The Wedding Party (The Wedding Date, #3)(59)

Dominique stared at herself in the mirror.

“I love it, I really do. I thought I was going to come here and you were going to put me in a bunch of, like, pale pink cardigans, or whatever, but this just looks like the business lady version of me.”

Maddie forced herself not to cry again.

“That’s just what I wanted you to look like,” she said.

“CUT!”

Maddie and Dominique both turned around to the cameraman. Weird as it was, Maddie had forgotten they were being filmed. She’d talked to Dominique like she was back in her own studio with any client. No. Like she was with a friend.

“Thank you both.” Allen, the producer, came on set and nodded at them. “Dominique, Talia here will show you back to your dressing room. Maddie, you can follow me.”

Maddie said good-bye to Dominique and pressed her card into her hand before following Allen down the hall. She hadn’t intended to cry today, but she was glad she’d put on waterproof mascara, just in case. She was surprised at how emotional the audition had made her feel; Dominique’s story and worries and needs had affected Maddie more than she’d expected them to.

She turned to smile at the producer walking her down the hall. She couldn’t tell from his demeanor if he’d liked her audition or not, or if he liked how different she’d been from the last time. She just wanted to whisper, “Blink twice if you thought it was good!” at him, but somehow she didn’t think that was a wise idea.

He led her back to her dressing room and shook her hand.

“Maddie, it’s been a pleasure. Not sure exactly when we’ll be making decisions, but you should hear from us within a few weeks.”

She tried to make her smile as confident as she could.

“Thanks so much, Allen. I look forward to hearing from you.”

She waited until she got into her car before calling Theo. He picked up right away.

“Maddie. How’d it go?”

She loved that he knew exactly why she was calling.

“I feel a lot better about this than I did the last one, that’s for sure. No matter what happens, I’m proud of what I did in there.”

She heard the sound of his office door closing and thanked him mentally for that.

“Oh, Maddie, I’m so glad,” he said. “I can’t wait to hear the details and celebrate tonight.”

She was glad she hadn’t canceled dinner with him tonight. It would be good to relax and tell him all about it.

“Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves,” she said. “I have no idea if I got the job, but at least I know I gave it my best shot.”

“That’s definitely something to celebrate. Remember, the reservation is at seven thirty. Since you’re already in the city, are you going to meet me there?”

That would make the most sense, but no one had ever accused her of being a person who made sense.

“No, I want to go home and change first. My ‘going out to a fun new restaurant’ outfits and my ‘interview for a dream job’ outfits are in two very different categories. But I’ll meet you at your house after I change and we can go together?”

“See you then.”

Maddie turned her car on, waited for her Bluetooth to connect, and then called her mom.

“Hey, Mom! I think it went well!”

She talked to her mom, and then Alexa, the whole way back across the Bay Bridge.

Theo had planned to wear the same thing to work as he did out to dinner, but Maddie and her whole outfit categories thing had shamed him into coming home in time to change before dinner. If he was evaluating her categories correctly, she’d be most likely to wear a dress or a jumpsuit tonight. He’d seen her admire his favorite blazer in the past—the tweed one with the elbow patches—so he switched to dark jeans, took off his tie, and slipped the blazer on, just in time for her to ring his doorbell.

He padded down the hallway and opened the door.

“You know, you have a key now. You can just let yourself in.”

She shrugged as she walked in. Yep, a flowy pink dress with a jean jacket.

“I don’t want to assume that just because I have a key I can use it whenever I want.”

He leaned down and kissed her.

“You can definitely use it if we already had plans for you to come over, which we did in this instance. Or obviously in any emergency.”

She rolled her eyes.

“Okay, sure, I anticipate a lot of ‘I need to get into Theo’s apartment or else the dinosaur on the loose might capture me’ emergencies. Thanks for letting me know.”

He smacked her butt lightly and she grinned.

“I see we’ve been watching Jurassic Park again.”

She laughed as he slipped his shoes on.

“You caught me. It was on TV the other night, and I couldn’t not watch when I flipped channels.”

He grabbed his keys and they walked out to his car.

“This place had better be good; it takes a lot to get me to drive across the bridge on a weeknight.”

She put her seat belt on and turned the radio from NPR to music.

“If it’s terrible, we’ll both blame Ben.”

He nodded.

“Excellent call. Okay, so tell me everything about the audition. I’m so glad you’re happy about how this one went.”