The Worst Wedding Date

The very worst sound in the world is Emma crying.

It’s like if rainbows smelled like sulfur. Or if unicorns were assassins. Or if chocolate tasted like liver.

“I just wanted to get married and have babies and get dogs and live a normal life,” she sobs. “But he let Theo go to jail for him. And no one told me.”

“I’m so sorry, Em.” Sabrina’s crying too as we hustle Emma back to the resort and away from all of the prying eyes and the few guests who were clearly recording the meltdown on their phones. “I didn’t mean—I shouldn’t have—”

“Kept that from me for ten years?” Emma shrieks.

Okay.

This is worse.

This is definitely worse than Emma just crying.

I squeeze Emma’s hand. “No one knew you didn’t know.”

“I would never date a man if I knew he sent my brother to jail.”

Okay, in retrospect, I probably should’ve assumed that.

“We thought you’d forgiven him,” Sabrina says.

“Because I’m nice? And kind? That makes me a fool?”

“No, it makes you the kind of person the rest of us wish we could be.”

The last time I saw Sabrina cry, she was pulling Emma out of the creek that runs through downtown, convinced Em had drowned not long after we all sobbed our eyes out at Mrs. Monroe’s funeral in middle school.

We’ve been through boyfriend breakups. Separation for college. Family funerals. All without the tears that Sabrina’s crying right now too.

Her world is crumbling too.

“I’m so sorry, Em,” she says.

“You always said you didn’t have secrets,” I say. “We thought you knew and just didn’t want to tell us the things that—”

“Please. Give. Me. Space,” Emma says.

Sabrina swallows another sob.

I don’t know how I’m dry-eyed.

Probably shock.

A porn star?

Theo’s a porn star.

And Emma’s wedding is wrecked.

And Sabrina’s family business is gone.

And Theo’s a porn star.

“Okay,” Sabrina says, her voice cracking like I’ve never heard it crack. “Okay. But if you need me, I’m here. And I’m sorry. I love you, Em.”

“Can I get you—” I start, but Emma glares at me too.

“Right before my wedding?” she shrieks. “You tell me that right before my wedding?”

I cringe and swallow my own defense.

Doesn’t matter if I’ve only known since yesterday.

Or that I thought she knew.

If I’d found out something that big about anybody else, any other time, I would’ve gone straight to Emma and Sabrina and asked if they knew. If it mattered.

And I didn’t.

“I’m sorry, Em,” I whisper too.

“I want to be alone,” she says.

Claire slips between us and takes her arm. “As soon as I get you to your room, I’ll make sure you get time alone. Call me your bodyguard. Okay?”

Emma nods.

Her makeup’s running down her face. Her hair’s still perfect. Dress still pristine.

“I slapped him,” she whispers.

“He deserved it for taking you for granted. You did the right thing, Em. I know it hurts now, but you’ve got an amazing support system behind you,” Claire’s saying as she leads Emma away from us.

“But I have to start over,” Emma sobs. “It’ll be at least three years before I have a baby now.”

Claire looks back at us.

There’s no judgment.

Feels more like she’s promising she’ll take care of everything and smooth things over with Emma.

I wrap my arms around Sabrina and pull her against me in a hug as they disappear into the building. “Are you okay?”

She buckles against me. “He sold the café, Laney. My café. It’s gone.”

“We’ll fix this.”

“We can’t. And now Emma hates me and I hate knowing things and I am never going to know things again. I’m becoming a hermit. I’ll forage for mushrooms and ice fish to feed myself, and I’ll live in a secret cave that none of the rest of you know about.”

“I’m sure you’ll be very comfortable with the bears.”

She doesn’t laugh. “Please tell me you don’t hate me too.”

“Why would I hate you?”

“I knew about Theo and GrippaPeen. I knew he was paying for the wedding. And I knew he hadn’t told you.”

My heart twists. Once a disappointment, always a disappointment.

I told myself that as soon as Emma was okay, I’d go find him.

But I’m honestly terrified of what I’ll find.

“It’s not what it sounds like.” She’s sobbing, and she’s trying to comfort me. “He’s…a solo act. He doesn’t screw women on video. And it’s tasteful. It really is. Inspiring even. Don’t—no, no, don’t get mad that I’ve seen it. I found out by accident. And I quit watching as soon as I realized it was him.”

I blow out a deep breath.

Definitely gonna need a minute for this one.

“Is that why you’re mad at him?” I ask.

A sob wrenches out of her. “No.”

“Why then?”

“I knew about Bean & Nugget’s back taxes. I asked Theo for money, and he pretended like he was just an average construction worker even though I know his construction job is a cover.”

“He…didn’t help.”

“Don’t be mad at Theo, Laney. I get it. He wouldn’t help because he didn’t like that I knew he could. He doesn’t want anyone to know he’s loaded. And I get it. I do. He spent so much of our childhood being a disappointment that he didn’t want people to suddenly like him because he’s sitting on a half-billion dollars when he knew they’d be total assholes about the fact that he made it by stripping down on the internet. But it’s Bean & Nugget. It’s my life.”

“Sabrina. Why didn’t you come to me? You know I’d go to my parents, and we would’ve helped. We would’ve figured this out.”

She pulls back and looks at me.

Really looks at me. “I couldn’t.”

“Why?”

“God, Laney, I don’t want to tell you. Please don’t make me tell you. It’s not about you. You didn’t do anything wrong. This is something older than all of us, and you and I can’t fix it. It’s done. Bean & Nugget is gone. And this is one more thing I cannot deal with today.” She wipes her eyes. “You need to go. Go see Theo.”

I flinch.

“Laney.”

“He doesn’t want me,” I whisper.

“Laney.”

“I know. I know. We’re not even dating, but you heard him. You heard him. I was a vacation fling, and he doesn’t want Plainy-Laney. He doesn’t want me to judge him. He doesn’t want me to expect anything from him.” My eyes are stinging. “He doesn’t want me to hurt him.”

She grabs me by the arm and tugs me down the walkway.

The one to my bungalow.

My bungalow with Theo.

“He saved a litter of kittens and their mama cat and that’s why the other bedroom in his bungalow is blocked off,” I whisper. “He saved a litter of kittens. He tried to save Emma’s wedding. And he’s a porn star. And Mom’s right. The press—they’ll care. I don’t want to care. But the entire world has seen him naked. And I can’t—I want—I can’t—”

I can’t let it go.

Every woman on the planet can see my boyfriend’s naked penis.

Oh my god.

There are some who have probably seen it more than I have.

And he doesn’t want to be my boyfriend.

“Go. Talk. To. Him.” Sabrina shoves me softly as we reach the bungalow.

I dig my room key out of the secret pocket in my dress—I’ll get my phone later from the bridal suite—and let myself inside.

The hide-a-bed is still sticking up weirdly in the living room.

But the open primary bedroom door makes me suck in a breath.

I scurry across the rug to peek in.

And when I get there, I have to stifle a sob.

Theo’s here. He’s taken off his suit jacket and has his white button-down half-open over the sleeveless white shirt beneath while he works his way around the room, putting the kittens in a cat carrier.

“What are you doing?”

He doesn’t look up at me.

Doesn’t answer.

Like he’s waiting for me to reject him so he doesn’t have to be the one to reject me again.

I can’t do that.

I need answers, but I’m not going back to the life I used to live, and I want to believe there’s a solid explanation for this. “Theo, what are you doing?”

“Vacation’s over. Going home. Back to work.”

I flinch.

And that’s what he sees.

The first time he’s looked at me since I walked in the room, and he sees me flinching at him going back to work.

Like he knew it would make me flinch, and I’ve just proven his point.

“Why?” I ask.

“Make more money. What it’s all about, isn’t it?”

“Why is this your…path?”

He snags Jellybean off the counter and drops her into the carrier with the rest of her brothers and sisters, who are all meowing like they’re confused and worried. “Because I’m fucking good at it. That bother you?”

I swallow hard.

Yes.

Yes, it bothers me. But I’m trying very, very hard to separate my childhood lessons in porn is for filthy sex addicts from my grown-up knowledge that Theo Monroe is a good man with a big heart who’s been overlooked by so many people his entire life.

“I like you,” I whisper. “I like you a lot. And I want to understand so that—”

“So that what? You can convince me to quit? You can quietly judge me in your head while you’re telling me to my face that you’re not? So I can be the dirty little secret your parents don’t talk about because they’d rather you date boring pricks who won’t make the news but also don’t know a g-spot from an asshole? I’m a big deal, Laney. I’m a big fucking deal, and those videos everyone was taking? They’ll be all over the news in under an hour. You want that to be your next problem at work? You want to spend your days knowing that everyone around you is wondering if we had freaky sex or just normal sex? You want to know if they’re wondering how many women I screw? If we made videos? You want that?”

I blink at the heat in my eyes and purse my lips together to make them stop trembling.

He’s not wrong.

I’ve thought all of those things.

But I don’t want to.

I want—

I want him to have a different job so this can be easier. And that’s not fair.

Which means if I want him, I have to find a way to accept him for all of who he is.

But he won’t let me.

“So that’s it?” I finally force out as he scoops up the last kitten. “You’ve decided for me what I do and don’t want?”

He sweeps past me with the cat carrier cradled gently in his arms. “Got a few bigger problems than you right now.”

“Do you?”

“This was coming eventually, princess. Just ripping off the Band-Aid now before it gets stuck too hard and leaves that gross adhesive all over both of us.”

“I still like you even when you’re a dick who won’t give me a chance to find a way forward for us.”

His shoulders hitch.

“And I know you’re being a dick because you’re scared and you don’t want to hurt, and you know what? I’m scared too. I don’t want to hurt either. But this isn’t how we solve things.”

“Nothing to solve,” he grunts.

“If you didn’t care, you wouldn’t be mean.”

He freezes at that.

He knows.

He knows exactly what I’m calling him on.

I was mean because I liked you and I didn’t know how to deal with it.

When he finally slowly turns to look me straight in the eye, dread blossoms so hard in my stomach that everything in my core clenches.

“Guess that’s the answer then,” he says. “I’m not good for you. Never have been. Never will be. Good luck, Laney. I hope you find whatever it is you’re looking for. But it’s not me. It was never going to be me.”

And then he’s gone, taking the cats and striding out the door so fast, I’d have no chance to keep up with him.

He doesn’t pack his duffel bag. Grab his suitcase. Retrieve the ring light from under the bed that’s no longer a point of curiosity, but instead a glaring you should’ve seen this coming piece of evidence about what he does for a day job.

But I guess when you’re one of the biggest internet porn stars in the world, you don’t care if you have to buy a new toothbrush or a new ring light.

“You’re being a giant idiot,” I hear Sabrina say outside the bungalow.

Theo grunts again.

And then she’s catching the door and looking inside at me, her makeup running, her hair a mess, utter grief shimmering in her eyes in the very, very worst ways.

“Wanna go get drunk?” she whispers.

No, I don’t want to go get drunk.

I want to not hurt.

But I nod to her anyway because what the hell else are we going to do?

“Yes.”