The Wedding Party (The Wedding Date, #3)(4)

He shook his head.

“I deal with enough depressing and stressful stuff at work.” He took a sip of his drink and shrugged. “Okay, fine, I have been known to watch a documentary or two in my time, but . . .”

Maddie pointed at him.

“I knew it!”

He shook his head and put his hand on her shoulder.

“But, as I was saying, I only do that when I’m in a really bad mood and want to lean into it. Otherwise, it’s lots of house shopping and renovating shows. I find them so soothing.”

Well, that was something she never would have expected to find out tonight.

“There you are!” A black guy in jeans, a black T-shirt, and very cool sneakers bounded over to them. “Happy birthday, dude.”

“Oh, so my little brother finally shows up,” Theo said as he smacked hands with his brother. “How many hours late are you this time?”

“Hours?” The brother looked at Maddie for support. “Back me up on this, beautiful woman I’ve never met before—I’m, like, barely an hour late.”

Maddie grinned despite herself. Theo’s brother had definitely gotten the lion’s share of the family charm.

“ Well . . . as much as I want to be on your side here, brother of Theo whose name I don’t know, from what I was told, the party started at eight, and it’s now almost ten, so . . .”

“That’s ridiculous. No party starts at eight. No brother of mine would have a party that started at eight. You must be mistaken.”

He reached out and shook her hand.

“And I’m Benjamin Stephens, but my friends all call me Ben, and I hope you and I will be friends.”

Theo sighed.

“Maddie, this is my brother, Ben. He’s shameless. Please feel free to ignore or snub or smack him whenever he says something worthy of one of those things. Ben, this is Maddie. She’s Alexa’s friend. Please don’t embarrass me more than you already have.”

Ben slapped his brother on the back and grinned at Maddie.

“Anything for you on your birthday. Speaking of, what are you drinking? I’ll get you another.”

Ben turned and looked over at the bar.

“Oh, wow, they have some great bourbon here!” He made a beeline for the bar without waiting to hear Theo’s answer.

Theo opened his mouth to shout after him, then shook his head and turned back to Maddie.

“Well, that’s my brother. I swear he’s not always like that.” Theo shook his head. “He’s usually worse.”

Maddie looked at Theo’s brother, now talking animatedly to the bartender.

“He seems like a lot of fun . . . in small doses.”

Theo laughed.

“He’s a lot of fun in big doses, too; it’s just that I usually need to sleep for three days after a night of drinking with him. That time we went to Vegas together . . .” Theo let out a long breath. “I think I didn’t leave my apartment for a solid week afterward.”

Maddie was just about to ask another question when Theo’s eyes widened and he nudged her. She looked around, just in time to see Alexa and Drew walking toward them, holding hands. She turned back to Theo and widened her eyes at him and nudged him back.

Theo and Maddie shared a grin as Alexa introduced both of them to Drew and his friend Carlos, who was also randomly in San Francisco. She absolutely didn’t need rescuing, their eyes said to each other. Theo had definitely never shared a joke with Maddie before.

Alexa was beaming. Oh, wow, she had it bad for this guy. Theo narrowed his eyes as he looked at Drew. Alexa had never told him exactly what happened at the end there, but Drew had better not hurt her. Right now, though, he looked very happy to be reunited with Alexa, so Theo would reserve judgment on him for now.

Maybe he’d get Maddie another drink. Would that make her smile at him again? Just then, his brother joined the group.

“You didn’t tell me what drink you wanted, so I just got you bourbon,” he said. Great timing, Ben.

Theo grabbed the drink from his brother and took a sip. His brother was forgiven; this was really good bourbon. And he probably didn’t need to push it with Maddie—one smile was enough.

For some reason, Maddie had hated him basically on sight. Okay, he was pretty sure part of the reason was the stupid way he’d asked her about her job the first time they’d met. He hadn’t meant to sound like such a jerk. Fine, he had sounded like a jerk, but she hadn’t even let him back up and explain what he’d meant and had basically called him a pompous asshole. Whatever, he and Maddie would have never gotten along anyway. She was the cool, hot, party type, and he was the kind of guy everyone thought watched C-SPAN in his spare time.

He glanced up at his brother, talking animatedly to Maddie. She was smiling at him. Of course she was. Ben always managed to charm everyone.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket. Sure, it was Saturday night, but he could just check his work email for a second.

“Theo!”

He turned to see who was shouting his name and grinned to see two old friends near the door. He slid his phone back in his pocket.

“Alexa, yell at my brother if he gets annoying. I have to go say hi to some people.”

He caught up with his friends Julian and Lindsey over by the bar. A few minutes into their conversation, Maddie walked by, presumably on the way to the bathroom. He reached out and touched her shoulder.