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.