then texted all of them to him. Maddie, I had to go into the hallway, I was laughing so hard.”

Maddie and her mom both went off into peals of laughter. Maddie had forever been impressed that her mom almost always managed to find something humorous in her difficult job. She’d gone to school at night to get her social work degree when Maddie was growing up, and had been doing this work for almost twenty years now. At this point, nothing could faze her.

“What happened next? Did he text her back?”

Her mom was still chuckling.

“Yes! He said ‘Why would I want to see all of that?’ And then she said, ‘Why would I want to see your little thing?’ And then she blocked him. It was amazing.”

Maddie described her relationship with her mom by saying they were like the black versions of Lorelai and Rory Gilmore, except without the rich Gilmores to fall back on. Granted, her mom hadn’t been as young as Lorelai when she’d had Maddie, but the single mom–only child bond thing was still very accurate. Vivian had worked hard all of Maddie’s life to make sure she had every possible opportunity.

“How was your day?” her mom asked once they’d stopped laughing. “Any fun clients? Didn’t you have that chef today?”

“Yeah, the chef was today. She was great. Super nervous at first, but she ended up really liking the stuff I found for her for the photo shoot.” Maddie turned off the water and dried her hands. “So the station manager called today again about that TV show.”

Her mom cheered.

“Yes! What did he say? Are they ready to hire you immediately? I knew this job would be perfect for you. It’s like they came up with it with you in mind! When I think about all the ways you helped me prepare for job interviews when you were just a teenager, it still amazes me. You learned to sew and everything! You’ll be so good at this.”

Her mom had been Maddie’s first styling client, sort of. She’d been turned down for a string of secretary jobs while Maddie was in middle school, and Maddie had told her mom it was because her clothes were all old and ugly. She still felt terrible about how awful she’d been to her mom as a teenager. But eventually Maddie’d gotten her head out of her ass and helped her mom find new interview outfits she could afford.