The Wedding Party (The Wedding Date, #3)(38)

He started to slide his hand back out so he could start the car, but she reached down and held it in place.

“It was pretty hot though,” she said. “Watching you watch me like that.”

He kissed her on the lips, so hard she was breathless when he finally pulled away.

“You’ll see how hot I thought it was when we get back to my place.”

He put the key in the ignition but stopped again.

“Hey, the Fourth of July is in a few weeks, do you have plans?” he asked.

She sighed.

“My cousin invited me to her party, but . . .”

He nodded.

“Want to bail on the parties we both got invited to and eat take-out barbecue on my couch?”

She grinned.

“That’s the best idea you’ve ever had.”





Chapter Ten




THEO WALKED HOME FROM WORK LATE FRIDAY NIGHT. HE’D REALLY meant to get home earlier, but he’d managed to fuck up his own day. He was still furious when he left the office, but his walk home helped him decompress a little. He couldn’t wait to get home, sit on the couch in his boxers, order a pizza, and watch whatever the hell sporting event was on. Golf, baseball, bowling; he didn’t care, just something that would involve people playing a game on his television where he could make up a rooting interest for one side and yell at the TV.

He walked up his front steps and reached in his pocket for his keys. Not in that pocket. Not in the other pocket, either. Okay.

He reached into the big pocket at the back of his messenger bag, but all he found were a handful of receipts and three punch cards from coffee shops. This was not the night for this.

He sat on his front steps, flipped open his messenger bag, and dug around inside. And then he froze.

He’d pulled his keys out of his pocket to lock his office door before he’d left. And then he’d stopped by his assistant’s desk to drop a file on his chair so it would be ready for him on Monday morning. He’d left his keys sitting right on top of the file.

He dropped his head in his hands. No part of him felt like walking the mile plus back to City Hall and then having to deal with the security guard who hated him and would almost certainly pretend he didn’t know who he was.

He picked up his phone, made a face, and called Ben.

You’ve reached Ben Stephens. I can’t come to the phone right now, but leave a message, and—

Voice mail? He went straight to his brother’s voice mail? The one time he needed his brother, the only person with a spare key to his apartment, and he got kicked to voice mail? He texted Ben instead.

Where are you? I’m locked out, I need my key.



Just thinking about how he’d have to sit here and wait to hear back from Ben made him tired. The true exhaustion came when he thought about how, when he got in touch with Ben, he’d either have to plead with him to come to the East Bay to bring the key—if Ben even knew where the key was—or would have to pay God knows how much to get a ride into the city to meet him.

Theo thought longingly of his couch.

Any other night, he’d call Alexa, who’d pick him up, take him to City Hall, and smile her way past the security guard to get his keys, but she was out of town. Some romantic getaway with her fiancé. How inconvenient for her friends.

Maybe he could break into his apartment. Wasn’t that what a ground-floor apartment was good for? If he went around the side, he was pretty sure his bedroom window was open a crack. He could get that open and then . . . Yeah, sure, Theo, that was a great idea. He could see the headlines now, when his neighbors called the police on the black man trying to break into an apartment in Berkeley. How likely were the police to believe that he lived there? Or that he worked for the mayor? Would his brother come faster when he needed him to bail him out of jail?

He shivered. Sitting on concrete steps in a cotton button-down shirt and no jacket wasn’t all that comfortable. It had been so warm when he’d left home this morning he thought he wouldn’t need a jacket. Of course, that was before the sun went down.

He was going to have to walk the mile back to work, deal with the annoying questioning by the security guard who hated him, get his keys, and then walk home.

“Come on, Theo, this was no big deal.”

He stood up, and then immediately sat back down. It had been an awful day at the end of a stressful week, and this one last fuckup overwhelmed him. The last thing he wanted was to have to talk to one more person who treated him like shit.

He picked up his phone again and scrolled to Maddie’s number. He paused before he clicked on it; should he really call Maddie here? Their thing so far had been lots of fun, but they weren’t in the habit of doing each other favors, and this would be a huge favor. Plus, she’d never invited him over to her place; they’d only ever been at his place together, and he had a feeling that wasn’t just a coincidence.

Hell with it.

“Hello?”

He didn’t blame her for sounding confused. He’d be confused, too, if she had called him. A Friday-night text, now that made sense, but not a phone call. But he needed to plead his case.

“Hey. Are you home? Are you busy tonight? Can I come over?”

Okay, he sounded a little too desperate there.

“ Um . . .”

He really should have set this up better.