“That you and I should just do it?” Rose asked, judgment in her tone as if she and Larry had discussed this.
He ignored her and said to me, “She says it would work even better for you and Max to object with a cryptic we-know-reasons statement and ask to see the bride and groom in private for a moment.”
“I knew that could work!” I said, but my excitement immediately died because I didn’t want to call Max or discuss it with him. He’d acted like a bossy dickhead, and there was no way I was going to let him decide if we were going to do it or not, like he was the damn parent in this scenario.
“Tell her that I’ll do it,” I said without another thought. “Alone.”
forty-two
Max
“Good morning.”
Sophie’s eyes left her phone, which she’d been staring at when she’d walked into Starbucks, and her eyebrows went down when she saw me. “Hey.”
“Can you spare five minutes?” I asked, grabbing the two cups of coffee the barista had just set on the end of the pickup counter.
“For the assbag who snapped at me last night for no good reason?” Sophie said, glancing at the cups. “Is one of those an Americano?”
“With a splash of cream,” I replied, holding out the cup to her.
“Fine, then,” she said, taking the cup. “But I’m setting a timer.”
“Fair,” I said, and followed her as she walked to a table in the back. It was quiet in the way Starbucks was at six thirty in the morning, with the white noise of steaming and blending but not a lot of conversation.
She was wearing slim black pants, high heels, and a starched dress shirt, with no fewer than six strands of pearls wrapped around her neck. Something about the juxtaposition of that and her cute hair made her look like she belonged in a Ralph Lauren collection called “the businesswoman.”
She sat down, raised an eyebrow, and said into her watch, “Hey, Siri. Set a timer for five minutes.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, because I was. I’d felt like shit all night, but every time I started to text her, I couldn’t figure out any way to justify how I’d treated her without opening all of my baggage and dumping it all over the fucking floor. “I was a total asshole.”
“You were,” she said, taking the stopper out of her lid. “But why?”
I knew I was going to have to tell her, but it was hard. Things with Sophie were akin to pure sunshine, all the damn time, and I didn’t want to drag melancholy into our space. I said, “What are the odds that you’ll let me say it was about something unrelated to you and I just snapped,without going into detail?”
She shrugged. “You can say whatever you want. I’m just your friend—you don’t have to tell me everything.”
That... wasnotwhat I’d expected her to say. “Seriously?”
She rolled her eyes. “As long as it’s the truth, and the blowup wasn’t actually about us, you can keep your I’m-a-grumpy-jerk secret and we’ll move on.”
“I feel like this is a trick,” I said even as relief settled over me. I wasn’t sure when it’d happened, but Sophie’s opinion of me mattered a lot.
“No, I’m totally serious,” she said, and I could tell by the way her face had relaxed that she meant it. “But are you okay? Is there anything I can do about whatever made you upset?”
God, I loved her.
I rubbed a hand over my chin, still in shock that she was just going to let it go. “I’m good now. No worries.”
“Good,” she said, her eyes running all over my face as if looking for an answer.
“Is Larry pissed?” I asked, lifting my cup. “About his sister’s nephew?”
“No. I mean, he cursedJulianto hell and back at first,” she said, smiling, “but then we found a way where I can still do it butnotair the bride’s dirty laundry.”
Just like that, the roaring was back in my ears. I tried being nonchalant but didn’t even sound close to it when I said, “Wait, what? What do you mean,youare going to do it?”
She raised her eyebrows, challenging me, and said, “Larry talked to his sister, and all parties agreed that I can do a whole ‘I object and have proof; can we speak in private?’ thing, like we did in Detroit.”