For the Love of Friends(68)

“Is it a girl then?” My mouth dropped open. “What? It’s legal now. No one said you had to marry a boy.”

“Grandma!”

“Just promise me it’ll be closer to home.”

I closed my eyes and counted to ten. “Okay. First of all, I’m straight. Second, I’m single. Third, I have zero marital prospects on the horizon.”

She shook her head and made a tsk-tsk noise. “We’ll fix that, Joan,” she said, patting my arm reassuringly. Then she called to Louise and made her way to her friend as fast as her bad hip would allow.

That woman is going to be the death of me, I thought, drinking the rest of my champagne and going back to my phone.

Jake and Madison had a sweetheart table, so I was seated with Amy, Tyler, my parents, my grandmother, and my aunt and uncle for the meal and toasts, which felt agonizingly slow. I just wanted to find a place to camp out and write a post about what my grandmother had just said, but with my mother’s eyes on me every time I pulled out my phone, that was proving difficult.

I felt a buzz while Madison’s sister was giving her maid of honor speech, and I glanced down at my phone next to my leg on the seat.

How drunk is Grandma? Alex asked.

She asked me if I was a lesbian and said she was cool with it as long as my wedding is in a cooler climate and closer to home.

He sent laughing emojis. How’s the wedding otherwise?

Well . . . I look like Big Bird in my dress, but my brother seems really happy. So a success?

And no Justin, so it’s already a step up from Tim and Megan’s, right?

Depends if there’s an old lady knee-high on the doorknob when I get back to my room tonight.

Keep me posted. He sent a GIF of the scene from Grease with the guys saying, “Tell me more, tell me more.”

You are such a nerd, you know that?

Did you laugh?

Well, yeah.

Then who’s the real nerd?

My mother elbowed me. People were clapping and I was still on my phone. “Sorry,” I whispered.

“It’s your brother’s wedding. Put the phone away,” she hissed out of the side of her mouth. I slipped it under my leg.

After what felt like an eternity, the dancing began. My parents were on the dance floor, as were Amy and Tyler, and my grandmother had left the table, so I felt safe to start typing a post.

I was mulling over where to begin when my grandmother appeared in front of me, holding the arm of a handsome man.

Oh God. It’s happening, I thought in horror, looking up at the guy. What could possibly be in this for him? He’s my age at most! What a creep!

“I have a present for you,” she said, grinning. “This is Andrew, and he’s single.”

I looked at her in alarm. “Grandma!”

She ignored me. “Andrew, darling, this is my granddaughter Lily.”

“Hey,” he said amiably. He looked vaguely familiar, which hopefully did not mean he was a second cousin. And she got my name right for once.

“I’ll leave you two to get better acquainted,” my grandmother said with a wink. “And remember, just let me know if you need the room tonight!”

I wanted to crawl under my chair.

“Would you like to dance?” Andrew asked.

I had less than no desire to dance with some random dude at my brother’s wedding. Especially with some random dude whom my grandmother had coerced into asking me. But she was standing about four feet from us, nodding and making a shooing motion with her hands. And saying yes to one dance would (hopefully) get her to drop the subject and therefore help me survive until we got home the following evening.

“Uh, sure,” I said, dropping my phone into my purse.

We got to the dance floor and Andrew put his arm around my waist. “So are you friends with Jake?” I asked.

He gave me a funny look. “You don’t remember me?”

I looked at him more carefully. “Should I?”

“I’m crushed,” he said, smiling. “I was so in love with you.”

I shook my head. “I’m sorry, I—”

“Andrew MacKenzie?”

My eyes widened. “Andy MacKenzie?”

He shrugged. “It’s Andrew now. But you can call me Andy if you want.”

I used to babysit for him when I was fourteen and he was eight. Meaning he was now—I did the math quickly in my head—twenty-six. And I had been his babysitter. Nope. Absolutely not. I dropped his hand and backed away a step.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m sorry. Too weird for me.”

“What is?”

I gestured to the space between us. “This.”

“Dancing?”

“My grandma—trying to set me up with someone I babysat for.”

“That was almost twenty years ago. We’re both adults now.”

“Look, Andy, I’m sure you’re great and all. But no amount of adult erases that. I could be eighty-six and you could be eighty and it’d still be gross.”

He shrugged again. “Your loss. Your grandma made you sound pretty desperate.”

“Okay,” I said. “Thanks. Bye. Have a nice life.” I dashed back to the table, snatched up my purse, and ran out of the terraced area where the party was.