The Worst Wedding Date, page 16
“You named him after Snaggletooth?”
“She named herself.”
This one.
I am stealing this kitty. She’s purring in my hand and her name is Snaggleclaw and I just dropped a tear into her fur, so she’s mine.
Theo returns and squats in front of me.
“More kitties?” I whisper.
He doesn’t answer.
Instead, he wipes my face with a soft, damp cloth.
My whole face puckers. “Don’t be nice to me.”
“Been here a few times myself, Laney. You’ll pull through.”
“I said, don’t be nice to me.”
“If you want Asshole Theo, I wrestled him mostly into submission a few years back. Nice Theo is all that’s left. Personality flaw. Apologies, princess.”
He wipes the cloth over my cheeks again. It’s warm but not too warm. I can smell him too. Clean soap with a touch of salt and mystery.
“I liked you too but I wasn’t allowed to,” I whisper from behind closed eyelids.
“You’re a grown-ass woman. You can do anything you want.”
“No, I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
“I want to but I don’t know hoooooow.”
Snaggleclaw squirms in my hand, digging her little claws into my palm like pinpricks that startle me back to exactly where I am and exactly what I’m doing.
“Oh, god,” I whisper. “I made trouble for Emma.”
“Emma enjoyed the hell out of watching you have fun.”
My head hurts, and my dress is falling off.
My dress is falling off.
“That’s not how you do it, Jellybean.” Theo stops wiping my face. There’s another tug on my skirt, and then I have two kittens in my hands and my dress is no longer falling off. “Pet the kitties, Laney. They need you.”
“They need me.”
“Yep. They need you.”
He brushes the washcloth over my face one last time, and I close my eyes and lean into the cool sensation. My sobs are finally subsiding.
Yep.
Gonna be mortified tomorrow.
But not right now.
Right now, I just feel heavy. Rooted to this chair, but also light on top.
Clear.
Free.
Clean.
Happy.
It’s the alcohol. I shouldn’t drink. I shouldn’t drink ever.
But maybe it’s not all the alcohol.
Maybe it’s Theo too.
The kittens. His smile. His gentle touch.
Why can’t I be happy?
Why can’t I just choose to be happy?
“Can’t sleep in here,” he says quietly. “They’ll keep you up all night, and you’ll have to explain a bunch of scratches to Emma.”
“I’m not sleeping.”
“Laney.”
“Shh. This is just a dream. A very, very bad dream.”
“What makes it a bad dream?”
“Emma’s marrying Chandler and they think you’re the bad guy.”
“What’s wrong with Emma marrying Chandler?”
“She deserves somebody who asked her five years ago.”
“Who asked her five years ago?”
“Nobody. But he should’ve. And he didn’t. He doesn’t have balls.”
“You have photographic evidence of that?”
I smile behind my eyelids.
Theo is funny.
“Why did he make her wait so long?” I ask Theo.
“No idea.”
“Does he make her happy?”
“Fucking better.”
“Fucking better,” I agree.
Theo chuckles.
It’s warm and rumbly and it makes my belly tingle. And that’s not just the kitty cats on my lap.
They’re warm and rumbly and making my thighs tingle.
Not my belly.
Only Theo’s chuckle makes my belly tingle.
“Kitty time’s over, Laney,” Theo says quietly. “C’mon. I’ll put you to bed.”
“That’s dangerous.”
“Why?”
“Because drunk Laney likes you.”
“Sober Theo will keep his distance.”
“Drunk Laney doesn’t want you to.”
“Drunk Laney will thank me in the morning.”
17
Theo
You know what makes for a long night?
Tossing and turning for what feels like days, trying to fall asleep on the floor so you don’t give in to temptation and pull your sister’s best friend into your arms because she’s so fucking irresistible, only to have her fall out of the bed and on top of you five minutes after you finally fall asleep.
Worst part?
She barely wakes up.
Even through me getting her back to bed.
When the soft mumbles in her sleep tell me she’s getting close to the edge of the bed again, I get up before she can succeed at falling out a second time and scoot her closer to the center.
But when she loops an arm around my arm, snuggles it, and sighs contentedly?
Fuck me.
I do the thing I know I shouldn’t do, and I crawl into the bed with her.
Just as her wall so she doesn’t fall out of bed again, I tell myself.
Drunk Laney is a mess.
And I like it. Because the Laney I grew up with, the Laney I’ve always known, she’s so put together it makes everyone else feel inferior.
Drunk Laney? Messy Laney?
Less-than-perfect Laney?
Coming-apart-at-the-seams Laney?
It’s not that I enjoy her suffering.
It’s that I’ve been let behind the curtain.
Trusted to see the cracks.
Asked to help.
Me. The guy who would’ve been voted least likely to ever have a chance with Laney Kingston in high school.
She wanted to come to my room instead of staying with Sabrina.
I know it was for the kittens.
But as soon as she flings an arm across my stomach and mushes her cheek up against my shoulder, she stops mumbling in her sleep.
She gives that heavy, contented sigh once more, and then the only sound in the room is her slow, deep, rhythmic breathing.
I tell myself this doesn’t mean she needs me. Doesn’t mean she even wants me.
I’m just the closest warm body to make her feel like she’s not alone.
And isn’t that what we all want? To not feel alone?
Fuck knows I’ve felt alone too much in my life. I assume most people have at some point. Some more often than others.
But Laney always seemed above problems. Her biggest issues in school were getting too close to that line between an A and a B. Which dress to wear to prom. Which college to choose among the fourteen that accepted her. If she’d start running her parents’ company before she was thirty, or if she’d be forty before they retired.
If she liked a guy, she’d date him. When she got tired of him, she’d dump him. If he dumped her first, he was shunned and she was loved.
She was first on the list for special programs that got her excused from school, but still had the perfect attendance award, which was the dumbest award in the history of dumb awards.
And now we’re all pushing thirty, and she’s the one cracking up at fart jokes at Chandler’s Aunt Brenda’s expense and riding me in a convertible while a wild pig attacks it and snuggling me in the moonlight coming through the open window so that she can sleep.
I want to stroke her hair.
I want to wrap my arms around her and hold her closer, no matter how hot it makes me.
I want to climb into the shower with her and wash her hair and kiss her until I can’t breathe and fuck her against the wall.
And all I can do is lie here in the dark being a wall so she doesn’t hurt herself, knowing all too well she’ll regret me in the morning.
I fall asleep with a hard-on to hallucinations of Laney waking me up with kisses, stripping off her shirt to let me see her breasts, and riding me into oblivion.
It’s so real that when a shriek and a moan pull me back to full consciousness in a bedroom flooded with morning light, the first thing I do is check to see if I’m still in my shorts.
“Oh, god, turn the light off,” Laney groans.
Yep.
Still wearing clothes.
So’s she.
Still have a raging hard-on too.
Don’t think she’ll notice. Or want to do anything about it.
“It’s the sun, Laney.” I test both hands—both fully awake today—and realize the arm Laney was sleeping on is cold and wet.
She drooled on me again.
No matter what happens the rest of my life, I will forever know that Laney drools in her sleep, and I will forever like that about her.
“What did I do last night and where did my arm go?” Her voice is husky enough that the whimpering makes my cock even harder.
“Which arm?” I ask.
“The one I can’t move.”
“Which one can you move?”
“This one.”
There’s no movement.
None.
Her eyes are squeezed shut. Her hair’s a tangled bird’s nest against the white pillow. Her skin’s pale, almost green.
I shift on the bed to face her, stifling a grin that I’m sure she wouldn’t appreciate.
She whimpers. “I want off the boat.”
“Feel your arms yet?”
“They’re gone. The elf stole them.”
And I have officially lost the battle and am full-up smiling now. “What elf?”
“The elf that made me drink last night.”
“Good news. Elf’s gone, and your arm’s still here. I can see it.” I touch her bicep lightly, pretending I’m not enjoying the feel of her skin beneath the shirtsleeve of her dress that rode up overnight.
She squeals and then grumbles.
“Just me, Laney.”
“Tickles,” she gasps.
“Huh. Tickles. Weird. Is it like…your arm fell asleep?”
She whimpers. Squeezes her eyes shut.
I stroke a single finger down her bicep.
A strangled noise slips out of her throat.
She doesn’t tell me to stop.
“So weird,” I say, unable to keep from teasing her. “Just yesterday, I was in the company of a woman who claimed her appendages never fell asleep.”
“This is me not telling you I hate you right now.”
Wish I could say I didn’t hate myself a little right now. But I’m in that spot where I love where I am and know I’m setting myself up for a colossal fall when I get home and she goes back to her normal life.
I could tell myself this is closure on an old crush, but that’s a stretch.
There’s nothing old about how I’m starting to feel about her after yesterday.
“What time is it?” she asks. “Where are we supposed to be?”
“It’s seven-thirty.”
“At night?”
“In the morning. Why are you awake? First rule of hangovers: Sleep until at least noon the next day.”
“My body won’t let me.”
“Your arm’s still asleep. Clearly parts of you are capable.”
She moves her head to the side and pries one eyeball open with another whimper. “Was I a total idiot last night?”
“You were fun.”
“Oh, no. Did I cry? I did. Oh, god, I cried. I was fine if I did. I swear. It’s like—”
I cut her off with a finger to her lips. “You’re so repressed that the only time emotion comes out of you is when alcohol lowers all of your inhibitions enough to let you?”
She cringes. And then cringes again like cringing hurts. “What are you, a therapist?”
“Sure. Let’s go with that.”
“I’m sorry I cried. I didn’t mean to put that on you. Or to drink that much. It was…a long and unexpected day. I’ll be much better today.”
I stare at her.
She watches me out of one eye for a minute, and then she closes it again.
It’s like we’re playing if I can’t see you, then you can’t see me.
“The world won’t fall apart if you’re not perfect, Laney.”
“It’s so easy for you to say that when perfect has never been your standard.”
I should roll out of bed. Shower. Go in search of coffee and other hangover foods. Bet fried poi balls would be fascinating on a hangover stomach.
But instead, I lie in that bed while she scrunches her eyelids tightly shut.
“Believe it or not,” I tell her quietly, “living down to expectations sucks too.”
One lid cracks open a smidge. “How?”
“World sees what it wants to see, even when you try. So when you quit trying, when you give in to the belief that you might as well play the nobody they expect, you start to believe you are the nobody. You, however, have always known you’re somebody. Even if it’s not the somebody you want to be either.”
Both eyelids are cracked now. “This is a lot on a hangover,” she whispers.
Understatement of the year.
“Ask you something?”
“The last time you asked me that, you threw my entire world off-balance.”
I ignore the implied no. “You have fun yesterday?”
Her face does all of the answering for her. Yes. And it was worth it. Until now, when I’m having doubts and regrets and if I squeeze my eyes shut tightly enough again, I won’t have to think about the answer to that question and the consequences of what it means.
Fair enough.
I shove up and off the bed, shaking it as little as possible. “What do you take for a hangover?”
“I don’t know. I—I’ve only been hungover maybe two other times.”
My phone has a text from Emma. Looks like she texted both of us, and she’s looking forward to brunch with Laney at ten. “Go back to sleep. Don’t have to be anywhere for a few hours. I’ll be back.”
“But—”
“And I’ll stay out of trouble,” I add dryly.
“I know,” she whispers. “You don’t look for it. It looks for you.”
“I’ll watch out for it and avoid it if I see it coming.”
A deep sigh comes out of her as her body sags back into the mattress. One of her legs is kicked out from beneath the sheet, and I can see a small bruise forming on her other shoulder.
Probably from where she fell out of bed last night.
“I’m sorry I didn’t believe you about your hand yesterday,” she adds, even more softly. “It hurts to have your arms wake back up.”
I smile.
And then I duck out of the bungalow, chuckling to myself.
This won’t last. I’ll never be the guy a woman like Laney needs in her life, no matter how satisfied I am with myself and my own life.
But I’ll make the most of it in the meantime.
18
Laney
There are not dark enough sunglasses in the world to erase everything that happened in the last twelve hours or so.
Or to block out the sun effectively enough.
“I’m so sorry I made such a fool of myself during your wedding week,” I tell Emma as we get settled at a cute little beach bistro overlooking the ocean for a late breakfast. The open windows let in a soft ocean breeze, and beach paintings line the walls behind us. The table’s a little wobbly, but there’s a pretty fishbowl in the center with more of those knitted hearts in it. Must be a resort theme.
She laughs. “Laney. Seeing you having fun was a gift. I’m just sorry you’re hurting today.”
I grimace.
It was fun.
But I feel like an absolute idiot.
“Did Theo behave himself?” Sabrina asks.
She, too, is in dark sunglasses. A lot about last night is relatively hazy, but I remember she had to go. Something about her Aunt Brenda.
And I’d rather think about that than about how much of a mess I was last night. And how understanding Theo was about it this morning.
“Theo’s a pro at handling hangovers,” Emma says. “I’m guessing he brought donuts, French fries, fried poi balls because they’re handy here and he’s always curious, coffee, Diet Coke, and…”
“Fresh-baked cookies,” I supply.
Sabrina gasp-moans. “Fresh-baked cookies? How fresh?”
“They were still warm.”
“Oh, god. Were they amazing?”
“Soo good.” Like let me rethink all of my life choices so that I can now make choices that result in Theo bringing me chocolate chip cookies good.
Which, naturally, I didn’t say to him.
Not that he gave me much of a chance.
He showed up with cookies, dropped three on the bed, and before I could take a single bite, he told me he was going to check on the kittens and disappeared.
Leaving me alone with the knowledge that my moment of rebellion last night led to him having zero interest now, despite my growing crush on him.
Growing?
Renewed?
I’m a disaster.
Emma blinks at me. “Fresh-baked cookies?”
“Unless I’m still having drunken hallucinations.”
She’s frowning. “Chocolate chip?”
“With a dusting of salt on top. And they tasted like melted caramel.”
Her frown goes deeper as she reaches for her phone, then shakes her head and drops it back into her purse.
“What’s your beef with chocolate chip cookies?” Sabrina asks.
Emma shakes her head. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”
Sabrina and I share a look.
Clearly not nothing.
“You think he robbed a bakery?” Sabrina asks.
Emma chokes on her water. “Stop. He didn’t rob a bakery. Laney, I need to hear more about this pig incident yesterday. You didn’t make a lot of sense last night.”
I reach into my own bag, desperate to move on from talking about Theo.
Do I like him?
Yes.
Do I like him enough that I want to get to know him more?
Yes.
Can I handle that right now?
No. No, I cannot. Because I feel like an idiot. Like a failure at having fun. Like I’m the trouble. Like I’m high-maintenance.
Whereas he was nothing but sweet and kind and gentle in ways I didn’t expect and can’t help craving. “No stories until we’re drinking right.”
