Drew went into the bathroom at the church just so he could check his phone for the millionth time without being so obvious about it. His desperation was back in full force—he could tell from his four texts to Alexa over the past hour and a half. Texting a woman this many times was unlike him, but this stupid wedding had him on edge. She’d replied only to the first one where he’d tried to be cool, just confirming she was coming with a “see you then,” and the last, where he told her they were about to leave the church for the restaurant (“on my way”).
He’d questioned the lack of exclamation points in both texts—women, in his experience, tended to use a lot of exclamation points. Did that mean she was feeling like she should have backed out?
He was certainly feeling like he should have backed out. Not from the date with Alexa—no, that was the only part of the weekend that he was one hundred percent glad was happening. He should have backed out from the rest of it. Josh and Molly were being so welcoming and friendly that he felt like even more of an asshole for hating every second of this. Molly’s mother, who had always been so nice to him, was noticeably chilly. Molly’s sister, Amy, who had always been kind of a bitch to him, kept looking him up and down and smiling at him in a way that disconcerted him.
When they left the church, he jumped in a cab with Dan, the only other groomsman he knew well, and Dan’s girlfriend. He looked down at his phone as the cab pulled up to the restaurant, hoping that maybe he’d missed a vibration and she’d texted to say that she was close, but there was nothing, not even an errant exclamation point.
“Guys, my girlfriend is getting here any second, so I’m going to wait outside for her.” He hoped that at least one part of that statement was true. “See you in there, okay?”
His tension rose as other cabs full of the wedding party pulled up and he kept having to explain why he was standing there. He looked down at his phone again and fought the urge to send her a “you almost here???” text.
“Drew?” Alexa was standing in front of him. At just the sight of her, his shoulders relaxed. Without even thinking about it, he pulled her into a hug.
“You have no idea how happy I am to see you,” he said into her ear.
“That bad already?” Her head rested on his chest for a second until she pulled away.
“Not terrible,” he said, looking down at her. “Just not great. You, however, look fantastic.” She was wearing a silky pink dress that flattered her golden brown skin . . . and the rest of her body.
“Keep looking at me like that, and we’ll have no problem convincing people we’re dating.” She grinned up at him.
Oh God, he was such an asshole.
“Oh, I . . . I’m sorry.” He dropped his hands from where they’d been resting on her shoulders.
She patted him on the arm. “Don’t worry about it. Just getting into character, right?”
Not exactly, but if that’s how she wanted to play it . . .
“Right.” He smiled at her and hoped he hadn’t made this girl hate him already. “What can I say? I’m delighted that you’re my sandwich tonight.”
She smiled. “Well, isn’t that one of the loveliest things a man has ever said to me.”
He leaned back against the restaurant window.
“I hope that isn’t true.”
She shrugged. A big group of guys pushed past them on the sidewalk, and he pulled her closer to him.
“Hey, Drew?” she said. “We ever going to go inside?”
He stood up straight and slid his hand into hers. Despite the chill of the San Francisco evening, her hand was warm.
“Inside. Right.”
She stopped on the stairs on the way down to the private room where the rehearsal dinner was being held.
“Before we walk in there,” she said, “is there anything I need to know so we don’t look ridiculous?”
He moved closer to her so no one would overhear them. Hopefully, if anyone walked by it would look like they were just having a moment on the stairs.
“I told Josh that we’d been dating a month, so if anyone asks that, that’s the story.”
“Got it. Wow, only a month and I’m your girlfriend already. Moving fast, aren’t you?”
He laughed.
“I’m a smart guy, I make quick decisions, and I know a good thing when I see it,” he said.
She smiled up at him for a moment before her smile dimmed. “And now I have a question for you . . .”
Oh God, was she going to ask how long she had to stay? If they could have a fake breakup tonight so she wouldn’t have to go to the wedding? He couldn’t face this wedding alone. Ugh, maybe she wanted to know the real story behind his breakup with Molly?
“Ask me anything.” He didn’t really mean it.
“Am I going to be the only black person at this party?” She looked at his chest, his chin, and finally straight into his eyes.
“Oh.” He paused. “Huh. I don’t know. I didn’t think about that.”
Her lips curved upward, but she wasn’t really smiling.
“Yeah, I figured you didn’t. That’s why I was asking.”
He could hear the murmuring and laughter from the restaurant in the silence between them. He knew she was black, obviously, but he hadn’t realized until now that the entire wedding party was white.
Not that he didn’t know they were all white; he just hadn’t thought about it like that.
“Okay.” He thought for a second. “I’m pretty sure that this woman Samantha from our med school class will be there, at least for the wedding, and she’s black. She and Molly were friends. Oh! And Dan—he’s another groomsman—his girlfriend is Asian. Wait, that’s not what you asked, is it? Um . . .”
“Don’t worry about it,” she said. Did she really mean it, though? He couldn’t tell. He’d only met her yesterday. He didn’t know her “don’t worry about it” nuances yet.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t think. I should have thought about this and asked Josh, is it going to be . . .”
She held a finger to his lips and smiled.
“Really, don’t worry about it, Drew. I didn’t get through Berkeley Law School without being the only black person in the room a few hundred times. I just wanted to know what I was in for before I walked in.”
“We’re okay?” When she nodded, he pulled her in for a hug.
“Oh shit, I think I got lipstick on you.” She rubbed her thumb against his chest to try to get it out. After enjoying the sensation for a few seconds, he reached for her wrist to stop her.
“It’s okay,” he said. “It would look pretty out of character if my new girlfriend and I walked in there after standing around outside for so long and I didn’t have her lipstick on me somewhere.”
Her smile made him grateful all over again that she was there with him. He wished the two of them could stay here in this stairwell all night. Actually, even better: instead of going to this dinner, they could go back to their elevator and eat cheese and crackers and drink wine and laugh together. And also maybe . . .
She pulled back and took a step down the stairs. There went his fantasy.
“Okay, then, are we ready?” she asked.
He reached for her hand and sighed.
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
• • •
Boy, was it nice when this guy touched her. The hand-holding was particularly great. She felt like she was back in high school, except instead of the nerdy girl that everyone liked in that generic way, she was the girl holding hands with the hot guy at the party. She’d always wondered how that had felt.
News flash: it felt awesome.
She fought back her smile before she remembered that she was supposed to be besotted with Drew, so she let it beam as they walked through the party and up to the bar.
“Full bar, thank God. What’s your drink of choice?” He gestured to the bottles of alcohol along the bar with a flourish.
“Tonight? Let’s start with a gin martini, please.”
Drew handed over her drink and clinked it with his bourbon. They each took long sips of their drinks without breaking eye contact. Alexa glanced at an empty table in the corner and raised her eyebrows to Drew; he nodded and took her arm to steer her over there. As Drew set his glass down, a tall blond guy came over and slapped him on the back before he turned to Alexa.
“So this is Alexa? So glad you’re here with Drew for the wedding,” he said, holding out his hand for her to shake.
Drew put his hand on the small of her back.
“Alexa, I’d like to introduce you to Josh Rogers, the groom. Josh, my girlfriend, Alexa Monroe,” Drew said, his hand stroking the small of her back in a way that made her whole body tingle. Or maybe that was the gin hitting her bloodstream. She ignored whatever it was and smiled at Josh as she shook his hand.
“A pleasure to meet you, Josh. Congratulations on the wedding! I’m honored to be here.”
A strawberry blonde with soft curls and a knee-length white eyelet dress walked up to them. Alexa had pegged her as the bride as soon as she’d walked into the room—who else would wear white to a rehearsal dinner? At her approach, Alexa moved closer to Drew. He picked up his drink and sipped it, but she knew he noticed, too, because he slid his arm around her waist. Damn, there was that tingle again.
“Drew, is this Alexa? Alexa, I’m Molly. It’s so nice to meet you.”
Molly gave her a huge smile that felt genuine, and not for the first time, Alexa wondered what the whole story was between the Molly and Drew breakup. Did Josh and Molly feel guilty for what they’d done to Drew? Did they ask him to be in the wedding to assuage their guilt?
She wasn’t going to get an answer to that question right now (if ever), so her job was just to stand here next to Drew and turn on the charm. Luckily, she worked in politics; “charm” was her middle name.
Alexa increased the wattage of her smile by at least fifty percent.
“Molly, thank you so much for having me. Everything is lovely. What a wonderful choice for a rehearsal dinner. I can only imagine that the wedding will be just as beautiful.”
Drew’s thumb traced circles around her hip as she and Molly exchanged bright pleasantries about the wedding, the perfect weather in the Bay Area this time of year, and Josh and Molly’s upcoming honeymoon in Hawaii. Between the sensuous feel of his touch and her now-finished martini, she was almost distracted enough not to wonder if he could detect the Spanx underneath her dress. Almost.
After a few minutes, Molly glanced to the corner of the room and sighed.
“My mom is signaling me; I think I have to go talk to one of my aunts. I hope to get to talk to you more later, Alexa. And you, too, Drew. Oh, and don’t forget! The hashtag is jollymosh.” Molly smiled and glided away.
They only had a few seconds before a tall blond woman in a tight green dress came up to the three of them. She could feel Drew tense up next to her. She reached back to find his hand and interlaced their fingers, and he held on. She didn’t have long to wonder who this woman was.
“Josh, there you are. Your mom was looking for you. She had a question about what time we should sit down to eat.” As Josh scurried away, her smile at Drew showed all of her blindingly white teeth. “I saw my sister over here. I hope everyone’s being nice to her.”
Drew squeezed Alexa’s hand.
“I hope so, too. Amy, I’d like to introduce you to my girlfriend, Alexa. Alexa, this is Amy, Molly’s sister and the maid of honor.”
Amy raised her eyebrows at her and immediately turned back to Drew.
“I hope you both have a good time at the wedding this weekend.”
Amy’s attitude annoyed Alexa just enough that she couldn’t resist putting on a show.
“I’m sure we will! It’s already been pretty great, hasn’t it, Drew?” She winked at Drew and squeezed his hand.
His eyes widened and his smile grew smug. “It sure has, Monroe.” He pulled her close. “Amy, great to see you. We were just heading to the bar for another drink. Can we get you anything?”
Her eyes narrowed briefly, then her smile came back.
“No, thanks.” She looked at Drew and glanced in Alexa’s direction before turning to go. “Nice to meet you,” she flung over her shoulder.
• • •
As Drew and Alexa walked, still hand in hand, back to the bar, she leaned over and whispered in his ear, “I can’t tell whether she hates you or wants to fuck you.”
His bark of laughter made a few people look in their direction.
“She definitely hates me,” he said against her ear, “but she’s also been acting weird all day. You see why I needed you here?”
Her breasts against his chest and her lips against his ear made him want to pull her even closer, but they were in a room full of people.
Oh, and right, she wasn’t really his girlfriend.
“I do see,” she said. “I think I need another drink after that interaction. I’d better switch to champagne; I can’t chug martinis all night or I’ll be useless tomorrow.”
He wondered if she’d noticed that he was taking every opportunity to touch her all night. Some of it wasn’t even conscious; he just liked the feel of her smooth skin, the warmth of her body next to his, the softness of her hand in his.
“I should have said . . . if I do anything that bothers you tonight, you know, with the pretending-you’re-my-girlfriend thing, just let me know, okay? Step on my foot or something?”
She turned and grinned at him, her lips so close to his that he could kiss her with just one slight movement. Just as he started to make that move, she stepped back.
“Don’t worry, I will,” she said. “But you’re good so far. Plus, I’d be a pretty shitty fake girlfriend if I didn’t let you touch me.”
He put his arm back around her waist.
“I would never say such a thing about the best fake girlfriend I’ve ever had,” he said.
As he handed her a glass of champagne, she said, “Oh, and by the way, when did you start calling me ‘Monroe’?”
He looked up from his bourbon. “Well, I thought about ‘Lexie,’ but you don’t strike me as much of a Lexie.”
She smiled at him over her champagne glass in a way that made him step closer.
“Excellent instincts there. Only my sister can call me that. I’ll allow ‘Monroe’ for the time being.”
He stepped closer to her. “I promise I won’t do anything you don’t like. Cross my heart. Deal?”
She looked at him for a long moment, and he felt the tension between them heat up again. What exactly had he meant by that? Whatever she wanted it to mean, he guessed. Finally, she reached for his hand.
“Deal. Now, let’s find some food to soak up all of this alcohol so that you don’t have to pour me in a cab at the end of the night.”
They followed a waiter to the corner of the room where they loaded up plates of puff pastry pockets and crostini with prosciutto. As soon as their hands were full and they couldn’t move, they were surrounded. By bridesmaids.
• • •
Though the bridesmaids circling them all had perfect pink lip-glossed smiles, their hostility to Drew and curiosity about Alexa was very clear. She got it, though—if any of her girlfriends’ exes had showed up at their weddings, she probably would have smiled big while dropping poison in their drinks. Not enough to kill them, mind you. Just enough to make them humiliate themselves.
At that thought, she glanced down at Drew’s drink, but he’d already drained it. Probably for the best.
For the next ten minutes she smiled and chatted and asked questions about their bridesmaid dresses and shared her own bridesmaid-ing stories while Drew never let go of her hand.
Her shoulders relaxed when Josh’s dad beckoned everyone to the tables, and Drew’s hand moved up and down her bare arm.
“You see why I needed you?” he said in her ear as they sat down. She turned to him and nodded.
“You’d have a peanut butter and egg salad sandwich right about now.”
He made a gagging face and she laughed.
Luckily, the rest of the night was less fraught, mostly because they were sitting with two other groomsmen and their dates. As they lingered over dessert, Alexa glanced at the time and sighed at how little sleep she’d be getting that night.
“Something wrong?” Drew asked her, turning from his conversation with one of the other guys about basketball.
“Not exactly,” she said in a low voice. “It’s just that I have to help my boss build this playground tomorrow, which means my alarm is going off altogether too early for a Saturday, so . . .”
Before she’d even finished talking he had stood up.
“Let’s go. You have to get your beauty sleep, though it’s clear that you don’t need it.” She made that gagging face back at him and he laughed. “Too much? Can’t you just enjoy the compliment?”
“Thank you, Dr. Drew, you’re a sweetheart.” She turned to pick up her coat but stopped when she saw him violently shaking his head.
“No Dr. Drew, never Dr. Drew. Dr. Nichols, thank you, though most of my younger patients just call me Dr. Nick.”
They walked by Josh and Molly on the way to the door, and Alexa pulled at his hand.
“What?” He turned and saw her head incline toward them. “Oh, right.”
“We’re taking off,” he said to them. “See you tomorrow.”
Alexa stopped, which forced him to stop, too.
“Thank you so much, both of you, for your warm welcome. I can’t wait to celebrate with you tomorrow.”
“Thank you!” Molly beamed and then hugged her. “I’m thrilled that you’ll be there!”
After another round of hugs and handshakes, Alexa followed Drew outside.
“Where did you learn to do that?” he said to her, once they were out on the street.
“Do what?” she asked him. He hadn’t let go of her hand, and she certainly wasn’t going to be the one to let go.
“‘Thank you so much, both of you!’” he said in a high-pitched voice. She swatted him with her clutch.
“We have not known each other long enough for you to make fun of my voice!”
“I wasn’t making fun of your voice.” He squeezed her hand. Okay, so he did realize they were still holding hands. “I was making fun of what you said.”
“Give me a break.” She turned in the direction of the BART station. “Where did I learn basic social graces? Where did I learn how to say please and thank you? I don’t know, I think my parents taught me when I was two.”
As they moved through a crowd of people, he let go of her hand. But instead, he moved closer and put his hand on the small of her back again. She could feel herself melting inside. Was he just doing this out of habit? Probably.
She tried to remember what Maddie had said. No-stress date, relax and have fun, don’t overthink things, just enjoy it. Right, okay.
He cleared his throat. “If I’ve forgotten to say it, you made this night at least two hundred percent better than it would have been without you. Maybe more.”
She smiled at him. “I had a surprising amount of fun myself. Now, what’s the plan for tomorrow?”
Classic Alexa. Ignore the compliment; change the topic to logistics. Relaxing was definitely not her strong suit.
“So I was thinking . . .” He dropped his hand from her back and turned to her with a weird look on his face.
Was he bored by her? Was her sarcasm too much? Was he going to say he’d rather have a fake breakup tonight and not have her as his date for the wedding tomorrow so he could enjoy the buffet of bridesmaids, with the maid of honor as the main course? I had a great time hanging out with you, Alexa, he’d say, but I’m going to let you off the hook for tomorrow night. You don’t mind, do you? And of course she would have to say no, she didn’t mind.
And she’d have to go return that hot red dress.
“Yeah?” She pulled her coat tighter around her shoulders.
“Maybe you could come get ready for the wedding in my hotel room? You know, so everyone sees you leaving from the hotel, not that I think that people think we’re lying, but Amy seemed a little suspicious or something, and then you wouldn’t have to . . .”
“That makes sense.” She cut him off, trying not to show how relieved she was. “What time?”
His smile widened. He had probably gotten everything he wanted in his life with that smile. Who was she to break the pattern?
“I have to be at the church by five, so just be there before I leave? There’s a shuttle from the hotel to the church, and you can take that over so you don’t have to sit around during the pictures.”
They walked down the street, no longer hand in hand. “That sounds good.”
“Great.” They were at the entrance to the BART station now. “Okay. See you tomorrow? Text me if you have any questions?”
He leaned in for a hug. Without stopping to think about it, she kissed him on the cheek. He pulled back and looked at her for a long moment.
An ambulance roared by and they jumped apart.
He stroked her cheek with his thumb.
“Good night, Monroe. See you tomorrow.”