For the Love of Friends(102)

“Is that what you think of me? No!”

“But I woke up and my clothes were on the floor.”

“You took them off. I looked away. Mostly. You said you couldn’t breathe in your dress and your bra was uncomfortable.”

I tried to remember. “But you were naked too—”

“I slept in my boxers.”

“And we didn’t—?” He shook his head. I couldn’t make eye contact. I was mortified.

“How did you think I was Justin?”

“I couldn’t see his—your—face—and I told Megan I didn’t want to know who it was. And then Justin said that, and I thought—oh my God, I’m so stupid.” I thought back to Megan’s housewarming party, where Alex was so sweet on the porch. To the notes at Starbucks. The way he dropped everything to come help me at Amy’s bachelorette and then the fact that I published something so wrong when there had never been anything standing between us at all. Nothing except my own idiocy.

“But—you read the blog. I said it happened at the engagement party in the blog.”

He shook his head. “I read the Buzzfeed article and most recent blog post. Then I was too mad to go back and read the rest. And then by the time I was ready to, you had deleted it.”

I stared at him. “I don’t know what to say. Alex, I’m so—” He cut off my apology with a kiss.

“Megan-sanctioned this time,” he said, a teasing glint in his eye.

“Who?” I asked, a tear slipping past my lash extensions, despite the smile on my face. His hand cupped my cheek, and he brushed the tear away with his thumb. He leaned forward to kiss me again, and I wanted nothing more in the world than to hold him and never let him go. I kissed him lightly, then whispered, “But we shouldn’t do this.”

“You’d better be kidding.” His arm was tight around my waist.

“Here,” I laughed. “We shouldn’t do this here. At the wedding.”

He smiled and kissed my cheek gently, and I felt a wave of desire wash over me. “I missed you too,” he said. I wrapped my arms tightly around his neck and we stayed like that for a long time, swaying slightly with the music, but mostly just hugging each other as close as we could.



As the night began to wind down, I excused myself to go to the bathroom. Megan was in there, touching up her lipstick in the mirror. “I see everyone got a happy ending today,” she said to my reflection.

I sat on the ottoman next to her. “How could you not tell me?”

She shrugged. “I was sworn to secrecy, as you may recall. I figured if you two didn’t work it out tonight, I’d tell you then.”

“But these past few weeks I—”

She turned to face me. “I told you I wasn’t going to get over the blog overnight. And you got off pretty easily if you ask me, so I was okay with you suffering a little. I feel better now.”

“If I didn’t love you . . .” I shook my head.

“But you do,” she said sweetly. “You gave a whole speech about that tonight. And I love you too.”

“So I actually have your approval?”

She hugged me. “Be happy. You deserve it.” She let me go and turned to head back to the reception, then stopped in the doorway. “Should I throw the bouquet right to you, or would that just be awkward?”

I laughed. “Aren’t I the only single girl here?”

“My cousin Maggie is too.”

“Isn’t your cousin Maggie twelve?”

“Hey, do you want the bouquet or not?”

I nodded. After she left, I looked in the mirror and almost didn’t recognize the girl in front of me—but not because of the makeup or hair this time. Had I ever looked this happy? I winked at my reflection and went to pee. Alex was waiting for me.





EPILOGUE


Neither of us had driven to the hotel to get ready that morning, so we took an Uber to my apartment, me sitting in the middle seat to be closer to him, our fingers intertwined.

“We wasted so much time,” I said, shaking my head. “Because I was too dumb to face up to what I thought I did.”

He brought my fingers to his lips and kissed them. “We only wasted this last month. I wasn’t ready for anything real when we met.”

I thought about the girl who crept out of the hotel room in a stolen shirt and shook my head at the memory. “No. I don’t think I was either.”

“And now?”

I took his arm and put it around my shoulder, snuggling in against him. He kissed the top of my head.

When the Uber pulled up outside of my building, there was no discussion. We both got out and walked quickly to the elevator, still holding hands. Once safely alone inside, we kissed again, my back against the bar, my arms around his neck. He had to tell me that we should get out when we reached my floor; I was too wrapped up in him to realize the door had opened.

He kissed down the side of my neck, an arm around my waist as I fumbled with my key and kicked off my shoes as we fell in the door, pulling his tie off at the same time.

“Lily!” I jumped a mile at Becca’s voice.

Now? I thought. Of all times, now? Alex pulled away and straightened up, running a quick hand through his hair.