wedding arch, her sunglasses on, huffing into her glass of fizzy wine and complaining about the lack of French champagne. Mad had chosen to have a very modest event. My martyr bride was donating most of our wedding budget to a cancer-research charity. My mom and Katie sat beside Amber, who attended for the sake of playing nice with the Blacks. It didn’t seem fair that Booger Face should suffer just because things hadn’t worked out between Amber and Julian. Ethan clasped Katie’s hand and shot me a thumbs-up. I gave him a curt nod. I still didn’t approve of running tights and Dora the Explorer ties but didn’t much care about his wardrobe anymore.
Katie had been dating Ethan seriously for four months now. Two months after Dad died, Ethan officially asked her out. Until then, he was just there for her emotionally, but I could see he was dead scared of getting friend zoned again. In fact, I was the one who’d told him to seal the deal before she gave up on his ass.
They were now preparing for their first (entire, not half) marathon together.
Mom was doing well, too, all circumstances considered. It helped that Mad and Clementine were around a lot and that Julian was attached to her by the hip postdivorce, trying to find his footing as a father after getting joint custody of Booger Face.
Amber was slowly introducing Clementine’s biological father into her life. So far, so awkward, but Booger Face had us when things got too weird.
Then there was Sven, Francisco, and their newly adopted girl, Zooey, sitting in the front row. They were all wearing matching black outfits, waving Zooey’s chubby hand in my direction with enthusiastic smiles. The adoption had been finalized three months earlier and couldn’t have come at a better time. Mad and I were butting heads about who was to move into whose apartment. Sven pointed out he might need babysitting assistance, so Mad relented and moved in with me. They’d become closer in recent months, since Mad had stood up for herself with the Dream Wedding Dress and become his equal.
I’d paid for Zooey’s entire room design and furniture for that little favor.
The pastor beside me fidgeted, pulling me out of my reverie. He let out a little gasp, and when I looked up, there she was. The woman of my dreams, wearing the dress of her dreams. Words seemed small for that moment. I flashed her a smile as she walked down the aisle, escorted by her father, Clementine throwing moonflowers out of a decorated basket behind her, Layla holding the hem of her train.
Mad stopped beside me, awarding me with one of her magnificent smiles.
A smile that made the world stop.
I looked down, about to tell her any of the five hundred thousand things that sprang into my mind. That she looked fucking delicious in that dress, which had been a huge success during New York Fashion Week and had already sold thirty thousand gowns, give or take, making it Croquis’s second-most popular wedding dress. I wanted to tell her I loved her. Very. Fucking. Much. But before I could say any of those things, Mad turned around, opened her palm, and waited for Layla to drop her cell phone into her hand.
All the attendees in her father’s backyard sucked in a scandalized gasp. She was texting. Now.
Mad’s fingers began to move over the screen as she typed, a small smile playing on her face. I watched her, as did the rest of our guests. The pastor cleared his throat, trying—and failing—to draw her attention. My phone pinged in my pocket a second later.
I took it out. Opened the message.
Chase: Oh, no, you didn’t.
Maddie: Cold feet.
Chase: You can warm them on my back when we get to Ibiza for our honeymoon. Bad circulation has always been your problem. It’s a short-people thing.
Maddie: Getting farther away from getting married by the second.
Chase: Spill it. What did you delete?
Maddie: Promise you won’t freak out?
I looked up at her, arching an eyebrow as if to say, Do we even know each other? She looked back down and typed.
Maddie: I’m pregnant.
Chase: Is it mine?
Maddie: Are you for real?!
She looked up, rose on her tiptoes, and flicked the back of my neck. I laughed, scooping her into my arms in front of our shocked pastor. And guests. And her harem of boys she’d “married” when she was younger.
“Then why the hell would I get