The Worst Wedding Date, page 12
“Nobody died, and I can still see.” I smile at my sister and fling an arm around Delaney’s shoulders. “Brilliant of you to give me a keeper who can handle it all so effortlessly.”
Em flushes. “Theo, I—”
“Theo, you’re right,” I interject in a falsetto. “I’m brilliant, which goes without saying, and Delaney’s much prettier than Chandler’s ancient Aunt Brenda, and I’m glad you recognize what a giant favor I’ve done for you with your date this week.”
“If all he has is that I’m prettier than Chandler’s ancient aunt with the permanent scowl on her face, then I’m doing my job right,” Delaney quips.
“What’s that, you little whore?” Aunt Brenda says behind us.
Emma jumps. Delaney jumps and gasps and her face morphs into a tomato.
I slowly turn to frown at Aunt Brenda.
She’s technically Chandler’s great-aunt, but she’s really the entire town’s cranky old aunt.
And she has about ten seconds to take back the name before Ugly Theo enters the conversation. “Hey, Auntie No-No. Insulting my date? Tsk, tsk, Auntie No-No. So rude. What would your mother think?”
Laney makes a strangled noise.
The old bag of crankiness peers at me. “What would your mother think?”
“Of you tossing out insults to my sister and her wedding guests?”
“Of you.”
I grin and wink at her, even though she’s on my shit list. “She’d probably be glad I went for someone my own age instead of succumbing to all the flirting you’ve done with me over the years.”
Laney makes another noise, but this one’s definitely more amused.
Emma slides between us. “You’re sitting with my parents and my cousin and some of your nieces and nephews, Aunt Brenda. You remember my cousin Sandor? He loves hearing how many bra-burners you arrested back in the day.”
Sandor, the poor dude with horrible timing, flashes Emma a horrified look as he stops behind Aunt Brenda.
“Immodest hippies,” Aunt Brenda grumbles.
Laney flinches.
And I get a flashback to her cannonball and the results of it at the pool.
It was a minus five on a ten-point scale as far as cannonballs go.
And I’m trying very, very hard to remember that instead of letting my mind speculate on the show I missed under the water when her top came off and how much I’d love to sneak her down to the pool late tonight to help her with her form.
“Ah, and here’s Sandor now.” Emma smiles at him. “He’s in banking. You should ask him if he’s ever seen any fraud.”
Aunt Brenda is still eyeing me. “She’s too good for you, and you know it.”
“Who?” I ask.
“This woman you claim is your date.”
“Didn’t you just call her a very unflattering name?”
“Whores are too good for you.”
“Doesn’t mean I can’t have fun until she figures that out for herself.” I wink at her again. “Name-callers go to hell, Auntie No-No.”
She points at me and looks at Emma. “I want to sit with him. He needs someone to keep him on his best behavior.”
Emma gives me The Look.
It’s basically the only look that isn’t Emma being a perpetually optimistic, believe-the-best-of-everyone ray of sunshine.
Too bad, really. There’s little I love more than pushing Auntie No-No until she cracks.
In irritation or laughter, I generally don’t care. If Aunt Brenda wants to be miserable her whole life, that’s her business. Can’t fix that kind of determination.
But if Emma doesn’t want me making a scene, I won’t make a scene.
At least, not much more of a scene.
“I have really bad gas,” I tell Aunt Brenda. “It’s loud. And it smells. I wouldn’t want to sit with me if I were you.”
I belatedly remember that when she wasn’t arresting hippie bra-burners, she was a middle school gym teacher. Probably had all her sniffer sensors burned off already.
Which might account for why she’s always cranky. I would be too if I couldn’t smell coffee or cookies or flowers or Laney’s shampoo.
Stop it, dumbass. Not Laney’s shampoo.
But it was probably the wrong tactic.
Aunt Brenda’s scowl gets deeper.
It was definitely the wrong tactic.
She grabs Sandor by the arm. “Flatulence jokes are for people without two brain cells to rub together. Back in my day, we never would’ve discussed it with our elders either. Come, young man. You don’t have flatulence, do you?”
“N-no,” Sandor stammers while Aunt Brenda drags him onto the lanai where we’re having luau food and dance lessons tonight.
“Theo.” Emma’s full-on glaring and hissing at me as Auntie No-No marches away. “She’s had serious digestive issues that have caused a few horrifically embarrassing moments in public the past few years.”
I open my mouth.
Close it again.
Whoops. “Sorry, Em. I’ll stick to sports and babies and the unstoppable forces of physics as my only conversation topics at dinner. Cross my heart.”
“We’ll go find seats,” Delaney interjects in a strangled voice. She hugs Emma again. “Don’t worry, sweetie. They all know who you’re related to and no one holds you accountable for that.”
“Yeah. You’re related to awesome people,” I say. “The best of the best. And you’re even bester than the rest of us.”
Delaney grabs my arm and tugs.
I follow like a freaking dog.
But four more steps down the small, tropical-flowery-bush-lined corridor toward the lanai for tonight’s private family dinner, she makes a noise that almost sounds like a stifled laugh.
I shoot a glance at her.
Is she—holy fuck.
She is.
She’s laughing.
“You like fart jokes?” I ask her in my most seductive voice. “Because if you love fart jokes, there are way more where that came from.”
Can’t help myself.
My hormones have decided it’s time to win Delaney over. There’s no try your normal tactics on her either.
This is go big or go home.
Be so ridiculous that when she doesn’t take my interest in her seriously, I know it’s my own fault.
Is this self-preservation? Or is this me really wanting to see that Delaney who whispered that she wanted to make a sandcastle this morning?
Fuck.
It’s definitely me wanting to see the Laney who’d make a sandcastle.
She makes a muffled, high-pitched noise despite pinching her lips together, and then she does the most un-Delaney-like thing ever, and after a quick glance behind us, she yanks me off the boardwalk and into the bushes.
She looks toward the ocean, then tightens her grip and pulls me even farther into a dimly lit tropical alcove between the resort buildings, the beach, and the lanai.
Yessss, my dick says.
I tell it to shut up.
She probably wants to make sure we’re too far away to be overheard.
When she finally stops, we’re beneath a coconut tree. I peer up. Way up.
Is it likely one of those coconuts will fall on us?
The breeze makes the palms sway above us, and I push Laney over to a shorter, non-coconut-bearing tree.
She looks up like she’s just noticing the coconut tree.
Her eyes flare wide.
She squeaks. Takes a long step farther from the coconut tree.
And then she doubles over as something thunks behind me.
Are you kidding me?
There’s a new coconut on the ground where we were just standing.
And she’s laughing.
Laney.
Laney Kingston.
Princess Plainy-Laney. Prim and proper rule-follower who left me with an aching boner in the pool by showing up in a bikini and almost made me come in the pool in the aftermath of a terrible cannonball.
She’s doubled over laughing at fart jokes and nearly dying by falling coconut.
Laney laughing?
This is ten levels beyond Laney playing with kittens.
I am not the guy who had a crush on this woman in high school.
I’m the idiot who still does.
Emma’s sunshine. Sabrina’s fun.
But Laney?
Laney’s like this secret castle. She’s a mystery. An enigma. I always wanted to believe she’s hiding something magical and special and out of this world behind that mansion-on-the-hill exterior.
And now I want to believe I can be the guy who helps her find what she probably doesn’t even know she has inside of her.
Because of moments like this.
Moments when she’s completely unguarded. Letting go and letting herself enjoy the lighter side of life.
I want inside her castle.
I want to find where that fun part of her is, where the adventurous part of her is, and I want to help her let it out.
And right now, I get to watch her just be. And enjoy herself just being. And laugh like nothing else in the world matters.
And know that she trusts me to be the guy she shares this moment with.
“We can’t go to dinner,” she gasps between peals of laughter.
That’s the best idea I’ve heard all day. But when she says it, I can’t help the way I brace myself like this is a trap.
Liking Laney has never ended well for me. And no amount of telling myself that I’m so much better for her today than I was in high school can alleviate the instinctive fear that letting myself like her again will end just as badly. “Why?”
“God, Theo, things just happen when you’re around. They’ll probably serve peach flambé for dessert, and just because you’re in the room, the flames will go too high and set the banana trees on fire.”
I swallow.
Once in high school, late enough that I had access to a car and could drive, Emma had a fancy dinner for some honors thing that everyone’s families went to. It was all of the good kids, the smart kids, the right kids, and then there was me.
And then there was Delaney.
She had looked like she’d just been informed every college in the nation had rejected her because grades weren’t real, and her entire life was upside down.
I knew why.
Her preppy boyfriend had just dumped her because they wanted different things out of life.
And what I wanted was to throw her over my shoulder, blow off the dinner, and take her up to Marmot Cliff to look at the stars and show her how much all of the fancy shit and the stuffy shit and the assholes didn’t matter when you could see the Milky Way, but I knew she’d tell me that wasn’t proper.
So I blew off the dinner and took myself up there.
And I didn’t enjoy it at all.
My head was back there where Laney was upset, and I was pissed at myself for caring enough to let it ruin a great night up on the cliff, and pissed at myself for not having the courage to offer it to her anyway.
So having her suggest we blow off a family dinner where I’d have to avoid Chandler and avoid Aunt Brenda and avoid making subtle threats to the Sullivan triplets about looking at Laney wrong?
Chandler’s obnoxious laugh drifts through the air, and every muscle in my back tightens.
But then I look at Laney, who’s wiping tears from her eyes, she’s laughing so hard.
And then I glance at the sun sinking low on the horizon between the lanai where family dinner is supposed to be and the black-rock-covered beach closer to where I want to be.
Banana leaves are full of water. Doubt they burn easily.
But she’s not wrong.
If I go in there and something goes wrong, it’ll be my fault, and if there’s one thing I want more than anything for my sister, it’s for her to be happy.
With or without me around.
I nod once and take her by the elbow, ignoring the shiver that races up my arm at the feel of her soft skin beneath my fingertips. “I’ll drive.”
14
Laney
I should not be following Theo out of the resort, but I am so tired of shoulds.
Why can’t I have fun?
Why can’t I be irresponsible?
I hate missing Emma. Hate it. This is her week and I want to be here for her and see her for more than five minutes at a time. But there are forty people coming to dinner tonight. Forty. Parents, grandparents, the bridal party, aunts, cousins… It might be a family dinner, but it’s still a lot of people.
I tell myself I’m helping Theo stay away from Chandler, which is better for Emma, whom I see all the time. That she had a great day today because I handled all things Theo-related.
But I also feel an utter thrill at knowing I’m doing something I shouldn’t do. Something forbidden. Something dangerous.
Something with potentially life-altering consequences bigger than me losing my bikini top in a pool.
Something that would give my mother a heart attack and a half.
And that makes it all the more appealing.
Not because I want her to suffer. But because I want to live. And I can’t live in the fear of the world that I was raised to cower in.
It’s happening.
I’m having my rebellion. And now that it’s started, I can’t stop it.
Nor do I want to. This can’t wait until next week.
It has to happen now.
Theo stops next to a red convertible. “Climb in.”
“Are you serious?”
He dangles the keys.
My jaw is on the pavement. A convertible? “When did you get—”
“Airport. When I landed.”
“But we took—”
“Ride share to and from the clinic? Even I won’t drive when I can’t see, and no way was I letting you behind the wheel of this baby.”
He says it with the same flirty grin he was aiming at Claire earlier.
The one that reminds me of the smile he aimed my way when he nudged me into doing my cannonball.
“Because I have a horrible driving record?” I say like old Laney, and I immediately want to take it back.
But he grins wider. “No, because she’s built for speed. None of that granny driving you do.”
I look at the car again. Red. Shiny. Top down. A feral black cat peering at me from the passenger seat’s foot well.
And then I look at Theo again.
“I didn’t steal the car,” he says.
There’s cheek in his words, there’s something else too. Like he expects did you steal the car is the top question in my head right now, because it’s the first thing I would’ve asked him in high school.
But he’s not high school Theo. And I’m not high school Laney.
I swallow. “I didn’t say you had.”
“And I didn’t say I’ve never stolen a car. Just not this one.”
Oh, god. I’m running away with a bad boy.
Oh, god. I’m running away with a bad boy.
Maybe not the same kind of bad boy he was in high school, but still someone well outside my normal dating circles.
This is going to be fabulous.
I hesitate only the briefest moment before I open the door, shoo out the stray cat—he has enough cats, and this one has a clipped ear, indicating it’s wild and fixed—and slide in.
Theo doesn’t open his door.
He pulls a movie-star move and swings his legs over the side of the car, slides into the driver’s seat, takes a minute to unbutton his Hawaiian shirt all the way before buckling his seat belt over his dark jeans, and then punches the button to start the motor.
The car roars to life and makes my clit tingle.
Not. Good.
But I can ignore this.
I text Emma quickly. Turns out Theo actually DOES have gas. Have fun dancing! I’ve got this under control.
Theo looks at me. “Did you just tell my sister that I have gas?”
“Yes.”
Why is he aiming the flirt grin at me again? “Good. She knows how bad I can stink. Add that I had sardines for lunch.”
And then he’s tucking his arm around the back of my seat while he looks behind us and backs the car out.
Like there’s not a backup camera right there in the dash.
A thrill zings through the rest of me.
I’m being a bad girl tonight.
For just one night.
For good reasons.
I am absolutely going to be that person I’ve always been told I shouldn’t want to be, but that person that I’ve wanted more and more to explore every single day of the past year.
“Where are we going?” I ask over the engine as Theo heads out of the parking lot.
“Does it matter?”
The question shouldn’t stump me, but it does.
And not because I don’t know the right answer. No is clearly the right answer here.
But how often do I ever do things in my own life without purpose?
Never.
And that’s not wrong. But maybe it’s not enough.
“I want fish tacos,” I tell Theo.
It’s what pops into my head. I’m hungry. Fish tacos sound good.
No overthinking.
I just want fish tacos.
Fifteen minutes later, I have a bag of fish tacos in hand courtesy of a local drive-through place, and Theo’s driving us out of town.
I don’t ask where we’re going again, or why he didn’t get anything for himself.
Instead, I eat fish tacos and watch the sun dip lower in the horizon until he steers us up a road going inland, putting the sunset behind us.
Going nowhere.
Or maybe somewhere specific, and it’s a surprise.
Theo’s quiet. It’s an unusual side of him from what I expect. Almost like he can turn down the chaos dial sometimes and just be chill.
I want to ask him what he does for work, but that’s too Laney of me. So instead, I finish licking all of the delicious fish taco sauce off my fingers, then I pick a quite possibly more dangerous topic.
“Are you enjoying Emma’s wedding week?”
His gaze shifts to mine briefly, and I swear he knows it was on the tip of my tongue to ask him how he supports himself. “Could be worse,” he replies finally with that smile dialed up again. “Aunt Brenda could be babysitting me.”
