The Wedding Party (The Wedding Date, #3)(88)

Alexa threw her arms around Maddie.

“What would I do without you?”

Drew stood behind Alexa and mouthed, “Thank you,” to Maddie. She winked at him.

If only she could solve all her problems this easily.





Chapter Twenty-one




MADDIE GOT DRESSED FOR THE REHEARSAL LIKE SHE WAS PREPARING for battle. She felt ridiculous as soon as she thought that—nothing about the first time she’d see Theo in weeks could be compared to a battle. But as she put on her favorite bra, slipped on the pale pink dress that made her boobs look great, blew out her hair, and spent a full forty-five minutes on her “no makeup” makeup look, it felt like she was putting on the right armor in order to face him.

She’d spent all morning doing last-minute errands with Alexa and Olivia, but between how much nervous energy Alexa had and how stressed about seeing Theo tonight she was, she’d felt so anxious the whole time she’d wanted to jump out of her skin. She’d been glad Olivia had invoked big sister bossiness and had dropped Alexa off to get an hour and a half massage right after lunch.

“Nope, you’re all done. Now it’s relaxation time,” Olivia had said when Alexa had tried to say she didn’t have time for that. “The only thing you have to do after this is get dressed for tonight. And don’t worry about Mom. I made her a hair appointment this afternoon, and I told her hairdresser I’d pay her double if she made it take twice as long.”

Alexa gasped.

“She’ll be at the hair salon for at least four hours! Maybe five!”

Olivia had an evil grin on her face.

“She’ll be done just in time to get dressed and get herself to the rehearsal. I gave Dad all the directions and told them we’d meet them there. Now, go.”

Instead of a massage, Maddie had gone to a very hard yoga class. The good thing about strenuous exercise when she was anxious about something was that when it was hard enough, it took all her brainpower to hold the pose, or lift herself that way, or run to the next block, and pushed away all the space that held her worries.

She slipped on her strappy sandals and looked at herself in the mirror one more time before leaving the house. Okay. She could do this.

She parked her car outside the Rose Garden, and another car immediately pulled up behind her. Please let the first person she saw not be Theo, please let the first person she saw not be Theo.

She took a deep breath, grabbed her clutch, and got out of the car. She forced herself not to turn around to check who was getting out of the cars behind her.

“Maddie!”

Now she turned around with a grin.

“Carlos!”

He stood next to the car behind hers, along with a black woman in a pale blue dress.

She waited for them to catch up to her, and gave Carlos a big hug. Thank God. What a good person to see first.

“Maddie, I’d love for you to meet my girlfriend, Nik. Nik, this is Maddie. She’s Alexa’s best friend and one of the bridesmaids.” Carlos paused. “Wait, aren’t you actually the only bridesmaid? Since Olivia is the maid of honor, and Theo is a bridesman?”

Maybe it would have been better to see Theo first, just to get it over with. Maybe then every mention of his name wouldn’t hit her so hard.

She reached out to shake Nik’s hand.

“Nice to meet you, Nik. I’ve heard a lot about you from Alexa and Drew. They were both stunned that someone as great as you would want to date this guy.”

“Hey!” Carlos put his arms around both of them as they walked down the stairs to the garden. “I come up to Northern California, like, twice a year, and this is the kind of abuse I get? What kind of gratitude is this?”

Maddie and Nik both laughed.

“I’m already excited about this wedding if it means people are going to make fun of Carlos all weekend,” Nik said. “And since we flew up here, he has to drive a rented sedan, which is just hilarious.”

He shook his head in disgust.

“I haven’t driven an automatic in years. It’s going to take me weeks to recover.”

They walked toward the group clustered around the back of the garden, as Carlos complained about the rental car. Theo was already there; Maddie had seen him the second they’d walked in. He hadn’t turned around to look at her.

There was a flurry of hugging and introductions and more hugging. In the midst of all of that, she turned around and found herself face-to-face with Theo. She forced a smile.

“Hi, Theo,” she said.

“Hey, Maddie,” he said. “You look beautiful.”

She tried not to let that melt everything inside her, but it took a lot of effort. Maybe he hadn’t meant what he said about her. He couldn’t have meant it, could he?

Of course he could have.

“Thank you, Theo,” she said. “How are you feeling?”

She could hear how stiff and hostile she sounded.

“A lot better. Thanks for asking.” He nodded at her and turned away to go greet Alexa’s parents.

Well, that had been a disaster. Was this just how it was going to be between them forever now?

She glanced at him throughout the rehearsal. She couldn’t stop herself. He laughed and chatted with Alexa’s mom, with Carlos, with Alexa’s cousin, like nothing was wrong, like he was totally fine having to stand next to her for the entire ceremony, so close she could feel his body heat as the sun went down and the air got cooler.