“Now I know you’re following me,” a voice said.
I looked up, recognizing the voice’s owner. “Seriously? This is getting creepy.”
“You’re the one creeping on my territory.” Alex leaned back against the bar, a glass in his hand.
“Your territory is a wine bar?”
He laughed. “No. I’m on a date. It’s going really bad.”
“You ditched a date to come talk to me?”
“Yeah. I told her you’re an old friend.” He gestured toward a girl, who was watching us with moderate hostility from a table across the room. “Wave for me.”
I obliged. “She’s pretty. What’s wrong with her?”
“I asked her the last book she read, and she doesn’t know because she doesn’t read. And she said something about never trusting the mainstream media.”
“Ouch. Do you need me to fake an emergency?”
“Do you have a camel with you?”
“Cute. Real cute.”
“Hey, I saved you from Justin. Twice, by my count. It’s the least you could do.”
I opened my mouth to say he had only actually saved me once, but I had a feeling that sleeping with Justin might be more damning than being illiterate. “Fine,” I said. “But we’re even after this.” I threw my head onto my arms on the bar and began to pretend I was weeping.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Pat my shoulder, then go tell her I just found out my husband is cheating on me and you have to make sure I get home okay.”
“Will that work?”
“Yes. Now go tell her. With a straight face.”
He left and I continued to pretend to cry. “Lily! What happened?” Becca grabbed my arm.
“Shhhh,” I said. “I’m faking an emergency for Alex.”
“The guy who did the coffee note?”
“The same,” he said, returning. “It worked! She’s leaving.”
“Let me know when she’s gone.”
Alex waited another thirty seconds. “You’re good.”
I picked my head up and took a long sip of the new glass of wine in front of me. “Yes. I am. Alex, this is Becca, my roommate. It’s her birthday today. Becca, this is Alex, the groomsman in Megan’s wedding.”
“Nice to meet you,” Alex said, shaking Becca’s hand. “And happy birthday. Let me get you a drink.”
“No, no, it’s fine,” Becca said.
“He’s a lawyer.”
“In that case, make it a bottle.”
Alex laughed. “For the birthday girl? You’ve got it.”
“Where’d you meet her?” I asked, gesturing toward the door after Becca had left with her new glass of wine. Alex and I had both taken seats at the bar.
“At Starbucks. I wrote her a note on a cup of coffee.”
“For real?”
“No. Are you always this gullible?”
I elbowed him. “Yes. I was born yesterday.”
“Promise not to judge?”
“Absolutely not. Judging is what I do.”
“I thought you did PR.”
“For a living? Yes. But my true passion is judging others.”
“I’ll consider myself warned. It was a Tinder date.” I cringed. “I know, I know.”
“Megan said you’re newly back on the dating scene.”
“Asked about me, huh?”
I rolled my eyes. “She told me you asked Tim about me first.”
“Maybe I did.”
I put my glass of wine down. I was getting flirty and that meant it was time to stop drinking. I was not letting wine lead me into the same pit with a second groomsman just because I’d had a rough day.
Evidently he felt the same way, because he also set his glass down. We sat in silence for a minute. “What’s the latest update on all the weddings?”
I put my head in my hands and groaned. “We’re at the bridesmaid dress shopping stage. It’s the worst.”
“Why?”
“Horrible bridesmaids and body shaming.”
He looked over at me. “At the risk of getting slapped for being out of line, what could they shame you about? Unless you were the one doing the shaming?”
I laughed. “Me? No. Although that would have been a great twist. When the one who thinks she’s in charge of the world told me to get a minimizing bra and a pair of Spanx, I should have looked her up and down and told her to get a boob job and eat a cheeseburger.”