“That’s all right,” she said. “I can see now why you decided to do it. You were looking for a good investment that would also be fun for you. Even if you can’t admit it to yourself, I bet it’s really satisfying to do something your inner child would have liked.”
He looked away. “Don’t think you know me so well.”
“Okay, jeez, sorry.” Harper had somehow forgotten he was this standoffish. Well, they didn’t need to talk about anything personal. That was fine with her. “Are you ready to go over the vendor list? Did you bring yours?”
“I don’t need to add mine,” he told her. “The list you put together is more than fine, and we can just work from that one.”
“You really don’t have any favorite vendors you want to use? Even just to throw them our business?”
“You want to be a wedding planner professionally, right?” he asked her.
“Well, I already am. But I want to go into it full-time instead of general events planning.” She would lose her mind if she had to plan one more corporate team-building retreat. Weddings were just so much more fun.
“I’ll let you take the lead on this, then,” Theo said. “That ought to please you, right?”
“Well— I suppose.” She was a little taken aback. “I thought we were going to be working on it together, though.”
“I’m not saying I won’t help out. I’m just saying whatever you want to put together is fine with me. I’m not going to push back on anything.”
“Well, all right,” she said hesitantly. “Just make sure you let me know if you think Max would or wouldn’t like any of the ideas I’m coming up with. I know weddings are conventionally all about the bride, but Max is such a great guy. I want to make sure he has a good time too, and that everything is the way he’d want it to be.”
“I will.”
Harper looked down at the list. “Where do you think we should start?”
“Hmm?” He wasn’t paying attention. He was scrolling on his phone.
She simmered. “Can you put that away?” she asked. “It’s nice that you let me come to the game, but the main reason I’m here is to discuss wedding planning, and I feel like you aren’t very dialed in.”
“I’m just getting some important texts,” he said, typing.
“They can’t wait?”
“This is about a promotion offer one of our players is getting. He’s going to sponsor an energy drink — well, if he accepts. There might be a question of competing sponsorships. I should have someone look into that…”
She cleared her throat. “Does that need to happen right now?”
He looked up at her. “The wedding isn’t tomorrow.”
“If the weddingweretomorrow, we would be screwed. These things need to be planned months in advance most of the time, and they’ve only given us six weeks. I’m happy for them, getting married so quickly — I know it’s what they both want — but it’sgoing to make it insanely difficult to plan this wedding. I want to start calling vendors tonight. I don’t think we can afford to wait on this.”
“That’s fine. Whatever you think is best. Why don’t you just do it alphabetically?” Theo suggested.
She stared at him. “Alphabetically?”
“Yeah,you know, start from the top of the list and work your way down until you find someone who can work with the date in question.”
“I understand whatalphabeticallymeans. That’s really how you would want to choose the vendors for your own brother’s wedding day?”
“I thought you wanted to get this done as quickly as possible,” Theo said. “That would get it done quickly. You could have all the decisions finalized in the next twenty-four hours or so. I think it’s the most practical approach.”
“But this is theirwedding,” Harper said. “And they’re trusting us to plan it. I thought you said you were going to defer to me on these things.”
“I did. And I am. But why isn’t this a good idea, in your eyes? It seems like what you’re most stressed out about is the possibility that we might not get things done in time, and this removes that problem, doesn’t it? I’m just trying to help you out here.”
“If you want to help me out, you could call some of these vendors. Or better yet, we could make appointments to go and visit them together, so that we could see what they have to offer. Don’t you think that would be the best idea? I mean, don’t youthink that’s what Max had in mind when he asked for your help planning this wedding? Don’t you think he thought we would actually make the best choices for him and Tara, instead of just going down a list and seeing who was free that day?”
Theo was unyielding. “I don’t know how figuring out who’s free on a given day isn’t making the best choice,” he said. “And my brother knows I don’t have time to be chasing all over Houston looking at cake decorations. He knows how seriously I take my work. He would never have asked me to get involved on that level.”
