The Worst Wedding Date

I mostly keep myself hidden away in my room until it’s time for the joint bachelor-bachelorette party to start later this afternoon. Not in my nature to stand still, do nothing, go nowhere, but the kittens and their mama are good company, and I catch up on some work.

Like my side hustle. That helps. So does being able to do it anywhere.

But I don’t talk about it.

Certainly not here. Not now.

Here and now, I’m strolling past the pool on my way to tonight’s events, contemplating Laney losing her top yesterday and getting half-hard.

I shouldn’t be falling for her again.

But when have I ever listened to shouldn’t?

“Hi, Theo,” Claire pops out from the walkway to the gift shop area. “You weren’t at the pool today.”

I smile. “Sure I was. You didn’t see me? Must’ve been that stealthy.”

She laughs. “You’re hilarious.”

“It’s a curse.”

“So you’re coming to the bachelorette party?”

Yeah.

The bachelorette party.

It’s a dual bachelor-bachelorette party, which I’m fine with.

Better than fine, actually. No interest in going to hang out with my sister’s fiancé at a strip club, drinking beer and smoking cigars and pretending like I won’t kill him if he touches one of the dancers.

Pretty sure he wouldn’t cheat on Emma. That he’s not the dick he’s playing this week. Or even the better part of this past year.

I mostly tolerated him fine from the time they hooked back up after college until he proposed.

Or maybe he tolerated me until he proposed.

Or until I made a fuck ton of money while he was running his family’s business into the ground.

Doesn’t take a genius to know that bothers the shit out of him.

Not like I’m rubbing it in his face. He came to me. Not the other way around. And yeah, I’m not really happy that he knows I have a pile of cash.

Em swears she didn’t tell him on purpose, that he found out by accident while she was working on my taxes last year, but they also have this no secrets rule.

Which apparently doesn’t extend to Chandler telling her how her dream wedding’s being paid off.

I nod to Claire. “Looks like. You been to one of these before?”

Small talk is where it’s at. Easy to pay attention while keeping an eye out for the rest of the wedding party.

Like one of the other bridesmaids who didn’t come back to our room at all today, even though I know she should’ve been done with brunch with Emma and Sabrina hours ago.

Was one of the triplets flirting with her?

Were multiple of the triplets flirting with her?

Fuck.

I hope she’s not embarrassed.

I should’ve told her I’ve also gotten so drunk I cried a time or two.

Shouldn’t have taken so long to get back to the room with hangover food.

But I couldn’t go back without the cookies.

Couldn’t do it.

I wanted Laney to have those cookies.

“You wore a veil with penises on it too?” Claire is staring at me like she doesn’t know what to think of me.

I replay the last few bits of our conversation that I wasn’t paying attention to, and yep.

She said something like but you’ve probably never worn a penis veil to a bachelorette party, and I said sure have, because that’s my default.

Yep. I’ve done that. Name it. I’ve done it.

I grin and wink at her. “Why not? Made everyone happy.”

“What made everyone happy?” Sabrina asks.

She and Laney are lurking behind an enormous hibiscus bush that needs to be trimmed back from the sidewalk.

Laney’s poker-faced.

Fuuuuck.

Did she see me wink at Claire?

I’m an idiot. I’m officially an idiot who needs to get his wink under control.

“Theo was just telling me he crashed a bachelorette party in a penis veil once,” Claire says.

“I didn’t hear about that,” Sabrina says.

Code for if I didn’t hear it, it didn’t happen.

I hit her with some solid eye contact. “You don’t hear everything.”

Yep.

That one landed.

Her lip curls while she narrows her eyes at me.

“Are you seriously going to let him get your goat?” Laney asks her. She doesn’t wait for an answer and instead grabs me by the elbow. “Theo. Come on. We’re sitting at the back of the room for instructions.”

She’s stiff as Princess Plainy-Laney used to be in high school.

And I feel every bit as uncoordinated and dumb as I did back then in the height of my crush-on-her days.

Especially since the feel of her hand on my elbow is giving me goosebumps.

The good kind of goosebumps.

And she can probably feel them.

“I had a twitch in my eyelid,” I tell her as I hustle to keep up, hoping she’s just embarrassed about last night and trying to hide it. “I wasn’t winking at Claire.”

Laney’s quickly becoming one of the highlights of my week.

Don’t really want to lose it when I’m dreading this wedding more by the day.

“Mm-hmm. Leftover effect of all of that sand in your eye yesterday?” she asks.

“Must be.”

She doesn’t believe me.

And she’s pissed that I was smiling and winking at another woman.

My dick high-fives my nuts. She likes us.

“Fun brunch with Em and Sabrina?” I ask.

“Yep.”

“Went long, huh? You left me unsupervised.”

“I was supervising Chandler instead.”

“Ew.”

She slides me a look. Her lips twitch, and I grin in triumph.

Made her smile. Or at least want to smile. And suppress it.

And for the record—this grin that I’m giving Laney?

This one’s my best. None of the showboat grin that Claire got.

“Guess babysitting me doesn’t look so bad after that, does it?” I nudge her with my elbow.

Her lips twitch more. She makes a sigh-harrumph that I tell myself is her way of getting her face back under control so I don’t know that I’m amusing her.

But as she’s settling her expression, her gaze wanders to my chest.

I puff it out.

Just a little. Not enough to be obvious, but enough to show off what I’ve done with my body.

“Why is your shirt always unbuttoned?” she asks me, like that’s the reason she’s staring.

“It’s hot here. You should try it.”

“You wish.”

“I do. It’s freeing. I want you to feel free.”

She slides me another look. This one comes with pinkening cheeks and makes me smile harder.

“Ah, fuck, your parents got here, didn’t they?” The words fly out of my mouth before I can stop them.

And I should’ve stopped them.

Because now she’s scowling. “No, Theo, my parents are not here yet.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“It’s fine.”

“—anything by that. Except that—nope. Nothing. Didn’t mean anything at all.” Except that her parents are prudish nightmares who taught Laney that fun is bad and duty is all that matters.

“Emma has requested that you and I be a team for the scavenger hunt, and she gave me all of the clues and answers, which I will not be sharing with you, so that we can make sure you avoid Chandler.”

Already got the clues and answers elsewhere a few hours ago, which I don’t really need to tell her. “I haven’t seen—fuck. I did see Chandler.”

She pauses and looks at me, and then, for the second time in two days, Laney hauls me through the bushes to a more secluded area as the sounds of the voices get louder and closer. She shoots a look up at the sky and pushes me past where we rendezvoused last night to a spot even farther from the lanai and the wedding party, with no coconut trees overhead threatening to drop fruit on us.

Yes, my body crows. We’re having fun in the bushes.

But, unfortunately, Laney’s all business. She keeps her distance while she launches into the inquisition. “What happened?”

I shrug. “I barely overheard a phone conversation, he realized I was there, and he got pissy. Story of my life with Chandler. He sees me—he gets pissy.”

If I were Laney, I’d be pulling out a you have that effect on people.

Or maybe that’s what I expect of her after a lifetime of us picking at each other.

Instead, she’s frowning deeper. “What was he talking about?”

“I don’t know. Didn’t care enough to pay attention.”

“Theo.”

“Don’t know,” I repeat. “You know something I don’t?”

She opens her mouth.

Closes it.

And then goes pink in the cheeks again.

I start to smile.

She doesn’t care that I saw Chandler.

She just wanted an excuse to pull me into the bushes.

And look at us, standing inches apart, her leaning into me, me leaning into her…

“I just feel like everyone’s keeping secrets and I don’t like it,” she finally says. “It makes all of this feel wrong. And I don’t want to feel wrong about Emma’s wedding.”

My face accidentally agrees with her before I can stop it.

“You feel it too.” She angles closer, hesitates like she realizes what she’s doing, but then takes a bold step all the way into my space bubble. “You feel like something’s wrong here too. What is it? What’s going on?”

I have so many secrets right now, I can’t even count them. “Laney, this one’s not yours to fix.”

She frowns. “That’s the same thing Sabrina said. But why can’t it be? This is Emma’s life that we’re talking about, and I feel like I’ve been asked to sit on the sidelines, and it makes me feel—it makes me feel like I’ve failed her as a friend,” she finishes on a whisper.

“It’s not you.”

“Isn’t it?”

Fuuuuuck. “It’s me.”

“Theo.”

“Not just saying it. It’s me. Chandler’s issue is with me. The secret is me.”

And now I sound like a damn egomaniac.

“How are you the secret?”

Dammit.

Dammit.

Have to give her something. Anything. Preferably something that won’t make her recoil in horror. I tilt my head up to look at the sky.

Can I do it?

Can I tell her?

“Theo. I was dead-ass drunk last night and still didn’t tell anyone about you know what. Why do you think you can’t trust me when I’m never, ever, ever drinking again?”

“Because you’re perfect—”

She snorts. “I am so far from perfect. Want proof? Ask my parents.”

“Your parents are dicks.” Shut. The fuck. Up. Theo. Shut the fuck up.

She sighs. “Why does Chandler have a problem with you?”

Well, Laney, I started making faceless videos of myself knitting with my woody hanging out while telling women that they should have higher standards, somehow became the most popular creator on GrippaPeen.com, and he doesn’t like it that my dick makes more money in a week than his brain could lose in a year.

Nope.

Not telling her that.

Besides, if that was the only problem, then it would be his problem. Not mine. “Reverse it, princess.”

“Fine. Why do you hate Chandler?”

I should not tell her this.

I shouldn’t.

It’s mine to bear. Not hers.

But it’s an easier secret than telling her I have a side hustle as an online adult entertainment star. And I’ve been bearing this other secret all by myself since Emma and Chandler hooked up again when they both moved home after college. Everyone thinks they’re so perfect and cute, the overachieving daughter of the town taxidermist and the chosen son who’s taking over running Bean & Nugget.

Laney won’t stop asking until she has a reason.

So I’ll give her one.

I suck in a deep breath and make myself look her in the eye. “You remember the Snaggletooth statue go-kart incident?”

She nods once.

“Chandler was driving. He told everyone it was me.”

She gasps.

Like literally gasps out loud. “He was—”

“Shh.” I put a finger to her mouth and immediately wish I hadn’t.

Jesus, her lips are soft. And plump. And pink. And hot.

“Theo,” she whispers, “you went to jail for that.”

“My word against his. Who’s gonna believe me?”

“But—”

“It was years ago. And I came out of it with a better understanding of what I did and didn’t want for my life. Who cares now?”

“You care.”

I shrug. “Shouldn’t. Changed my life for the better.”

“It was jail.”

“It was a wake-up call.”

“But he lied. And you paid the consequences.”

“Wasn’t fully innocent. I was there. I dared him. And you know what they say. So much potential. Learned his lesson. And now he’s the CEO of a budding café empire in the middle of the mountains, and I happen to really like where my life has taken me since. So it turned out all right from where I’m standing.”

She flinches so hard I feel it in my own chest.

Or maybe that’s the weight of all of the exaggerations that just came out of my mouth making my heart heavy.

“You still shouldn’t have paid for his mistake,” she whispers. “That’s not fair.”

And now my chest is feeling something else.

Warmth. Comfort. Relief.

She believes me.

She believes me.

“Long time ago,” I repeat.

“Does Emma know?”

“You know she and Chandler don’t keep secrets.” I keep my face as straight as I can so as not to clue Laney in to the fact that I believe Emma doesn’t keep secrets from Chandler, but I’m not sure it goes the other way.

“Does Sabrina know?”

“What doesn’t Sabrina know?”

“But she never—of course she didn’t. Why would she tell me? But why didn’t she—”

“Laney. Long time ago. Let it go.”

She studies me like she’s looking for what I’m not saying. For the parts of the story I’m leaving out.

None of those parts really matter though.

Not to me.

“You want me to let it go, but it’s bothering you enough to cause problems between you and Chandler.”

Dammit. I hate logic. “You believe me,” I say instead of making more excuses about why Chandler would be on my shit list now.

That is what matters to me.

That she believes me.

She flinches. “I’m sorry if I ever gave you the impression I wouldn’t.”

“Wasn’t the most reliable guy for a lot of years.” It’s true. Hiding from who I was back then won’t change it.

“But you own what you do. I didn’t do it isn’t a phrase in your vocabulary. So if you say you didn’t do it, why wouldn’t I believe you?”

“Because I don’t want my sister to marry a douchebag.”

Fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck.

That definitely wasn’t supposed to come out of my mouth.

“I don’t mean—” I start, but she cuts me off.

“Honestly, if they’d started dating in the last year, he wouldn’t be who I would’ve picked for her either, but then, there aren’t many people I’d pick for Emma. She’s just too good. He makes her happy, though. He has for a long time. I know he loves her, and you know she can’t wait to start a family with him, and this is her choice. Not ours.”

Ours.

I like when she says ours.

She wrinkles her nose again. “And really, in the Tooth, she could do a lot worse.”

“I’d rather be alone than do worse.”

She studies me again, and once again, entirely too closely. “Have you told her how you feel? That it still bothers you?”

“Tensions are high. Weddings are hard. I probably pushed some shit too much in the past few years and did things to him I don’t even remember now. Probably just as much my fault as anyone’s. I won’t ruin this for her because I’m having a wallow fest. I’ll get over it.” I hold out a hand before she can object or use some more logic and reason to tell me that I should say something to Emma. “C’mon, forced date. Let’s go kick ass in this scavenger hunt.”

“You’re right,” she says slowly. “Weddings are hard.”

She slips her hand in mine, her face a study in something is broken and I can’t fix it, and I feel it again.

Warmth. But not the bad kind that makes me want to shed all of my clothes to get comfortable.

The good kind.

It also makes me want to strip off all of my clothes, but for an entirely different reason. And this good kind comes with feeling like I don’t need to strip.

Like I’m okay however I am.

I know it’s a lie. It’s a temporary thing. A vacation fluke that’ll end the minute she finds out what I do in my spare time.

But for this moment, it’s real.