“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.”
Alexa thanked God the next morning that the real work of building the playground was for people who actually knew what they were doing. She could still keep her boss on message and banter with the press while her mind was constantly wandering to her date that night, but if she’d been operating power tools, it would have been a disaster.
By the time she knocked on the door of room 1624 she was a bundle of nerves. Maybe he thought better of this? Maybe he already checked out of the hotel and forgot to tell me? Maybe he . . . She didn’t have a chance for another possible worst-case scenario before he opened the door. And then she was speechless for a moment.
She’d thought Drew was hot in his worn gray T-shirt in the elevator, and she’d thought he was hot at the rehearsal dinner, clean-shaven in his pale blue button-down shirt. Now, in a tuxedo, he was so hot she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to look him in the eye all night.
He wasn’t even fully in the tux—that was the worst part. He had the shirt on and the bow tie untied around his neck, with his hair still damp. He looked like every romantic comedy hero at the end of the night, just before the heroine pulled his shirt out of his pants and started unbuttoning . . .
“Hey!” He interrupted her increasingly lurid train of thought. “You’re just in time. I was about to break into the snacks.”
“Snacks?” she asked. She followed him into the room, momentarily distracted from her fantasies.
“I got us cheese and crackers . . . and beer. If this is anything like most weddings, we’re not going to eat for a while. I don’t know about you, but I could use a drink before this night gets under way.”