Chandler can totally be an ass, but in all of the years that they’ve dated, he’s never been an ass to Emma, and on the off chance that he gets close to ass territory, he tends to make it up to her with big, ridiculous gifts.
Also, if Emma’s considering calling off this wedding because she’s attracted to one of the hotel staff, I will defend Chandler to the end.
Marrying Chandler is what she wants.
She’s said so approximately forty-three billion times since their first date in high school. We forgave him for not proposing then—we were all way too young, and then they broke up in college—but since they got back together after college seven years ago, the rest of us have gotten pretty tired of waiting too.
In my opinionated opinion, he should’ve popped the question at least four years ago. It’s not like there was ever any doubt where their relationship was going. Even during that little break-up three years ago. And I know Emma dropped hints. Might’ve even proposed to him once or twice.
But much like he didn’t listen to any hints or outright frank discussions until about this time last year, she’s not listening to me right now. She’s charging ahead with getting everything out, which means she’s fixated.
I’ll ask questions later.
“And then there was that thing on the plane ride here,” she’s saying, “and now Chandler’s all hung up on what happened at Thanksgiving, and I hate to ask this. I know it’s awful. But we’rethis closeto getting married, and I know he doesn’t mean to put that in danger, but I feel like he is, and can you just… God, I can’t believe I’m saying these words, but can you babysit him?”
I gape at her.
I know she’s not talking about Chandler.
“Okay,babysitis a harsh word. More like…be a buffer. Yes. Can you be a buffer between him and Chandler? Just for a couple days?”
“You need me to babysit the pool boy?”
She finally looks at me, and her whole face crinkles in confusion. “The pool boy?”
I point to the guy in the ride-on flamingo costume, who’s clearly telling Claire something hilarious because she’s doubled over laughing and fawning all over him at the same time.
I can’t blame her.
He’s hot. And undeniably funny. Who wears a costume like that to work at a resort?
“That’s who you’re talking about? The drink server?”
Emma squeaks, and when I look back at her, I realize her face has gone three shades past horrified. “Laney. That’s—that’s—that’s not adrink server. That’sTheo.”
I gape across the breezeway at the pool again while the server turns his head so I can see his wide grin, andoh my god.
She’s right.
That’s her brother.
I mean, of course she knows her brother.
Butthat does not look like her brother.
Not the version of him I’ve known and been irritated by most of my life.
But I look closer, andoh my godagain.
Theo Monroe, the boy who nicknamed me, Emma, and our friend Sabrina theugly heiressesin third grade, who once got suspended from high school for recreating a scene fromBraveheartin the school kitchen with a bunch of their dad’s taxidermy animals, who nearly took out the town’s prized statue of our founder on a dare a few months after high school graduation, and who ordered something so obscene I can’t even talk about it from my family’s print-on-demand company and then wore it all over Snaggletooth Creek not long after I got back to town after getting my master’s degree, accidentally made me drool over him.
Ew.
Ew.
This is jet lag. Or the humidity. Orsomething.
How did I not see that that’sTheo?
