I told her about Amy’s trip to Mexico and sent her a picture of the cotton-candy dress. But I didn’t mention my lunch plans with Alex.
“Hey,” he greeted me outside the restaurant.
“Hey.”
“Is this weird?”
“Nope. Friends have lunch together all the time.”
“Good.” He opened the door for me.
We sat at our table and perused the menus. I had been good about packing my lunch the past few months, but this wasn’t a restaurant I had been to even when I still went out to lunch. “What’s good here?”
“I have no idea,” he admitted. “I usually just grab a sandwich from the deli next to my building.”
“Which deli?”
“Goldman’s.”
“They have great salads there.”
He grinned. “So I can expect to run into you there too?”
I shook my head. “Not anytime soon. I’m living on a shoestring budget to afford all of these weddings.”
“What do you need to afford? Other than devil bras.”
I grimaced. I had forgotten I was supposed to be looking for a minimizing bra. But I began ticking off expenses on my fingers. “Dresses for all five, shoes for all five, my share of the bridal shower and bachelorette parties, shower presents, wedding gifts, and everything for my brother’s wedding, which is in Mexico.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Guys really do have it easier than girls for weddings, huh?”
“You have no idea.”
“How much does a bridesmaid dress cost?”
“The cheapest one so far was $175. The most expensive was almost $600.”
“Six hundred dollars for a dress? Can you keep the tags on and return it?”
“Not a bridesmaid dress. They’re custom-made in the color and fabric the bride wants.”
“And you’re doing all of this, why?”
“They’re my friends.” I might have sounded a little more defensive than I intended. “Well, and my brother and sister are two of them, so I don’t have a choice there. My parents are paying for Mexico though.”
“That’s nice of them.”
I took a sip of my water. “Kind of. I made a deal.”
“What kind of deal?”
He laughed when I explained about my grandmother. “She sounds like a riot.”
I shrugged. “I probably would have done it for free anyway. But they offered to pay for me, so I wasn’t going to say no.”
“That’s fair.” The waitress came to take our order. “Do you get to bring a date to them, at least?” he asked when she had gone.
“Nope. All five are strictly ‘no ring, no bring.’”
“Even Tim and Megan’s?”
“Wait. Are you allowed to bring a date?”
“They haven’t said I couldn’t. That’s half the reason I joined Tinder. I figured I should start looking for a date for the wedding.”
I shook my head. “If your invitation doesn’t say ‘and guest’ on it, you don’t get a date.”
“What kind of barbaric system is this?”
“Did you let people bring dates to your wedding?”
“I have no idea. I wasn’t exactly . . . involved . . . in the planning process.”
“By choice or by necessity?”
“Necessity. Lauren was—is—a little intense with that stuff.” He paused. “Who will save you from Justin at the wedding if you can’t bring a date?”
“Hi, friend,” I said with a cheeky grin.
“Walked right into that one, didn’t I?”
I kept grinning. “You asked what lunch got you, after all.”
“What are friends for?” He smiled back.
Alex was funny. I could see why Megan called him a little weird, but we just meshed. Especially once you took sexual tension out of the equation. Not that we’d had that exactly, but once we established the mutual friend zone, I could let my guard down. With potential dates, I felt like I had to play a long game of hide the crazy, which never ended well. Apparently he was having a good time, too, because he started in surprise when he glanced at his watch.
“It’s almost two,” he said, shaking his head and holding up his hand to signal for the check.
“Oh crap.” I didn’t really care. I spent my first two years at the foundation tiptoeing around when I was late, only to eventually discover that no one actually cared when I showed up as long as I did my work. Which, surprisingly, made me slightly more conscientious of my timing. Some kids take the whole bowl of candy when someone leaves a “take one” sign on Halloween—not me. Being late when they weren’t monitoring me felt like stealing. Of course, I was never going to be on time, but I was better about it overall. So I felt no guilt taking a long lunch occasionally.