The Wedding Party (The Wedding Date, #3)(87)

Alexa put her arm around Maddie.

“I am ALSO weirdly emotional this week. I almost sobbed over poor Theo when he came back to work on Monday.”

Theo was back at work already? That seemed too early, from all the reading she’d done.

“Oh, he’s back at work? Um, how’s he doing?” Maddie picked up her own wineglass and sipped the remainder slowly.

“A lot better. He’s far from a hundred percent, but he definitely looks better than he did the weekend after, when he looked depressed and was in a daze the whole time, and could barely put a sentence together.”

Theo had looked depressed and in a daze the weekend after? Huh.

“Yeah, I bet that weekend was really hard for him. But can he handle being back at work?”

Alexa nodded.

“He says he still has a constant headache, and he gets a lot of printouts of emails and memos in very large fonts now, but he said being at home got really boring, especially since he couldn’t read or watch TV. He still looks off, though.”

She really shouldn’t ask. She shouldn’t be having this conversation at all, actually.

“He looks off how?”

Alexa dropped a handful of succulent leaves in some dirt.

“Not sure. Just sad, I think.” Alexa shrugged. “Maybe I’m just imagining it. Or maybe it’s because he’s had a headache for over two weeks straight. I’d look depressed all the time if I’d had a headache for that long, too.”

There was a knock on the door, and Maddie jumped up.

“I bet that’s our pizza. I’ll get it.”

God, she wished she could talk to Alexa about Theo. But even if she’d been ready to tell Alexa the secret she’d been keeping from her for so long, she couldn’t tell her now, just weeks before her wedding, the one she and Theo were both in. She couldn’t throw chaos into the middle of her best friend’s wedding like that. She needed to get her mind away from Theo and back to Alexa.

Drew came home an hour later and found them sprawled on the floor with dirt everywhere.

“You’re home early!” Alexa jumped up and ran to kiss Drew. He dropped his bag on the floor and wrapped his arms around her. They were still so happy, so excited to greet each other, even when they’d just seen each other that morning. Maddie turned away from them with tears in her eyes. She wanted to be that happy.

Just a few weeks ago, when she’d walked into Theo’s apartment, he’d picked her up and spun her around until they’d fallen together on the couch and laughed so hard they could barely speak. She’d been that happy when she was with Theo.

She was in love with him. She’d been in love with him for weeks. Maybe even months.

She couldn’t believe she’d fallen in love with fucking Theo Stephens. This might be the stupidest thing she’d ever done in her life, and that included that time she’d worn a white romper to an outdoor festival. He was pompous and full of himself and constantly had a stick up his ass.

But he’d also talked her down from a crisis, wiped her tears when she’d cried both from joy and sorrow, laughed with her for hours, spent days working with parents to help them feel comfortable speaking at the rally, stopped to talk to every dog he saw, and taught her how to moonwalk.

She loved him, spreadsheets and all. She’d meant it when she’d said she loved him in the middle of the night. Part of her had known that all along.

Had he meant it when he said he loved her?

Oh God, what was she going to do?

She looked up. Alexa and Drew were still murmuring to each other. She wasn’t going to do anything. At least, not until after the wedding. She could wait two weeks and two days to have this crisis; she couldn’t ruin her best friend’s wedding with her nonsense.

Plus, she loved him, okay, fine, but she was still furious and hurt by what he’d said to her when they’d fought. But maybe he hadn’t meant what he said to her, just like she hadn’t meant what she’d said to him?

But then when he’d told Ben she was still that same shallow person he’d always thought she was, he hadn’t known she’d been listening. Why would he lie to Ben about that? She didn’t know what to think.

Nothing, that’s what to think. Didn’t she just say she was going to wait to have this emotional crisis until after Alexa’s wedding?

Drew walked over and looked at their terrariums, all lined up on the floor.

“Did you guys . . . make these?” he asked.

Alexa and Maddie both burst out laughing.

“Look how hard he’s trying to pretend they don’t look ridiculous.” Alexa stared down at the terrariums and the smile dropped from her face. Maddie could see the glaze coming back into her eyes. “Oh my God, these are terrible. We can’t give these out at our wedding. What was I thinking? My mother will kill me if I don’t have favors, and it’s two weeks and a day before the wedding. What are we going to do?”

Maddie put her hand on Alexa’s shoulder.

“Don’t worry, I’ve taken care of it. I know someone through a local women’s small business group who makes custom wineglasses for weddings. I texted her as soon as I saw you sitting here with piles of dirt and dead plants. She texted me back ten minutes ago: she’ll make a hundred of them with your names and your wedding date on them. They’ll be done in a week. Call it a wedding present.”