The Worst Wedding Date

He liked me?

That’s absurd.

I have no idea if he thinks he can wash away years of being an utter turd by telling me I only pulled your ponytails because I liked you, but I cannot process this right now.

Nor do I appreciate it.

Fun and subjecting myself to being treated like crap under the bullshit excuse of he liked me are two very, very different things.

I grab my credit card and ID out of my purse, tuck them into the pocket of my skirt—I love this thing—and head out my door, only to nearly crash into Sabrina on the porch.

“You’re back.” She squeezes me in a quick hug. “What’s wrong?”

“I need a mai tai.”

She looks at the door.

I grimace. “If he leaves, I will personally strap him to that half-open pullout sofa with unbreakable ties and leave him there for the rest of the weekend once we find him, and I can nearly certainly promise you he knows it.”

“Mai tais it is,” Sabrina says.

Twenty minutes later, we’re at the pool. I’m not in my swimsuit. I left it in the room. But I have a mai tai in one hand, a plate of shrimp skewers in the other hand, my straw hat and sunglasses on, and Sabrina right next to me.

“This goes in the vault and we will never speak of it again,” I tell her, and then I catch her up on most of my entire day.

Whispering.

Because the bushes behind us might have ears.

Also, I tiptoe around the part about the kittens. I don’t mention it at all, in fact.

Loyalty to the cats. I swear that’s all it is. Not me holding a grudge and wanting to have a secret when everyone else around me is keeping secrets.

When I get to the part where Theo told me he liked me, she doesn’t react at all.

Like, at all.

“Hello?” I whisper. “A gasp? A what the hell? Maybe a that’s so mean of him to lie about thinking you were attractive in high school to wipe away his bad behavior?”

Her expression is completely and totally blank. “Hm.”

“Do not poker-face me on this one.”

“Laney.”

I shove a shrimp in my mouth and feel like Emma with her protein bar yesterday. Was that seriously just yesterday? “And do not say my name in that I’m about to tell you something you don’t want to hear, but you need to hear it, so I’m going to say it anyway tone. I cannot handle that tone right now.”

“Here. Have more mai tai.”

I gulp.

Give her the do not tell me what I don’t want to hear eyeball.

The there is not enough alcohol in the world for whatever it is, and I have barely had a teaspoon of it eyeball.

And she ignores me. “Emma told me our freshman year that Theo had a huge crush on you, but she made me swear not to tell because he was super embarrassed about it.”

“So it’s embarrassing to like me.”

She shoves a piece of shrimp in my mouth. “Your parents made sure to tell him he wasn’t good enough for you, and he was embarrassed because he thought they were right.”

“Abagabbagoo?”

“Don’t talk with shrimp in your mouth. Here. Eat another one.”

I bat the second shrimp away. “Sabrina. That’s awful.”

“Theo in high school wasn’t good for anyone. He had all of his wild but none of his sense.”

“What does that mean?”

“Remember when he got suspended for…actually, pick a time he got suspended. Any of them.”

I grimace, recall the time he sat on a copy machine at school after hours and scanned his ass, which he then labeled as the principal’s ass and hung ten thousand copies of all over town, and take another swig of mai tai. Good thing it’s super weak. For the number of mai tais I want right now, I wouldn’t be able to walk later if they weren’t.

God, I’m boring.

“He crossed lines he won’t cross now,” Sabrina says, “because he finally figured out the consequences got bigger once he was old enough to understand how much he didn’t want to spend time in jail. And he has…a job…now, and—”

“What does he do?”

“What do you mean, what does he do?”

“You hesitated when you said a job. What does he do? For money? For rent and food and cloth—no, wait, he doesn’t wear clothes anymore apparently, but I assume he has a car, so he needs money for gas and insurance too. And possibly a coat and boots for back home.”

Sabrina grins at me from under her straw hat, which matches mine since we went shopping for them together two weeks ago. “Even on mai tais, you are so very Delaney.”

“What does that mean?”

“I just love that you worry about how anyone pays for car insurance. Did you know you reminded me to pay my insurance bill just now? Hold on. Let me pull up my phone and do that before I forget.”

“Your insurance bill auto-pays, and you’re trying to distract me.”

“I am not,” she lies. With a massive grin. “Oh, hey, look. I got a picture of my puppy from the dog sitter. Want to see my cutie-pie?”

“Distraction!”

She grins bigger. “Laney. I’m offended.”

She is not.

But fine.

Fine. “You know what? You’re right. It doesn’t matter.”

“Okay, okay. If you must know, he works—” she starts, but before she can finish her sentence, a giant splash from the pool blasts both of us.

I gasp and stutter, then whimper as I realize my shrimp skewers are now coated in pool water.

Theo surfaces fifteen feet away, out in the pool.

“Afternoon, ladies,” he calls. “Just reporting for being-babysat duties.”

The old Theo is back.

Acting like he didn’t drop the bombshell of all bombshells on me an hour ago.

And is it a bombshell?

Yeah.

Yeah, it is.

Because I liked him too, but I never, ever, ever would’ve said it out loud. I could barely admit it to myself.

He was forbidden. He was fun. He was dangerous.

And I craved that.

I knew better. Clearly. I had—have a big future at my family’s company. In high school, that meant my immediate future was defined by getting good grades so I could get into a good college and get a good education that would lay the foundation to one day step into my parents’ shoes and run Kingston Photo Gifts.

There was an element of obligation that I’d continue what they started, but I wanted to do it.

I still do.

There’s pride in being a part of continuing what my parents built. I love that we make products that bring so much joy to families and friends and people connected in so many other ways.

But there are other expectations to being a Kingston too.

Expectations that I don’t want anymore. But I still haven’t shed them.

Not entirely.

Nor have I tried as much as I’ve been telling myself I want to since I broke up with Christopher.

“You owe Laney a new plate of shrimp,” Sabrina calls to Theo.

“Put it on my tab,” he calls back.

And then he’s gone, swimming like he was born in the ocean instead of in a dry-as-dry-can-be Colorado mountain town.

“He’s still wild and unpredictable,” Sabrina says, continuing like he didn’t interrupt us, “but he takes ownership now, and he pays for his mistakes.”

“Oh my god. Are you trying to make me like him?” I hiss.

“It would be nice if you two could at least be friends.” She shrugs. “Em’s gone out of her way to avoid making plans with either of you that would have both of you in the same place at the same time with her, because she knew he’d be a dick and you’d get all stuffy about it, which you rightfully should, but I figure if you know why he’s a dick, maybe that’ll help you tolerate him better.”

“I don’t like dicks.”

Theo coughs and sputters at the edge of the pool.

But it’s the way his face goes a deep burgundy before he pushes off and glides through the water to the full opposite side of the pool that has me dropping my head to my knees on my lounge chair. “Tell me he’s not going to walk around the rest of the weekend telling people I’m not into men.”

“I’ll handle that,” Sabrina assures me. “I know where he keeps his dirt.”

“You terrify me and I love you.” I sigh and lean back in my chair. “You know the worst part of this?”

“That he’s unfortunately super easy on the eyes?”

I roll my eyes like that’s not true, even though it is. But it’s not the worst. “I feel like I’ve missed all of my fun years and it’s too late to start now because it’s too ingrained in me to be a good girl.”

She doesn’t answer right away.

“I have, haven’t I?” I glance at her, knowing if anyone else were studying me that closely, I’d be super uncomfortable. But Sabrina, Emma, and I have been through too much together for her to intentionally hurt me with the truth. “I’ve put so much effort into doing the right thing and being the right person that I’ve missed out on so many opportunities to have fun.”

“How drunk are you?”

I lift my glass, which is still half full, and not merely because Theo splashed more water into it.

“Good. C’mon. We’re going shopping.”

I look back at the pool.

Theo’s Uncle Owen isn’t around, so there’s little chance he’ll goad Theo into another dare.

Claire’s approaching from the beach side with a few of her and Emma’s sorority sisters who are here for the wedding but not in the wedding. She’ll definitely stick around once she realizes Theo’s in the pool.

And I don’t say that because I think she wants to throw herself at him or introduce him to the rest of the women.

It’s more that I’m certain she knows Emma’s stressed over his behavior too. Claire’s always been great whenever I’ve seen her. I know she wants Emma to have a good wedding week too.

She’ll help.

“Where’s Chandler?” I ask Sabrina.

“Golfing. Again.”

“Emma?”

“Shopping with the moms. They all want souvenirs and to see the town a little. She’ll be back for dinner. Come on. We’re going to get you some fun.”

“What kind of fun?”

“The kind that requires you to buy a brand-new bikini at the overpriced tourist store and go cannonball the hell out of the pool.”

My stomach freezes over.

And I know she knows it.

I scowl down at it myself. She’s right.

I should do it.

“Your parents aren’t here, Laney,” she says softly. “And you deserve to see what it feels like to have half the wedding party flirting with you when you show up in a bikini.”

She’s so full of crap.

Compared to her redheaded bombshellness and Emma’s bright glow in the world, I’m the frumpy, flat-bottomed mouse.

But I’m also the one who wants to break out. The one who wants to take more risks. The one who’s in a safe place with people who love me and trust me and who won’t let me do something stupid if I’ve had more of this mai tai than I think I have.

I glance at Theo, out there splashing away as he catches the eye of every single freaking person around the pool.

Then I look back at Sabrina. “Okay. Let’s do this.”