The Wedding Party (The Wedding Date, #3)(90)

Theo shook his head.

“First of all, you don’t know anything about that. Second . . . not great. There was a whole . . .” He shook his head. “I fucked up, in more ways than one. I probably never should have started the whole thing. Feelings are the worst.”

Carlos looked at Nik and they both laughed.

“I agree with you one hundred percent,” Nik said. “Carlos, go get us some drinks. Theo and I can stand here in the corner and not talk about feelings.”

He and Nik stood in companionable silence as they watched a stream of people come in and Alexa and Drew greet them all. Appetizers circulated, and soon they had napkins full of tiny cheeseburgers and puff-pastry-and-Brie triangles.

“If these appetizers are any signal of what the food at this wedding is going to be like, we’re in for a treat,” Nik said after finishing everything in her napkin.

Theo nodded.

“If there’s one thing I know about Alexa’s wedding, it’s that the food is going to be great.”

Carlos headed back toward them, three glasses of rosé in his hands, but people stopped him to say hi after every few steps he took.

Nik turned to Theo with a fond smile on her face.

“Carlos has never been able to stop himself from socializing.”

Theo tore his eyes away from Maddie to look where she was pointing.

Nik shook her head at him.

“Oh no. I don’t even know you, but I can tell you have it bad.”

Theo sighed.

“It’s that obvious, huh? I need to put on my game face for the rest of the night and tomorrow. Alexa and Drew don’t know about any of this. It’s complicated.”

Carlos finally reached them, just then. Nik took her glass of rosé and winked at Carlos.

“You’ve got to get some of those tiny cheeseburgers,” she said to Carlos. “They’re amazing.”

Carlos grinned.

“Oh, I had three before I even got to the bar.” He took her hand. “Come on, I have some people I want you to meet.”

Nik turned back to Theo before she walked away.

“It’s always complicated. The complications don’t matter.”

Theo just smiled and nodded at her. Like she would know. People in happy relationships always said things like “the complications don’t matter” when they had no idea what the problems were.

He endured the rest of the rehearsal dinner with a practiced smile on his face. He ate the food, he joined in on the toasts, he even made a toast of his own that got people laughing, and he snuck glances at Maddie the whole time. He hadn’t seen her for weeks; it was like he was starved for the sight of her. He was thrilled when she got up to give a toast. It gave him an excuse to look at her the whole time. She didn’t look at him once. Every time the letter in his pocket crackled, he winced.

This was going to be the worst wedding ever.





Chapter Twenty-two




MADDIE GOT TO ALEXA’S HOUSE AT NINE A.M. ON THE MORNING OF THE wedding. She had her dress over her shoulder, a duffel bag holding her shoes, makeup, and other necessities in one hand, and a bakery bag in the other. Today was going to be brutal; she needed as many good snacks as she could get.

Hell, last night had been brutal. She had to stand there and smile at the world and watch Theo chat with every woman who walked by him except for her, and today was going to be even worse.

She just had to take a deep breath, concentrate on Alexa, and get herself through it.

“Welcome to the madhouse.” Olivia opened the front door and ushered her in.

“Oh no.” Maddie handed the bakery bag to Olivia. “How is she?”

Olivia smiled and shook her head.

“You’ll see.”

They walked into the living room, where Maddie draped her plastic-encased dress over a chair and dumped her bag on the floor. She followed Olivia into the kitchen, and her eyes widened.

“Maddie!” Alexa gave her a hug. “You’re finally here! Fantastic. Do you want some coffee? I have lots of coffee!”

Maddie looked around at the trays full of cookies that blanketed the kitchen.

“Sure, I’ll take some coffee. Um . . . where did all of these cookies come from?”

Alexa picked up a cookie and handed it to Maddie.

“Wasn’t it a great idea? I woke up early and couldn’t go back to sleep, and I realized that we still had a bunch of eggs and butter in the fridge, and since we’re going to be gone for the next two weeks, the thing that made the most sense was to turn all of that into cookies! That way, we’ll all have stuff to snack on later today, and we can take cookies with us on our honeymoon. I just took the last batch out of the oven when you walked in!”

Olivia mouthed, “She’s lost it,” over Alexa’s head. Maddie tried not to grin and instead picked up a cookie.

“Yeah, um, that was a great idea. But the wedding isn’t until five. Aren’t you going to be exhausted later if you’ve been up baking for so long? Do you want to take a nap in a little while, or . . . ?”

Alexa picked up a cup and poured herself more coffee.

“I’ll be fine! I feel great! What do you have there?”

Maddie took the box out of the bakery bag.

“Oh, well, you always say how important it is for brides to eat on the day of their wedding so they don’t start drinking champagne on an empty stomach and then get drunk really fast, so I brought some doughnuts to start us off.” She looked around the room. “But I didn’t realize there would be so many cookies.”