The Wedding Party (The Wedding Date, #3)(49)

“It’s a good first dress, but let’s see some more,” Olivia said.

“Okay, Jill,” Alexa said. “This dress is a no, but we all like it anyway. On to the next one!”

Jill and Alexa walked back down the hallway. Maddie, Theo, and Olivia all grinned at one another.

“I’m so relieved,” Maddie said, as soon as Alexa was no longer in earshot. “She found a dress where she looked in the mirror and smiled instead of bursting into tears. The bad kind of tears.”

They’d both cried that time. That whole trip had been awful. Maddie had felt like a failure as both a friend and a stylist.

“Wow,” Theo said. He put his hand on the small of her back. “Alexa almost never cries. She must be so stressed about this.” He patted her back. “You must be, too.”

She leaned back against his hand.

“A lot better now.”

She really shouldn’t be this close to Theo. Could Alexa have noticed anything when she came into the room?

No, there was no way. Alexa was way too occupied by her wedding and everything going on at work for something as unlikely as her two friends—who she knew hated each other—having secret sex with each other on a weekly . . . or sometimes even more frequent . . . basis.

After another long wait—and some more surreptitious texting—Maddie heard Alexa’s laugh. Okay, that was a good sign. A few seconds later she appeared in a dress with a simple satin tank on top and layers and layers and layers of tulle on the bottom.

“This dress is an enormous amount of fun,” Alexa said, as she stopped in front of the mirror. “It’s absolutely the wedding dress I desperately wanted to be mine someday when I was fifteen.” She twirled in front of the mirror and grinned at them. “It is not the dress I desperately want to be mine at age thirty-four, but I’m still glad I got to try it on.”

Olivia also had a big grin on her face.

“Are you sure you don’t want that dress? Because you look so pretty in it! I remember you drawing pictures when you were little of dresses a lot like that.” Olivia stood up and walked around her. “It just looks so great on you.”

Oh no. Olivia wasn’t going to do that thing where she tried to convince Alexa to get a dress because she loved it, was she? Hadn’t they talked about this?

Alexa laughed.

“I should have known you would love this dress; you always liked dressing me up as if I was one of your little dolls. But no, as much as I love tulle to the depths of my being, I don’t think a wedding dress with this much tulle is me, and I want to feel like me on my wedding day.”

Olivia dropped her hand from Alexa’s shoulder and sat down.

“You should absolutely feel like you on your wedding day. But . . . can’t we find you some tulle for the rehearsal dinner or something?”

Maddie sighed in relief. Thank goodness, Olivia didn’t look like she was going to be difficult.

“Good idea,” Maddie said. “I think we can manage that.”

Alexa held up a finger to Maddie.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. We still haven’t managed to find me a wedding dress yet!” She took one last look at herself in the mirror. “All I can say is, thank God we didn’t bring my mom today. She would have insisted on this dress. She also wants me to look like the pretty princess I used to draw when I was a little girl. I’ll have that fight with her once the dress is ordered.”

She turned and floated back down the hallway with Jill.

Theo turned to Maddie once she was gone.

“I already know you’re going to get mad at me for asking this question, but I’ve got to know the answer.”

Oh no. What was he going to ask her?

“Well, I’m already mad, but what’s your question?”

He gestured around the room.

“Just how many dresses is she going to try on today? Is it going to be the whole store? I just need to know so I can mentally prepare for this.”

She tried to summon up a scowl, but she was pretty sure it was mostly just a smile.

“Anywhere between three dresses and the whole store, so buckle in, bridesman.”

Theo sighed and leaned back all the way against the couch, bringing Maddie with him.

“Great, okay, that’s awesome; I really wanted there to be a lot more dresses, so that was exactly what I was hoping you’d say. Just one more thing: what the hell is tulle?”

Maddie and Olivia burst out laughing. Maddie struggled to sit up. The long, low couch was far too comfortable, especially with Theo right there.

“That ballerina skirt type stuff,” she said.

Theo just looked at her.

“Right, I guess that has no meaning for you. The stuff that made the underskirt of her dress stick out?”

His eyebrows squeezed together.

“That sort of scratchy stuff?”

Maddie nodded.

Theo shook his head.

“I need some sort of reward for undergoing fashion school.”

She rolled her eyes at him and reached for her phone.

Reward? What kind of reward do you think you’re going to get for this?



He grinned down at his phone.

Maybe you can let yourself into my place later on tonight with nothing on but that trench coat of yours and we’ll see what happens from there