Page 79 of Champagne Fizz

“I’m sorry,” I say. “This was my idea. I don’t want you and Ned to have regrets. Not inviting his parents to the wedding is the kind of thing that might haunt you someday.”

“Oh, I agree,” Olivia says, relaxing her pursed lips. “I’ve been trying to convince Ned of that for weeks. But you and Connor can’t cook up a plan and surprise me on wedding day. Especially with a bombshell like this. This is the kind of thing that will cause me to not trust you.”

“Of course. You’re right,” I concede, shaking my head in apology. “That was unprofessional. Would you like me to call Connor off the task so the two of us can talk about it?”

“No,” Olivia says to my surprise. “I want to see how Connor talks to his mother. It’ll give us a taste of how she’ll behave at our wedding. If she’s going to cause drama, I don’t want her to come.”

“Of course.” I nod.

“Hey look at that,” Connor calls out, walking over to our table withmanyshots in his hands. “The wedding planner decided to bless us with her appearance.” He lines up the shots on the table. “You better not be late on the big day,” he teases.

I’m not late, but in his world being the third to arrive seems to constitute the title.

“You can’t call your mother drunk,” I warn, to which Connor gives me a wicked smile, throwing back the first shot to defy me.

“You don’t know my mother,” he says. “And you don’t know how many of these it takes to get me buzzed. Plus, the rest are for the two of you.”

He divides the shots, pushing half toward Olivia and half toward me. To my surprise, Olivia picks one up and throws it back also. “To take the edge off,” she justifies, and Connor looks at me like I’m once again late to the party.

“I don’t drink,” I assert.

“No?” His tone gets a playful quality to it. “I could have sworn Simon mentioned you two had brunch and mimosas the other day. Last I checked, a mimosa without the champagne is just OJ. You don’t drink. You do drink. Which is it, Hart?”

“I think you have a call to make,” I say, avoiding the question.

Simon mentioned the other day to Connor? Isn’t that our secret? It better have been just the brunch part!

“Okay, fuck it,” Connor says, grabbing one of my shots and throwing it back. “Here goes nothing.”

He pulls up his mother’s number on the phone and hits dial, then he places the phone in the middle of the table with the speaker function turned on.

“You didn’t want to create a game plan before calling?” I hiss under my breath. “What’s your strategy?”

Connor shakes his head as the hollow echo of the phone rings. “Some things require you jump in head first, Hart.”

Olivia is clutching a second shot nervously, her black hair hiding half of her face.

The phone picks up with an echo of static, and a pinched voice comes from the other end: “Connor?”

“Mother!” Connor launches in jovially like he’s sixteen and his mom is his best friend. It’s a bit overboard in my opinion, but this is Connor’s show. “I didn’t think you’d keep this number—considering everything. Dad loves to keep things neat and tidy. No loose ends.”

“I have more than one phone,” his mother says carefully, her tone hinting that she may have kept this phone in case Connor or Ned needed her.

It makes me soften. Obviously, this has been blown out of proportion. Mrs. Voss loves her kids—of course she does. She’s even kept an extra phone for them. She doesn’t want to miss this wedding.

“Is something wrong?” Mrs. Voss asks quickly. “Is anyone hurt?”

“No, the complete opposite actually,” Connor says, cutting to the chase. “Ned’s getting married.”

There’s a long silence filled with a crackle of static.

I look at Connor with concern, but he’s calmly waiting her out as if it’s completely normal to sit with this much silence when talking to your parents.

“Is Ned there with you?” mom says finally. “I can tell I’m on speaker phone.”

“Yeah, that’s a no.”

“Well, don’t you thinkhe’sthe one who should have called me?” she snips, the warmth from a moment evaporating.

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