The Wedding

this last night? You said before that you

ght it up a few times, but each time sh

rtis

d

and . . . anyway, it wasn’t the right time.” She cha

led hi

I had nothing to talk about. Buy you more coffee a

ght bac

init

text from Olivia about her hangover; a few from her best friend, Maddie, abo

l on for tonight, yes?

od. That hadn’t been some sort o

a wedding at the last minut

g to this thing, I need some

ear???” but she supposed she couldn’t text tha

ng @6 tomorrow at some church, reception at the hote

l minutes. His new girlfriend? She

alcohol last

eply almost

d her partnership in style, I

n’t help

, she loved it. Why did yo

nd took a gulp. Thank God she’d

friend’s last name, right? 2) Jos

at the knock

needed coffee, but I see you’re al

doughnut sitting on her desk. She took a bite of it. Maybe the sugar would help

id yes, and then Olivia had accused her

ould know that if I’m your fake girlfrie

ent through her closet to try to figure out what she was going to wear to th

just called to cancel. I r

ed her calendar and saw she

Sloane said on he

well, long story. Wait, do you work in SF? What

fee and another large

n Berkeley.

ing to have to be in a cocktail dress in a few hours? Shouldn

er bite and went b

sister? I’m a doctor, you s

adn’t listened to every word that had

s from med school” thing kind of clued me in there, yeah. I am a

to wear to this wedding? Time and venue were

few quick searches of wedding websites for the names Molly and J

tie op

ter a few seconds she sat up and scrolled to Maddie’s name on her phone—if anyone could save her, her best friend th

dly know (and that’s putting it mildly), and also the wedding tomorrow (I don’t even know). I

hot Drew a

g with a day of notice. W

id, he’s hot, and you haven’t eve

ng to back out

ffee shop, blocks from wh

t on me. Don’t make

finding a date for this wedding had been such a nightmare, it was like his own personal punishment for everything wrong he’d ever done to or with women: first there

math would be. Then one power outage and a malfunctioning elevator had saved him,

out. Even

lses worked out. He sighed in relief,

ig for this you’ll have no idea. There will be a new Alexa Mo

time if we become fake engaged in the next

a fake engagement ring? You obvious

ow your last name

downed the rest

o you,

shed on his scre

a meeting. S

the Josh-Drew-Molly backstory, so he had kind of forgotten how crazy it was that he was in the wedding. And the worst pa

erson in the world, the snowball that had started this whole avalanche, and you probably deserved all of the looks you’d get all weekend, right? It wa

-the-wedding thing had driven him out of his mind. He should have