The Wedding Party (The Wedding Date, #3)(55)

She glanced up at Theo. How was he taking all this? But he was looking at her with his open, interested expression that she knew by now he couldn’t fake.

“Right, white men can show up to important meetings in ripped jeans and hoodies, and people still take them seriously,” he said. “I have to wear a suit just for people to even consider taking me seriously.”

She nodded.

“Exactly. I think that’s one reason I got so excited about doing this show. It would be my opportunity to help women who really need me. But as things started getting more serious, I guess I forgot about all that, and thought about it in terms of what would make good TV, and not what would be something I could be proud of. And today, the old mean girl Maddie came back. I’m just so ashamed of myself and what my mother would think of me.” She shook her head. “I’m ashamed of what I think of me. I’m ashamed of what you must think of me; you do volunteer work all the time. I’m sure you’re so great at it.”

He opened his mouth and then closed it. Oh God, what did he want to say? Probably something about how she should be ashamed of herself.

“What? Just say it.”

He dropped his arm from around her and looked away.

“I do things I’m ashamed of all the time. I don’t do this anymore, but I always used to be that guy who would look down on other people for not dressing exactly right, or not knowing the rules for any professional interaction, or for stepping out of line even for a second. I’ve stopped—for the most part—being an asshole to other people about that kind of stuff, but I still get mad at myself when I fuck up anything, as you saw a few weeks ago.” He shook his head. “My brother—who has had far more therapy than is good for him—says I blame myself for our dad leaving when we were kids, and that’s why I’m such a perfectionist, and it’s not healthy to expect everyone else to be one, too. I say I had to grow up really quickly, and I didn’t want to make life even harder for my mom, so I learned how to put my head down and get things done, look right, dress right, act right.”

Theo was looking straight down at the coffee table. This was clearly hard for him to talk about.

“Which one is it?” she asked him.

He sighed and looked up at her.

“Probably some of both. Ben somehow learned the opposite from what I did, and I’m always in a panic when he tells me about one of his half-cocked plots and I think he’s headed for disaster, and yet he’s ended up okay so far.” He shook his head. “He thinks I’m a walking spreadsheet without a spontaneous bone in my body; I think he’s a flighty bro who never plans past the next day. Put the two of us together, and we might make one normal person.”

She poured more wine into both of their glasses. He took a sip and laughed.

“When I’m feeling uncharitable, I think Ben’s had all that therapy because he loves to find ways to talk about himself, but in reality, he’s probably just better at being a person than I am.”

She nudged him with her shoulder.

“I think you’re pretty great at being a person. Sometimes.”

He laughed.

“Sometimes indeed. I don’t think that time is right now, though—we were talking about you, and I made it all about me.”

She laughed.

“That’s okay. It helped. Speaking of a few weeks ago, I’m glad we’ve managed to have our respective breakdowns at different times so we could calm each other down.”

He put his arm around her.

“I promise one thing: I absolutely won’t tell you to calm down. I’ve learned not to do that the hard way.” She laughed and leaned her head against his chest. “But really, do you just want me to listen, or do you want advice? I can do either one, but I don’t want to be that pretentious asshole we both know I can be, who’ll butt in with advice when it’s not necessary or wanted.”

Apparently, tonight they were both admitting their flaws to each other. She smiled at him.

“Thanks for asking that. Advice is okay, I think. Just, be gentle?”

The doorbell rang, and he stood up.

“I promise.”

When he came back with the pizza, she looked up at him.

“Okay.” She took a deep breath. “Do you have advice for me now?”

He nodded, but he looked worried.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m not going to yell at you and try to storm out again, I promise. You’re stuck with me for the rest of the night, no matter what you say.”

He laughed, just as she’d meant him to.

“Okay. First, what are the next steps in the interview process?”

She’d almost forgotten to ask that but had done it right at the end, when all she wanted to do was flee from the building.

“This time it was just a panel from the station who watched us; if I get through to the next one, it’ll be filmed.”

He nodded.

“Great. Then, if you get through to the next round, do everything differently. Help these women in a way that will make you feel proud of yourself, show the people at the studio how fantastic you are at making your clients feel good about themselves, show everyone involved that you don’t have to be mean and mocking in order to make a great show. Be the black female Tim Gunn!”

Maddie laughed at Theo’s last line and then sighed.