The Wedding Party (The Wedding Date, #3)(74)

Theo smiled.

“The show Alexa said always makes you cry.”

Maddie nodded.

“She always makes fun of me for it, but, like, this one was with a woman with cancer, and all her friends helped her find the perfect dress, and then at the end during the credits it said it’s in memory of her, and . . .” The tears started flowing again. She couldn’t help it. Hadn’t she cried enough tonight? Obviously not.

Theo took her hand. He rubbed his thumb back and forth across the back of her hand until the tears stopped.

“I’m supposed to be taking care of you; you’re not supposed to be making me feel better,” she said. “Speaking of, are you okay? Why are you awake? Do you need anything?”

He shook his head.

“Just you.”

She leaned over and kissed him. As soon as he pulled her closer, she sat back up.

“None of that, remember?” She was reminding herself as much as him. “Go back to sleep. I’m here.”

He fell asleep again a few moments later, still holding on to Maddie’s hand. She’d had enough crying for the night, so she switched over to her favorite soothing British mystery series. Somewhere in between the hot vicar discovering the murder and solving it, she fell asleep.

She woke up with a jerk from a dream about watching Theo getting chased around and around a track, with everyone but her laughing. She got up to go to the bathroom and try to shake the sick, trapped feeling of the dream away.

When she slid back in bed next to Theo, he stirred.

“Maddie?” he said in a thick voice. His eyes were still closed.

“I’m here. Are you okay?”

He reached out for her hand, just like he’d done at the hospital, and she slid her fingers in his.

“Mmmhmm. Thank you for taking care of me.”

She stroked his head with her free hand.

“I just want you to be okay.”

He closed his eyes and smiled.

“I love you,” he said.

“I love you, too,” Maddie said.

She froze.

Why had he said that?

Why had she said that?

She could tell by his regular breathing that he was back asleep within seconds.

She didn’t think she’d ever sleep again.





Chapter Eighteen




WHEN THEO WOKE UP THE NEXT MORNING, HE WINCED. HIS HEAD HURT like hell.

He turned over and opened his eyes. Maddie was awake in bed next to him.

Oh. The rally. The rally he’d devoted so much time to this summer so it would be perfect. The rally that had been a disaster because of him.

He sat up and rubbed his head.

“Please tell me I just had a horrible nightmare and that’s why my head hurts.”

Maddie looked as exhausted as he felt.

“Did you forget again? Yesterday, at the rally—”

He sighed and reached for his glasses.

“No, I remembered. I was just hoping I’d remembered wrong.” He put his hand over his eyes. “Am I allowed to take something for my headache? And am I allowed to have coffee? Please say yes.”

Maddie swung her legs out of bed and stood up.

“You can have both Tylenol and coffee. I’ll be right back.”

Theo pulled himself out of bed and to the bathroom. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and shuddered. He had a vague memory of being happy last night on the way home from the hospital; he couldn’t for the life of him figure out why now. He’d worked so hard on that rally, and he’d done everything wrong. And now the whole world knew it.

He stumbled into the kitchen. Maddie was grinding coffee beans. The noise assaulted him.

“Do you need help with the coffee?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“You should be lying down. I can handle this.”

He walked toward the cabinet.

“I’m not an invalid. I can help.” He turned away from the window; the sun streaming through the windows hurt his eyes. Maddie just looked at him.

“Yeah, okay, fine, I probably need a little more rest in a darkened room. But I hate to just leave you here to make the coffee for me.”

She filled up his electric kettle and set it on to boil.

“You can leave me here. Go to the living room if you want a change of scenery from your bedroom. I closed the shades.”

When he got into the living room, he saw his plastic hospital bag sitting by the couch and opened it. He pulled out his destroyed clothes and shook his head. He held up the shirt, neatly cut in half right next to the buttons, and sighed. He’d loved that shirt. And that tie. He knew emergency workers had to do what they had to do, but he wished they could have at least just untied the tie.

What else was in here? Oh, there was his phone! Maybe he had an email or something telling him what happened at the rally after he’d gotten hit over the head. Had they continued? Had anyone else been hurt? He could look up press coverage from yesterday; that would give him more information.

What if there were pictures of him knocked out on the ground? There must be video. How humiliating.

He plugged the phone into the charger he kept in his living room and unlocked it.

He didn’t think he’d ever had that many new text messages in his life. He even had more new emails than that day his boss had accidentally sworn on live TV. They were from everyone he’d worked with in the past ten years, and possibly everyone he’d ever met. He felt like such a phony for getting so much sympathy—this whole thing was all his fault. He was the one who’d made sure the rally was in Berkeley, and he’d been so eager to pretend the likelihood of a big protest away, he hadn’t at all adequately prepared for one. He’d barely even briefed the police chief, when that should have been one of his top priorities. An actual plan could have stopped these guys long before they got violent and fucked everything up.