Save the Date(30)

“So you’re staying the weekend,” Linnie said, giving Brooke a very fixed smile, in between staring daggers at Danny. “You’re . . . coming to the wedding?”

Brooke’s head whipped over to Danny. “You didn’t—”

“I told you I was bringing a date,” Danny said, as Linnie and Rodney both shook their heads.

“Wait, this is perfect,” J.J. said. “She can take the spot my date was going to have. I hope you like steak, Brooke.”

“What date?” Danny asked.

“Exactly,” I said.

“So now that your guest count isn’t going to be off,” J.J. said, “maybe we, um, just end the bet?”

“Great idea,” I said quickly, really not wanting my brother to invite a felon to the wedding. “Forfeit?”

“Forfeit agreed,” J.J. said. He pointed to me and Rodney. “Forfeit accepted?”

“Accepted,” we said in unison.

“Not that I couldn’t have gotten a date,” J.J. said, and I noticed that under his usual bravado, he looked very relieved. “But this way, I can concentrate on enjoying your wedding.”

“So!” Danny said, leaning back against the counter and cracking open his can of soda. I noticed Brooke was still standing in the spot where she’d first come into the room, shifting her weight on her high heels back and forth from foot to foot. “Tell me things! What’s been going on?”

“Well,” I said, raising an eyebrow at Danny. “You might need to get a refund on your wedding planner.”

“What happened to Clementine?”

“She skipped town,” Linnie said.

“Embezzlement,” J.J. added.

“What?” Danny asked, looking around at all of us. “Is this a joke?”

“Nope,” I said, pushing myself up to sit on the counter. “We found out this morning, and—”

“Who’s Clementine?” I looked back to see Brooke still standing in the doorway, smiling as she asked this. I glanced over at her, annoyed. Because this—us—all of us together, joking around and talking, it was what I’d been looking forward to for months. And it was getting derailed by this girl in our kitchen, the one who shouldn’t have been there and was only getting in the way.

“She’s the wedding planner,” I said shortly, then turned back to my siblings. “Guys, should we have a General Grant Meeting at some point this weekend?”

“I thought all five of us had to be here for a GGM,” Danny said, taking another drink of his soda.

“The wedding planner quit?” Brooke asked, but J.J. was already talking over her.

“All five of us are here,” he said. “Mike’s back. He came for the wedding.”

“Really.” Danny glanced at Linnie, who nodded. “How’s that been going?” Then he looked around, like he was just now noticing Mike wasn’t in the kitchen. “Wait, where is he?”

“Staying at Jesse Foster’s,” Rodney responded.

Danny’s eyebrows flew up. “And how’d that go over?”

“Not great,” J.J. and I said in unison.

“I bet,” Danny said with a short laugh. “Jeez. Remember that one time—”

“Mike’s here?” Brooke asked brightly, and we all turned to look at her. “I’m glad I’m going to get to meet him. I wasn’t sure, because Danny said he wasn’t coming, because there was a . . .” Her voice trailed off, and her cheeks turned pink. “I mean,” she said, speaking more quickly now. “Just that Mike and your mother—”

“Did I hear the alarm again?” my dad asked, pushing through the kitchen door that Brooke had left ajar. He stopped and smiled when he saw Danny and pulled him into a hug. “Our firstborn! When did you get here? Good trip?” He must have noticed Brooke then, because he took a step back, and his eyebrows flew up.

“Oh—hello,” he said. “Are you Clementine? Did you change your mind and come back to us?”

“No,” Brooke said, her voice rising slightly. “I’m—”

“This is my girlfriend,” Danny said smoothly, widening his eyes slightly at my dad. “Brooke. I told you about her.”

There was only a tiny beat before my dad said, a little too heartily, “Of course, of course. Welcome. I’m Jeffrey Grant. Very nice to meet you. I think Danny told us you have a business selling cookies online.”

“What?” Brooke frowned, and looked at Danny. “I—no.”

“She doesn’t,” Danny said, looking hard at my dad, clearly trying to tell him to shut up.

“No, you told me,” my dad said, missing this as he wandered over to the counter and helped himself to some celery sticks from the veggie tray. “I was so impressed—it was that app? All about how people can get fresh cookies delivered whenever they want? What was it called?”

“I . . . don’t know,” Brooke said.

“That’s not Brooke,” he said. “That was . . . someone else. Brooke’s a doctor.”

I looked over at her, surprised. Maybe it was just that my doctor was a middle-aged woman who always wore sneakers, but I wasn’t used to doctors looking quite so glamorous. But maybe things were different in California.